Homemade Baby- Lots of Questions

Super baby food was the most helpful for me. It really tells you everything you need to know. My highchairs were both so short lived not to mention expensive. I wish I had skipped the highchair completely and just got the euro grow with me chair from leaps and bounds to start with. You can use the bouncy seat until he's big enough to sit up in this chair and it changes positions so you can use it until he's 150 lbs! The food mill was a big waste for me, but they're pretty cheap and you never know what will work the best for you.

I have a seven month old and have been working down the same path. I have been using the website wholesomebabyfood.com for some good recipes. Good Luck!

The Healthy Baby Meal Planner - by Annabel Karmel, along with Top 100 Baby Purees by Annabel Karmel, as well. These were and still are 2 of the greatest books in my arsenal. My son pretty much devoured just about every dish I prepared from these books from Cauliflower, to Zucchini, Pasta & Fish. It's awesome!
I used a steamer, a mini-cuisinart and ice cube trays, gotta have ice cube trays. And I used giant freezer bags to store the frozen cubes. Oh and a black sharpie to write descriptions on the bags. This book was the greatest ever!
And don't forget, you can always mash a banana for baby or an avocado. Or you can even mash up avocado and banana together. My son loved it. There's so much good info in Annabel's books... happy baby meal making!

The best cookbook to get is First Meals by Annabel Karmel. This book was a lifesaver for me. I never bought a single jar of baby food for my daughter who is now 3 1/2. It also allowed her to try new textures that I could have never gotten in a jar (she has loved avocados since an early age.) Food processor or a small dicer/mixer worked best for us. Getting the locking lids from ziplock was best for storage in the freezer. The good thing about the cookbook is that it has meals for children from 6 months to starting kindergarten... so it is one I have used often when I just dont know what to make. I wish I would have had this book with my 11 year old as she is my most picky eater. My 3 year old will try anything once..
As for feeding, when she was young, I didnt bother with high chairs, I just fed her in her rocker (the ones that sit on the floor and vibrate and what not.)

Hello,
There's a couple books that I found really helpful. One is called Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. Another is Simply Natural Baby Food by Cathe Olson. Both have great info and recipes. One issue I had was with RY's recommendation to use ice cube trays to freeze portions of baby food. it sounds great and would have been really convenient, but it seemed to me that those plastic trays were meant for cold water, not hot food, and I worried about plastic leaching into the food. So i used glass baby food jars and froze them. we did use jars sometimes for convenience, when we traveled especially, so we had plenty of empty ones. Consider avoiding plastic--if you decide to, you can find ceramic, stainless steel, wood, etc. stuff. I used a small electric food processor but if I had more time would use a hand mill/processor. We got a standard high chair with tray but later found a stokke high chair that was very exp. but is great as baby can sit at the table from the get go. And yes, do as much organic as possible! I found that we could reduce the often significant extra cost of organic by eating less meat and wasting less food. Basically we had guidelines we aimed for and didn't stress too much if we didn;t always meet them. Good luck!

I used the same cookbooks and ice cube trays as the others for my first baby. My second baby didn't like purees and a friend of mine taught me about child led solids. Which means following the child's cues as to when they are ready for solids. Once ready allow them to feed themselves whole foods. You can find more info here http://forums.llli.org/showthread.php?t=20653&highlig.... Here is a site regarding making your own baby food http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T032300.asp. Here is info on organic food http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/T043900.asp. I can't find the list of "dirty dozen" foods that you must buy organic. Some of those foods are carrots, apples, grapes. These foods are most affected by pesticides and washing/peeling won't make them safe. Please, please DON'T start with cereals! Grains aren't meant before the age of one. Babies don't produce the necessary enzymes to break down grains until at least the age of 1. For this reason, many babies become constipated, develop allergies and have general digestive issues. Limit bananas because they too can cause constipation. If you or his dad have food allergies/asthma certain foods should also be avoided to decrease his chance of the same. Good luck! You are doing a great job by thinking/planning before jumping into such an important part of your son's life.

Hi there...congrats on making such an awesome decision. I completly made from scratch all of my daughters foods. It is so much better for them, and teaches them good eating habits since you can offer them virtually every fruit and vegetable. My daughter is such a healthy little eater, compared to a lot of 2 year olds. Most of our friends who have 2 year olds also, are shocked that my daughter will eat any vegetable. I used the Cworkbook and kit. It came with the covered ice cube trays, and info for a lot of foods, how to pick the right fruits and veggies, how to cook each one, and freezing directions ( I got mine off of Amazon.com) After a while you pretty much get the hang of it and you just go on your own. I used a Magic Bullet blender for grinding up the food, nothing special. I also used a $10 microwave steamer I got from Walmart. My only must have accessory I found quite important was the covered ice cube trays. I used regular trays with saran wrap at first, but the food sucked right into it whatever smells were in your freezer. It even had that strange musty ice smell to it. The covered trays kept it much fresher looking, and tasting... especially when I got to busy to unpack and vaccum seal all the frozen cubes right away, I knew they wee fine cause I had them all covered with the lids. So that was my favorite accessorie. Also, while using Ziploc freezer bags are fine, if you will be like me where I made one big shopping trip for fruits and veggies at the beginning of the month and made all of her food (for a month) in a two day period. I found that using a vaccumm sealer kept the food fresh for months..that way I could make a bigger variety of fruits and veggies and later meals and so forth, So I'd just browse through the bags to give her a different meal each day and not the same old same old.

As for high chair or booster..go with a good high chair cause you will use it longer and it makes it easier to keep things in control as well as keep baby in a safe enviroment. I had a affordable Evenflo one but it was really unstable and scary, so I got a Chicco one that cost about $130 and my daughter still uss it till today. you can take off the tray and put it right up to the dinning table.

Well, good luck to you, it is such a rewarding thing, I actually enjoyed myself making my daughters food and knowing I controlled all ingredients. If you ever doubt yourself..make some veggies nad buy a jar of the same stuf..take one taste and you will definatly feel better about your homemade decision. Good Luck!

As for the high chair/booster question... I eventually ended up with both. But in the beginning, I had a bouncy seat that I put right on the dining room table. It was a good height for me to feed them, and a good incline for them to be somewhat upright and secure. Feeding babies homecooked organic food is SOOO satisfying. Yams are super easy, a big favorite (they're really sweet) and good for them, but don't be alarmed if they actually turn orange from too many carrots, yams and other high beta-carotene foods!