A little early but...is this how I should make my own baby food?

[jeliphish]

I hope this is the right forum....
I plan on making my own baby food this time. Do I basically just get the raw ingredients (sweet potato, avocado, green beans, carrots, etc.) Bake/boil them and then puree them in the blender? Do I get certain cans to keep the left overs in? Do I store in the freezer or fridge? how long do they keep?
Feel free to tell me how you make your own baby food.

[alegna]

No need for purees. Baby is ready for solids when they can and will self feed soft chunks.

-Angela

[jeliphish]

Originally Posted by alegna

No need for purees. Baby is ready for solids when they can and will self feed soft chunks.

-Angela

So when she's showing signs around 9-10 months I could just try like a little chunk of sweet potato or anyother soft chunk? I didn't really think of that....don't know why because it makes perfect sense. I could just cook a whole sweet potato or other food and keep them in individual containers in the fridge...how long do you think they would keep?

[earthgirl]

I always thought I would make baby food, but I never really did. I would just mash up stuff- avocado, banana, squash, peas. I'm not sure about how long it will last, we usually just gave DD a little of something and then ate the rest ourselves. You might find a food mill (like this)to be handy, but I wouldn't spend money on much of anything else.

[momtokea]

I basically boiled everything and put it through my food processor. I got a food processor as a wedding gift and the only thing I ever used it for was to make baby food. I'm sure a blender would do the same thing, though. Like a pp said though, if you can just mash it then there's no need to blend (ie. bananas)

I would store it in small glass jars. I used old baby food jars that I got from relatives that didn't make their own food. You could also use small preserve jars. I would freeze it for about a week, but I don't see why it wouldn't last longer.

My mom was a big help in this for me.

[ann_of_loxley]

Originally Posted by jeliphish

So when she's showing signs around 9-10 months I could just try like a little chunk of sweet potato or anyother soft chunk? I didn't really think of that....don't know why because it makes perfect sense. I could just cook a whole sweet potato or other food and keep them in individual containers in the fridge...how long do you think they would keep?

Here are some google links. Its called 'baby led solids or baby led weaning' (depending on which country you live in hehe).

http://www.tribalbaby.org/babyLedEating.html

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/so...olids-how.html

http://babyledweaning.com/

http://www.babybanana.biz/

Hope those help! - It is, imo the best and most fantastic way to introduce solids to your child! :

[alegna]

Originally Posted by jeliphish

So when she's showing signs around 9-10 months I could just try like a little chunk of sweet potato or anyother soft chunk? I didn't really think of that....don't know why because it makes perfect sense. I could just cook a whole sweet potato or other food and keep them in individual containers in the fridge...how long do you think they would keep?

Sure! Dd wasn't ready until around 9 or 10 months probably (though I started trying earlier.. first babies...)

Ds was READY at 6 months and picked up little bits just fine.

You can steam a sweet potato in little chunks, spread on a cookie sheet and freeze, then you can defrost a few chunks at a time as needed

-Angela

[CarrieMF]

I mashed up/chopped up bits of what we were eating. If I was having alot of spice in something I'd remove the baby's portion before adding the spice.

[Dahlea]

Originally Posted by alegna

No need for purees. Baby is ready for solids when they can and will self feed soft chunks.

-Angela

This is what we're planning on doing. Here's a good site though for recipes and such.
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

[Ks Mama]

The only "baby food" we ever made was taking whatever I cooked for dinner from my plate & cut it up or mashed it appropriately to our baby's age/ability level. I never found a need to do it any other way - and I don't think that you need to keep your baby from spices/combined foods (unless there are things you know she's allergic to, of course). I found babies can & will eat or at least try whatever you put in front of them. Just prepare & offer in age-appropriate ways (i.e. soft enough for the amt. of teeth they have & big enough for their grasping ability).

[sewchris2642]

I just made more of what we were having for dinner. Pureed it the blender. The leftovers also went into the blender and stored in the fridge or frozen for another meal. Ice cube trays work great for freezing especially in the early/new to solids stage. But for my kids, the pureed stage only lasted about 3 months. By 10 months, they were all eating table food. Except for meat. They got meat when they got molars--between age 2 and 3. The menu I followed was:

Breakfast: cereal and fruit (usually oatmeal pureed leftover from dh's breakfast and mashed with a fork banana or apple sauce stirred into the oatmeal)

Lunch: vegetable (left over from the night before and pureed), fruit, cereal left over from breakfast

Dinner: potato/rice/cereal, vegetable, fruit

Between meals and the beginning/end of each meal they nursed.

[fruitfulmomma]

Like some of the pp's said, keep it simple. 4 kids through that stage so far and I've bought maybe two dozen jars of food and never had a grinder for them. With my last one we did egg yolks and she loved them. (No whites though until at least one year.) Mashed sweet and white potatoes are good. Cooked carrots, peas, green beans, etc... Soft fruits like bananas are another good choice. When teeth come in they might start taking in small bites of meat. And of course, keep breastfeeding.

[syd'smom]

Making your own baby food is easy. I just steamed the veggies (since boiling loses a lot of the nutrients) and pureed and froze in ice cube trays. I had fun - but dd wasn't too keen on the mush. She introduced me to baby-led solids.

Babies really enjoy feeding themselves, and it gives you a chance to eat without trying to shovel mush into an unhappy babe's mouth!

[BellinghamCrunchie]

Originally Posted by alegna

No need for purees. Baby is ready for solids when they can and will self feed soft chunks.

-Angela

I was so excited about making homemade baby food. I made tons of baby food for my babe and froze them in ice cube trays. Bought a hand-held baby food grinder. She never ate any of it. I told DH he had to eat it because I didn't want to waste food.

She vastly preferred whatever I was eating. I just made sure I had some soft foods on my plate.

[alegna]

Originally Posted by BellinghamCrunchie

I was so excited about making homemade baby food. I made tons of baby food for my babe and froze them in ice cube trays. Bought a hand-held baby food grinder. She never ate any of it. I told DH he had to eat it because I didn't want to waste food.

She vastly preferred whatever I was eating. I just made sure I had some soft foods on my plate.

With dd I threw out bags of cubes of food....

-Angela

[heidirk]

DS1 loved summer squash. I boiled it, and then ran it through a handmill, which took the long fibers out.

I also cooked oats, and stewed prunes, and ran them through the grinder together, he loved that too.

bananas I mashed with a fork, same with egg yolks- to which I added a bit of water, same with white potatoes, but sweet potatos and yams I ran through the grinder to remove the long fibers. I ran peaches, plums, nectarines, and later berries through raw. After that I would just cut a pear in half and scrape it with a fork until it was soft and juicy, and fed it with a spoon.

I loved making baby food for my baby. Oh, I also ground meats and mixed them with veggies, green beans, spinach, etc.

carrots I bought frozen and boiled them, you can mash them with a fork. I also cooked split peas and lentils till they disintegrated. I just made what I needed as we went.

after he had tried a bunch of foods, I started to just run whatever we were eating through the grinder at the table.

have fun!

[Kidzaplenty]

Homemade baby food, in my house, consists of any food from our dinner that is soft enough for the baby to eat. I just smash up what we have to eat.

[pinksprklybarefoot]

Originally Posted by Ks Mama

The only "baby food" we ever made was taking whatever I cooked for dinner from my plate & cut it up or mashed it appropriately to our baby's age/ability level. I never found a need to do it any other way - and I don't think that you need to keep your baby from spices/combined foods (unless there are things you know she's allergic to, of course). I found babies can & will eat or at least try whatever you put in front of them. Just prepare & offer in age-appropriate ways (i.e. soft enough for the amt. of teeth they have & big enough for their grasping ability).

This is exactly what we did.