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Lorraine
EricaAs my 6 month old son stares at me with his toothless grin I wonder, what the heck am I going to start feeding this little carnivore in terms of solid foods? He has no teeth to chew the food, his saliva may be able to break down some form of mushy mess, but really, what could a 6 month old desire in terms of food? All he’s had to-date is breast milk….he doesn’t even know what his options are for food.
Therefore, the fine dining menu is up to me to create and I decide the mushier the better. This way he can swallow his new found food easily AND play with it while he’s at it.
I searched the internet for various recipes and read some associated books; however, the recipes that I found were more gourmet than what I cook for my husband and me. Then I headed out to the local grocery store to see what kinds of jar food they had to offer. I saw the associated prices and I decided there had to be a better way.
Right then and there I decided to put on my Martha Stewart hat and get making my own baby food. Sounds difficult right….not at all. I just took what was left over in my fridge (carrots, peas, apples, banana’s) and boiled them in filtered water then stuck them in the blender for about 10 seconds and whoa-la….my very own mushy food fit for a baby. By the way, I made each one separately….mixing them all together would probably taste a little yucky.
One tip I did pick up on from the various books that I read was to dish out the blended baby food into ice cube trays and freeze it. Then, whenever you want it you can pop out two or three ice cubes of food and put it in the microwave for about 20 – 30 seconds to thaw (or you can leave it on the counter to thaw if you don’t have fruit fly issues)….. Just make sure that you store the ice cube trays in a special area of your freezer. You don’t want hubby to come along and mix frozen banana into his rum and coke. In the end, I felt good, the food I made had no preservatives and since I froze everything it had a fairly long shelf life.
Feeding my little guy is so much fun. I put a bib on him and dab a little bit of the mushy food on his tray so that he can play around it while I feed him. It’s a great distractor while you shovel the food into his mouth. He has so much fun and I get to watch him.
PS. Don’t forget to introduce each type of food slowly so you can track allergic reactions!
Filed under: Baby, Parenting Tagged: | Baby, baby food, Family, infant, Motherhood, Parenting
Love the picture!!! So cute! I had fun feeding my little one for the first time too. My advice to new moms is not to get stressed out. Have fun, you only get this time for a short while.
Ha great photo. We have a treasured video clip of Emma’s first taste of peas. She was grimacing and shuddering. She didn’t like peas then and 5 years later she still doesn’t. But we enjoy watching the movie!
Too funny. My son loved avacado too (I think that’s what is in the picture). I also kept a journal of all the food he ate so that I could track allergies. Sure enough he got a diaper rash after eating strawberries….he’s almost 3 and still cannot eat strawberries without a reaction.
Advice varies on what you can and what you can’t feed as first foods. We’ve done things wrong already without knowing it but all in all I think our little guy is on the right path to healthy eating
I make all my baby food too. I love cooking and baby food is so simple. Our little guy started out eating vegetables that were a bit bland and then we gradually introduced things that were a bit sweeter. For the first 3 months, he loved everything. Now that he is 10 months old, he is starting to show resistance – even to things he initially loved! Apparently this is very common and I’m hoping this phase will pass soon. Happy dining!