At some point, all babies will start to eat solid foods so why not save money and help them eat healthy at the same time?! Make your baby food homemade using fresh fruits & veggies.
Now is the time to introduce those nutritious vegetables that kids tend to stem away from as they get older. I believe homemade baby food tastes better and it will help your child to continue eating healthy foods once they outgrow the baby stages of eating :)
I learned a few things when we introduced Emery to baby food and I have found 3 different ways to make homemade baby food:
- Make it in the crock pot
- Bake it in the oven
- Make it out of the box or can ( I promise its not gross!) It's as easy as using items you already have in the kitchen.
I will also show you how I used canned, frozen, and fresh foods for baby meals. - frozen peas, sweet potatoe chuncks that you will use anyways to make for the rest of your families meals
You will also need a few things to get started. Here is a list of items you need to make your own baby food:
- Fruits, veggies, & meats- canned, fresh, frozen. Show you how to use all three
- Crock Pot
- Blender or food processor (I use the Bullet, a mini chopper, and a hand held blender)
- An oven :)
- Rice cooker- if you decide to try homemade rice cereal or add rice to meals
- Freezer storage containers or bags
- optional spices such as cinnamon
- Space in your freezer or fridge!
Method One
1. Crock Pot Baby Food. This is by far the easiest method in making your own food. However, out of the three options it takes the longest to cook. Remember, larger crocks will yield more servings so take advantage of the space you have so you don't add more cooking time
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| My new best friend! |
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| let your veggies cook between 2-4 hour |
(side notes on store bought foods)
1. Baby food in the jar- Just because some brands are more expensive doesn't mean that they are better. CHECK the nutritional label. Some foods have 0% vitamins in them and are loaded with fillers, preservatives, and fillers such as cornstarch and soy lecithin. Choose brands that have minimal ingredients.
2. Some cheaper brands are healthier, but some are not. Again, check the labels! Check out this example:
Beech Nut- Stage 1 Turkey- ingredients are ground turkey and broth only
VS.
Natures Goodness , a Walmart brand, has beef, cornstarch and soy lecithin
We started Emery on baby food around 5 months. Our original plan was to not introduce solids until at least 8 months to a year so that she can just nurse. I realized a few things. 1- Since babies are rapidly growing, they may need more supplementing than you would think especially if your milk supply is low. Some moms start right at 4 months. Others, start a lot later. 2- Emery was a puker. I mean she would projectile vomit a good 2- 3 feet! It was crazy. We actually had to take her to the doctor b/c she never kept her food down.
So with that, we decided after doing so much laundry b/c she got milk everywhere, we started rice cereal to help keep the milk down. That helped extremely well. I still nursed her as often as she needed to, but then I would add a few extra ounces of rice cereal at the end.
Home made baby food- There are lots of websites out there that help making menus for the week and how to prepare certain foods. Here are some of the things I used to get started:
Breast Milk Storage bags- These are good to put baby food in b/c it has the ounces already labeled on them so that you can portion meals quickly. You can even go online and get a milk storage bag organizer for your freezer. Freezer safe containers- I got mine at BUY BUY Baby or you get them online anywhere. These are also good b/c you can microwave, defrost, etc. I just put the bags or containers in the fridge to thaw for the next few meals.
Ice cube trays-You can portion lots of different foods in these and can mix and match however you want. They not only stack well, but have good portion sizing.
You will also need something to puree the food in. I got a mini blender which works great.
What I started to do with making food was to buy food like sweet potatoes for example and then bake it for everyone for dinner and then I had extra for emery. It saves time since you are already cooking a meal for more than one person. The other thing I would do was took all of the orange vegetables like carrots, sweet potatoes, squashes, etc. and just made a day out of baking it in the oven so it got really mushy. Then I just would blend it together however I wanted and portioned it into freezer containers. It was really cheap and lasted a really long time.
I also found that it was easier to buy frozen organic vegetables that were already cut, cubed, and ready to be cooked/mushed into baby food. It saves time and is healthy. You can also buy frozen peas, etc. and cook that also. You will be spending so much less on baby food. I would recommend only buying foods that have the ingredient plus water only. Some foods have salt, fillers, etc.I would steer clear from these. The last thing that I found to be the easiest was buying organic pumpkin,squash, etc. in the can at Hyvee. It had no fillers, but tons of nutrients. It was also already mushy so I just blended it with a little bit of nursery water and whatever else I wanted. If you only have a bit of baby food left at the bottom of your blender, you can always add rice cereal to make it thicker and add another ounce or so. Another healthy filler in baby food could be oats. We add it to breakfast so she gets some texture and nutrients from that.
You could also buy bananas, apples, pears, peaches, etc. and make a day out of pureeing them. When Emery started teething, I bought these fruits, sliced them, then froze them for a teething soother. She loved it! It saves money and is a healthy snack! I bought a Munchkin Fresh Food feeder which allows babies to suck on food without having them choke on it. I love it. I even put ice chips in as well as other frozen or non frozen foods. I do not recommend bananas though. They do work great, but then it gets really hard to clean. Even after being in the dishwasher http://www.munchkin.com/products/detail.html?pID=37
Teething
When Emery got her first tooth at 6 months(she still only has one), we not only gave her the munchkin teether, but ice cubes wrapped in a wash cloth worked great also. Organic teething buiscuts work well when you need time to clean the house or whatever. I just sat her in the high chair with a huge bib and let her chomp on some different things. We also gave her puff cereal that dissolves instantly in her mouth. I thought it helped her learn how to pick up food and put it in her mouth verses always feeding her with a spoon. It was also a good idea to introduce a sippy cup then. She had time to play in the high chair with it. We also gave her real peas or noodles. That was recommended in a magazine. We also tried toasting some grain bred and giving her small pieces to gum on.
There have been plenty of times where Emery has been really cranky due to teething so we decided to get some sort of medicine. The doctors say Tylenol is the best, which we do give her sometimes when she is really, really bad, but we try to stay away from meds unless there is a fever or she is really sick. Lots of the meds have all sorts of other ingredients that really are unnecessary. The best med I found was using Hylands teething gel or tablets. They have a whole bunch of all natural and homeopathic meds for everyone. You can get them anywhere, but sometimes they are not always in the section in the store you would think so you may need to search or ask for them. ColicCalm is another good one( they have a website to look at) and it is good for gas and other colic symptoms. Again, it is all natural and works great.
As for now, Emery is 9 mo. and she does not really like eating by me feeding her with a spoon. Is anyone else at this same stage? I wait to feed her until she is really hungry and she eats most of her food, but then starts trying to smack the spoon out of my hand. I think know that I have given her some solid foods, she is liking that more because she likes to chew with her new teeth :)
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