I am looking into starting my 6 month old on solid foods. I have done some research and have decided that I would like to start her out on vegetables first. I don't want to give her the highly refined cerials and would like to only use jar baby food on days we are away from home. I'm thinking avacado or squash would be a good first choice. I am wondering how people prepare these, store them (freezer/fridge), how long they store for, how do you warm them up, how much is a good amount to feed a 6 month old, and if there are any other suggestions on healthy foods to slowly add in. Thanks!!
Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. When my first copy was dropped in the bath tub I put a request on craigslist and had another copy the same day for $5. It is a WONDERFUL book.
Good choice in starting on veggies first. I have a couple of books that I consider my "baby food bibles" that I couldn't live without. I suggest buying one to keep in your kitchen and to help guide you in feeding your baby in a healthy way. My favorite one is First Meals by Annabel Karmel. Lot's of information on what to feed first and how to prepare and freeze it.
Avocado is a great first food for your baby; however, I have never had much luck in freezing it well, and I have always read that it wasn't a food that will freeze well. I just learned to love avocado too so that I could use fresh ones for our kids and none went to waste. With the avocado, make sure it is ripe and then cut it out of the shell and mash it with a fork. In the beginning I mixed it with a small amount of formula or breast milk to make it smooth.
Check out www.wholesomebabyfood.com for a lot of good information too.
I
i've made (mostly) all my baby food for both my children... the best site i've found is:
www.wholesomebabyfood.com
i think it's great!!! we puree, then freeze in ice cube trays!! perfect size! we can make big batches and be good for a while! good luck!
If you use ice cube trays for the freezer they are the perfect size for little ones. Just make sure the ice cubetrays are covers. One cube in a serving. If prepared and kept in the frig they are only good a few days. In the feezer they keep longer. I never gave my little one ovacado's until they were older but I have seen many people comment on here that it's a good first choice.
We rarely, if ever, fed our kids jarred baby food. We simply pulled the veggie/fruit/whatever out that we planned to feed and put it in the food mill the day of. It was probably the easiest "hard" thing we've ever done--people say baby food is a convenience, but for me, it was just dozens of times easier to feed our food, mushed up. Also, our kids were very good eaters, and by about 8 months, were picking up small pieces of food--and didn't need us to mush it much at all. Our oldest went to daycare full time, and I'm pretty sure they never fed him jarred baby food.
A baby that age only needs a tablespoon or two of food per serving. You will find that some vegetables/fruits freeze well and some don't. For those that you find work well in the freezer, my suggestion is to freeze the food in ice cube trays and then move the cubes into plastic freezer bags. Then you only need to take out 1 or 2 cubes for the baby at dinner time. In terms of temperature, the food should be the same as formula would be. If you're nursing, test the food on your wrist. It should be more or less luke warm.
Hope that helps!
I just want to ditto the www.wholesomebabyfood.com site. My boys never ate jarred baby foods, and making your own is so simple, healthy, and cheaper!
For what its worth, I started my boys on homemade applesauce first, and both are good veggie and fruit eaters. I honestly don't think it matters what you start with, a child will have a preference no matter what you do. Babies do prefer sweet foods, but it doesn't mean they won't like veggies... babies who eat homemade baby foods eat a wider variety of foods because their first foods have lots of flavor and texture. Unlike jarred foods that are very bland and blah.
Pureed food frozen in ice cube trays then in freezer bags is the way to go!
A couple things to add: use as much water to make it smooth. My daughter tended to be sensitive to textures, so I had to process some foods more than others.
Pumpkin from the can is a perfect food! It's a lot easier than processing on your own. Freeze extra like you do the homemade.
Peas are good from the bag (like one uses for split pea soup). Frozen peas don't process down smooth enough. Canned peas are just yuck. Follow the directions on the bag, but cook til they're soft, then process with the water you cooked them in.
Good luck!
http://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Made-Daddy-Too-Revised/dp/055...
Simple, basic, covers all the questions you have asked, great variety of single-food recipes (including how to prepare, ratio of liquid to food, and suggested time frames for introduction.) Yes to ice cube trays. It is a time commitment (one which I found much harder to make with my second baby) but so much less expensive and way tastier than shelf-stable baby food! Also includes easy (and tasty) recipes for when your toddler starts to eat with you - foods your toddler will like and that you will enjoy, too!
(Personally, I found "super baby food" dogmatic and excessively detailed. I didn't need instructions on how to unload my dishwasher, just on how to steam pears.)
The only thing I have to add that hasn't already been mentioned, is trying the hand held, netted, feeding aids. I fed my daughter fresh avocado (and banana) using these, starting at five months. We just cut about two or three avocado wedges for lunch, stored the rest in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and used the rest for dinner, or the next day. If you store it overnight, you may want to scrape off the top layer which does turn a bit brown. She loved it, in part because she could actually use it herself. They can be a pain to clean (especially when used with banana), but it was well worth it. She is now 2 and has eaten, on average, a half to a whole avocado, EVERY day. Talk about brain food! Enjoy!
Consider reading the book "Super Baby Foods", which can be checked out at your local library or purchased. If you are going to prepare homemade baby foods, and want to learn how to prepare, store, and serve a variety of healthy foods, this will quickly become your go-to manual for all things feeding baby!
My friend just got a baby food maker from William Sonoma
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/beaba-babycook/
and just LOVES it.
It's worth checking out & you can use organic foods!
Best wishes,
G.
You really won't even need to use jar food very much - bananas travel pretty well and mash up with a fork so you can prepare them on the go.
A food mill was helpful for me. I had something very similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/Green-Sprouts-Eco-friendly-Baby-Foo...
I froze a lot in ice cube trays as mentioned below. I feel like we ate a lot of squash and sweet potato.
Good luck! And keep in mind that your daughter may dislike some foods until she's had a chance to taste them many times - make new foods in a smaller portion at first and keep trying.
I think I started w/ Avacado too - my babies loved it. Sweet potatoes, mashed banana. Here's a great book full of info: http://www.superbabyfood.com/
Single grains too.
Preparing - just puree and freeze in ice cube trays. Then I stored the cubes in freezer bags and thawed one cube for feeding. The FDA says that frozen food lasts indefinitely - but they don't taste good indefinitely! :-) Besides - you'L. go through it in no time anyway.
Avocadoes and bananas make great first foods because you can just mash them up and use them at room temperature. My daughter liked things best at first if I mixed a little of my breastmilk in. It didn't need to be a lot, I would just hand express a little right into the bowl. My daughter turned 6 months old right around Thanksgiving that year, so I think her very first food was some of the sweet potatoes at the Thanksgiving dinner and she LOVED them. We only really did special foods for her until she was 8 or 9 months old, and then we just started mashing or finely chopping whatever we were eating. Cold frozen peas and carrots, straight from the bag, were a big favorite when she was teething, and they're not a choking hazard because they basically turn to mush so quickly. Enjoy this fun new stage!
I make and freeze all my baby food, i did for my 1st child, and my 2nd just turned 6 months as well and i am making food for him. there is an awesome book called Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. It outlines what foods to start and when, gives you tips for freezing and tells you how long each food can be frozen for. I just started my son on puree'ed avacado, butternut squash, and sweet potato's, you can freeze all 3 for for 3 months. check out the book, i call it my baby bible, it's a great resource! good luck :)
The only thing I would add to previous posts is that if you only use part of the avocado, put the rest in the fridge in a container with the pit and it will keep longer. Also, if you become addicted to them yourself, as I did, you will never waste any.
And I would second those who love bananas as a first food and report that their babies never resisted other foods when started on bananas. We can honestly say that 10 out of 10 of our children started with bananas (mostly because we were a little lazy and they are SO easy!)and all of them eat EVERYTHING except our quirky firstborn who began rejecting all fruits somewhere during his early school years. He never quit liking his veggies, though.
