Baby Meats

When I was trying all of my kids with meat, I would take a jar of the meat and mix it with a stage 2 jar of veggies, and some cereal to make my own "meal". The straight jars of meat aren't very appealing by themselves, and the meat and veggie combos already in the jar do not have a lot of meat in them. That's why they don't smell as strong. All three of my kids tried meat that way. Also the simple recipes from Gerber have more meat in them, and aren't smelly.

Good luck!

We waited until 6 months for solids, so meats came much later. I would cook chicken and puree it with potatoes and carrots, then freeze it in cubes. He also enjoyed meatballs.
Now I just share what is on my plate.

We went with the Earth's Best meat meals. The straight meats from Gerber were gross. We didn't start giving my daughter meat until 9 months old. I think we bought maybe 6 or 7 jars of the Earth's Best and 1 Gerber total. I just started giving her very tiny bits of our meat. Even the best jarred stuff is still kind of yucky.

To this day, we still find for our daughter that the meat in chicken soup was the best easy prep stuff we could find. She devours chicken noodle soup and has since about 10 months (she's 17 months now).

If you have already done the veggie and fruit thing then try giving her the chicken mixed with the veggies and fruit. All the baby food brands make different mixtures like chicken and sweet potatoes, chicken and apples, etc. Or you could try mixing the meats with her favorite fruit or veggie yourself.

My son REALLY liked the stage 2 sweet potato and turkey from Gerber. But, I will tell you, at 5 months, he HATED meat dinners. And, they ALL smell.....yuck.

A., I got a good laugh out of this one, my son is 18 months now but I remember how grossed out I was by the baby food meats. They DO smell like cat food. I actually gagged a few times just looking at the open jar. We skipped meats until he was old enough to start eating little pieces of chicken that we were eating. I have friends who would make their food for the adults, like chicken and mashed potatoes and green beans, and then blend that exact stuff in a little tiny cuisinart food chopper for the baby. good luck!

Beechnut has little jars of beef, turkey, chicken and veal. We didn't try the veal but my son really liked all the other meats. It's only sold at Jewel. Good luck!

I remember this phase. You will think I am crazy but I tasted everything. If I thought it was gross, we did not feed it to our dd. All of it was pretty bad so we ended up making her food. It really is not as time consuming as you think. But here are a few of the quickest:
Extra firm tofu... super easy, just cut or mash in to whatever size you little one eats.
ground turkey...buy like a 1/4 lb and just scramble it up in a frying pan, freeze what you don't use.
Chicken... How ever you fix it for yourself (i totally swear by the george forman grill 7 minutes and its done) cube it up and throw it in the food processor, blender or use a bladed handheld mixer with formula or breast milk.
Yogurt is also a pretty good alternative for proteins.
Canned black beans, pinto beans, black eyed peas, most all beans but we found chick peas to be to hard for her to mash with her gums.

I really try to keep her meal preps under 5 minutes and all of these worked well for us. Good Luck and email with any questions!

M.

A.:

there is no reason not to use the foods that you are eating for your little one.

P., RLC, IBCLC
Pres. Lactation Support Group, Inc
www.lactationsupportgroup.com

I tried the baby meats with my son but, he did not like them. They smelled awful. You can't save half to feed to the baby later because it turns watery (even if you put it in the fridge). I stopped trying to feed it to him because it was just a waste. I just fed him the fruits, veggies and cereal. He is 6yrs. old now and I have no problem with him eating meat. I also did not have any problems with him eating meat when he first started to eat table food.

I feel the same way, the idea of meat in a jar just grosses me out. I didn't start meat until she could eat actual meat that we eat. I was worried about protein, so I gave my daughter tofu. I know it sounds weird, but I buy firm tofu and put it in a tupperware container with vegetable broth. You can store it that way in the fridge for quite a few days (check the expiration date). It's so easy, just cut some small pieces off and warm in in the micro a few seconds and it's great. Very soft, but very good for them. Tofu takes on what ever flavor you cook it with, and she loved the veggie broth. I thought it was weird at first too, but it ended up being one of her favorites and much better than meat in a jar!
Good luck,
S.

Since you said you don't have time to fix anything special, I would buy a small manual food mill (Kidco makes a great one for about $10 available at Babies R Us) and grind up small amounts of whatever you're having for dinner. Pasta with tomato sauce, chicken breast/potato/veggie, and even soup all work great and will give you the same results and consistency as jarred babyfood, minus the smell. The food mill is super easy to clean and is so small you can even put it in your diaper bag and grind up food if you're at someone's house or at a restaurant. Good luck!

Just wait. It gets worse. We recently started stage 3 foods and the veggies are smelling pretty nasty to me (we've tried green beans & rice and broccoli, carrots, & cheese).

How does your baby like it? If she doesn't have a problem with it, then I'd just stick it out. You won't be on baby food forever (thankfully!). I've mixed fruit and veggies with the meat and my baby absolutely loves it.

If it's more than you can bear, you could probably just skip the meats all together. I'm sure the baby gets everything she needs from breastmilk or formula anyway. I'm choosing to feed my baby the meats just to keep introducing new textures and flavors.

We like the beechnut stuff. It's pretty tasty too!! The chicken lasagna and turkey tetrazinni seem to be favorites with her. There are chunks of really soft pasta. Bella is close to a year old with no teeth and has been eating them since she was 7 or 8 months. They also have some good breakfast ones like cinnamon raisin granola and apple outmeal egg.

You don't have to do meats if you don't want to. We stuck to fruits and veggies along with formula at this stage. I thought the meat in a jar was repulsive, so we skipped it. At about 9/10 months, for the sake of variety, I introduced meat that we ate ourselves. Just teeny-tiny bits of steak, chicken, pork. Someone else mentioned chicken noodle soup? Great suggestion... we did that too and it was perfect. My daughter still loves it.

I didn't like the Gerber meats either. My little ones didn't seem to mind the "combined" meals - like Gerber chicken noodles, turkey vegetable, etc. Also, the Gerber stage 2 organics were a big hit as well - Chicken, Squash & Corn was their favorite. I haven't really tried any other brands. Good luck!

I fed my kids the Gerber meats mixed with other stuff, i.e., the chicken & rice dinner or turkey vegetable dinner, etc. I also loved the Earth's Baby stuff because you could get a vegetarian protein (lentil & brown rice dinner was a rave-fave with my son).

OK, you already got quite a few restponses, but here's my two cents too! We thought those meats were gross also! The Earth's Best were the better of them though, but I didn't give my DD those too much either. I figured my breastmilk had a lot of protein. We didn't start her on jars until 6 months and she went to cut up stuff pretty quick so I would boil chicken and cut it up for her. My DH was gone for 3 months during that time, so I was super busy, and tofu became a life saver! Just mash it up with a fork. Good luck!!
E.

It's really not that hard or time-consuming to make baby food. On Sunday, I just boil up some chicken in organic chicken broth...until it almost falls apart. Then I cut up the chicken, put it in a food processor and blend it up using the chicken broth. For veggies, I steam them until they're mushy and do the same thing with the blender. You take the blended food, put them in ice cube trays, into the freezer until completely frozen and then pop them out and put them into freezers bags. One day of doing this can give you 1-2 weeks worth of food.

As they get older, you do the same, but just don't blend as much. Leave chunks. Around a year, I start giving my kids exactly what we're eating at the table and just make sure it's cut small enough for them.