Homemade Food

Hello, making baby food can be alot of fun! I made some for my children, and it was very easy. First, I would suggest just touching base with your pediatrician on which foods to introduce at what age. They usuallly have a paper that is layed out like a chart for you to reference. There are many great resources that you can also look to at the Library. I liked "Super Baby Food book" mainly to get a basic concept. She seems to make it more complicated than it really is.
A good first food is just mixing rice cereal with formula or breastmilk. She will probably just learn to taste and move it around in her mouth. Not really eat much. I personally don't start solids until 5 or 6 months old.
If you'd like ideas for first foods, you could message me or even just look at the baby foods that are the first foods for ideas. Good luck! Happy cooking and feeding :)
R.

well i have no recipes for a 4 mnth old. have u checked with dr on feeding her that young

i fed all of my kids homemade babyfood. it was cheap and easy. i made enough for the month and always had thier favs on hand. at four months she should be eating cereals like cream of rice,or farina. make it with formula or breastmilk. after you cook it store it in those disposable bottle liners and close the pouch with a little rubber band, then freeze. when shes ready to eat just drop the pouch in a glass of hot water and leave it for 15 min.if youre going out just take a pouch with you and by the time shes ready to eat it should have defrosted.
give her only one food at a time, rice for a week,farina the next, etc..just to make sure shes not allergic to anything,after you go through every grain you can think of, start with veggies like carrots ,then add a new one every week,and you can make combinations like peas and carrots..etc steam the veggies,dont boil because you lose the vitamins that way,dont add salt because she doesnt need it., then puree real fine because your baby is young, add a little breastmilk or formula to thin it out, the older she gets the chunkier you might want to make her food. then go on to fruits,peel and cook down with a little juice or water, then puree. stay simple at first then you can make combinations like bananas and apples, or peaches and mango, yum! lol later on you can get enriched pasta like orzo and give her that mixed with a veggie combo. when shes like a year you can add lean meats and make noodle veggie combos. label everything with a sharpie so you know what you have and write the date on the pouches.

Hi T.,
I used this site and my son did really well with most of it.
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ They have tips on what, when and how much to feed them. They even have recipes for sugar free cookies and biter bisquits. Hope this helps!

Hi T.,

I made all of my daughters baby food from the time she was 6 months old ( when I introduced solids). I found the following website very helpful because it gave different food combinations that you wouldn't think of. It also tells your how to prepare things... like you need to blanch peaches/nectarines prior to purerring because you need to skin them. It just has some useful things.I also used the baby feeding cubes incredibly helpful since they had lids. If you didn't want to buy them you can also use just regular ice cube trays, and once the food freezes pop them out into freezer bags. I hope this was helpful. I've included the links for both the great website and the baby food cubes. If you have any additional questions please feel to email back. Also, be careful as to what type of foods you introduce when. Some foods they say not to make homemade because of high nitrate concentrations. Also some food needs to be cooked a certain way because it is to difficult for babies to digest in it's uncooked form. - C.

http://wholesomebabyfood.com/
http://www.onestepahead.com/product/85206/68760/117.html

hi T., her 1st food should be infant cereal mixed with breastmilk or formula, rice first, then oatmeal, barley, etc... general rule of thumb is to intro each new food alone for about 4-5 days before introducing something else. after introducing the cereals, you can move on to veggies and fruits, then the meats. just steam the veggies and process them. some people say to start with the yellow veggies, some just say to start with veggies over fruits, they say that if you intro the fruits first they wont want the veggies because theyre not sweet. though if you are nursing, the breastmilk is sweet anyway, so theyve had it. lots of people cook and strain the fruits, i always just processed them raw, peels and all, i think its more nutritious that way and they always loved it, though i used to peel stuff that i couldnt get organic right in the beginning, dont know if that was necessary or i was just being paranoid, but thats what i did. neither of my kids ever had a jar of store bought baby food, and its really no big deal, especially if you have one of those little processors sitting right next to the stove. its really up to you, i was a lot stricter with the order of things with my first than my second, and they were both amazing eaters, no problems (now my son is 3 and gives me a hard time, though my little one will still eat anything i put in front of her.) anyway, that super baby food book that someone mentioned is a good starting point, though i agree that it makes it more complicated than it needs to be, though the basis of their recipies is a very healthy grain mix, i used a lot of whole grain brown rice, lentils, and wheat germ, that book will give you more, i forget the rest. plus they have some helpful charts you can flag to keep track of the order of things if you like, guidelines on when to give what and so on. once you start mixing things, go for nutritional punch with things like kale, collard greens, brussel sprouts, spinach and broccoli. i make up big batches of "super veggies" and freeze little cubes, i still throw them into the kids food all the time, eggs, cereal, etc. some books will tell you not to make your own baby food out of certain things like spinach, and maybe carrots? because they can be high in nitrates. there are also some foods you should wait on, eggs (just the whites? or the yolks? i forget, one is a longer wait than the other), fish, nuts, peanuts, though more so if you have allergies in the family, talk to your doc. no milk till 1 year old, then whole milk till 2. no juice, i dont know how long, ideally forever, i think! anyway, i used lots of apples and pears to sweeten the veggies. really, i went crazy with my first baby, making all kinds of recipies and things, with my second, i usually just processed whatever we were eating once she was introduced. the introducing one at a time can take forever, you will probably be doing that for a while, though once a food is "in", its in, and you can mix it up. it can be fun to try different stuff. great starter foods are squash if you are going for the veggies first, and bananas if youre not, just mush it up with a fork. i found the easiest way to do the baby food is to make big batches and get those little tupperwares and freeze them. tupperware has those little things for salad dressing, theyre about 2 oz each, which is plenty for a serving for an infant. if you look in the one step ahead catalog (or online) they have these little cubes that you can use too, i love them, though the tops tend to pop open when you freeze them if you fill them too much. im sure you can just use an ice cube tray too, i would cover it, or maybe just freeze and then throw the cubes into little baggies. dont nuke anything in plastic, let it sit in hot water to defrost. sorry if you know this stuff already, just trying to cover the bases. remember that it can take many tries before the baby will figure out how to eat, theyre used to tongue thrusting in order to nurse or drink from a bottle, so its a switch for them, my kids never had a problem, though i waited till 6 mos to start, might be different at 4. if she pushes it back out at first, just try again, maybe wait a few days if she continues to give you a hard time with it and try again, she might not be ready yet. either way, have fun with it, its so much fun to see them discovering all the new tastes and textures! take care, D.

I made all my daughters food--it was so easy and cheap--There are lots of websites that will help you out. At the beginning all you have to do is steam the food and mash it.

P.

Hi!

I disagree with the first foods needing to be cereals. Even though doctors push the cereals, I found that my kids got super constipated, even if I used apple juice to mix. I've found the best way to go is to start with simple fruits, specifically, bananas. Raw fruit juices are good, too, like Apple + Celery, but diluted half by water. Don't give babies Orange Juice. It is too acidic and can cause problems.

I've also been told by many different doctors that babies should not start solid foods until 6 months or until their first bottom teeth appear. Until the bottom teeth appear, the baby does not have the necessary enzymes present in his/her little tummy to digest solid foods. That means any solid foods you give (cereal, crackers, etc) don't get digested.

After dealing with constipation because of baby cereals with my first son, I switched to fruit juices and mashed bananas and he did great. I kept to that with my second son and they are both very healthy kids today. Of course, now that they are older, it is hard to get them to eat what Mommy thinks they should be eating!!

Whatever food you try, don't forget spinach! We all know how good spinch is for you. I never understood why you couldn't buy a jar of spinach. But I would buy fresh or frozen spinach, steam it and blend it up. My daughter is 2 and to this day it is her favorite vegetable! I started with cereals, then veggies, then fruits, then meats. I don't know if this has anything to do with the fact that my daughter prefers veggies over sweets, but maybe that's why and I think that is a good route to go. Good Luck..please message me if you need any cooking instructions!