[1stTimeMama]

I posted the same question on the food board but I wanted to get as many responses as possible. Here's my situation.

My son is 6 months old and I want to make his baby food at home. My Mother-in-law thinks that I am crazy to do this since I work full time. She said that it takes up too much of my time.

I don't like the jarred baby food by Gerber, Beechnut, and Heinz. They have a lot of additives and preservatives plus a lot of sugar that I do not want my son consuming. I breastfeed and attach parent him so it just seemed natural that I would want his first foods to be as wholesome as possible. I wanted to get some numbers so that I can show MIL that I am not the only working mother who makes baby food at home. Also, do you ever get tire of making baby's food?

I hope I get some responses!

 

[babybugmama]

Okay, I didn't know there was a food board...I'll have to go seeking. Anyway, I voted yes. My dd is 6 months old too and like you I wanted to make my own. So far we've made sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, and green beans. I had to give her jarred peas since I couldn't find any fresh and all I could find were frozen with salt added. The jar I gave her did not have any additives, preservatives, or sugar - just peas and water. I'm starting on fruits, so I hope more people will answer your thread with how they do this....I would like to make excess, freeze the excess - but how to do this with fruit? Vegetables are easy! I don't think it's that time consuming. Basically, I do a batch...steam, puree', and then freeze in an ice cube tray. Then later it's a breeze to just grab one. Much cheaper too!

I hope yu get some response too!

 

[Marlena]

Absolutely. Dd (now past baby food) started out eating what we did (after trying rice cereal three times). We just pureed it, and toned down spices (which are normally very high in our household). She's now a very good eater, at 24 months. I've made a point of not feeding her anything that I wouldn't eat myself.

Note, though, that due to potentially high nitrate concentrations, one isn't supposed to make baby food out of green leafy vegetables and carrots for the first year (unless you're _certain_ nitrate concentrations in your vegetables aren't a problem).

Also note that we eat almost entirely food prepared from scratch at home, rather than frozen or canned or pre-prepared crap.

 

[Marlena]

Oh yeah, also note that the ice cube tray idea that babybugmama mentioned is a great one, if you don't want your child to eat what you're eating for meals but instead want to prepare food in advance.

 

[gretasmommy]

Yes, working moms can make baby food! DD is now almost 14 months old and no longer eating baby food, but I did make all of her food from scratch. It was lots of fun, most of the time. I just felt better giving her foods that I would eat. Usually I prepared foods for her 3 times per week, in large batches. If you are more organized you can probably make it all in one day, but I never really got that down! I would do apples and pears one day, and veggies the other two days. I used cute heart shaped ice cube trays to freeze her foods, and put them in Ziplock baggies (labeled well!). I loved the Cuisinart mini food processor (about $30) for pureeing everything. Very quick and easy to clean.

Yes, it was tough at times, but most of the time I really enjoyed it. By the time I began to get tired of the whole routine, DD was eating a greater variety of foods, and I could just make extra veggies with our meals - less work.

The other appealing aspect for me was that I was totally providing for DD - nursing (or pumping) and making all of her foods. It also was nice that she had eaten not just apples, but 5 different kinds of apples! And three different kinds of pears . . .and so on. The jarred foods all taste the same, but pureed homemade foods have a wonderful variety of tastes and textures.

Have fun! (it really wasn't that tough!)

Andrea
mommy to Greta 3/14/02

 

[Ocean]

I guess I'm the sole person who voted "no." When I was pregnant, I thought I would make my own baby food at least some of the time, but in reality I only tried once. It took a long time and dd refused to eat any of it. Actually, she hated pured food. I bought her organic baby food without added sugar and preservatives, so I felt good about what I was offering her, but she just didn't like the texture I guess. I think I bought a grand total of 15 jars of baby food, many of which are still in my cupboard. She ate EBM for a long time until she could start chewing and then basically just has what we have. It would have been a huge waste of time for us to make our own baby food.

 

[mama2m&m]

I read Super Baby Foods and made my own baby food. I didn't with my first using the excuse that I was a wohm mama and didn't have the time. what a crock LOL as I did it with my second and it wasn't too time consuming and I liked knowing that my baby was getting the best. I cooked, pureed and then used ice cube trays to freeze. I would take the cubes to daycare once a week or so. I also made homemade rice cereal. DD loved it and it smelled so good cooking. Good luck!

 

[delighted.mama]

You can absolutely do it and WOH. Like one of the other poster's (sorry I forgot the name), I got the Super Baby Food Book and made my own food around 6 months. The only commercial food that I bought was cereal. Dd didn't like the super porridge that the author of the book recommends. Anyway, I loved making her own food. Now that she is 15 months old, she pretty much eats whatever we eat. But, before then, I followed the monthly recommended "new foods" list and made my food, pureed it and froze it. It didn't take too long. If I was making something for dh and I, I would simply make a little more for dd (minus the spices and salts) I also got a big kick out of going to the natural food store and buying items that I normally wouldn't buy in order to have dd try it. For example, I usually don't buy avacados, but dd loves them and its a great source of nutrients. To me, it was also another way of staying connected to dd. In addition to pumping, I also had some control and say over what she ate. I didn't want to leave it up to our babysitter to simply pick whatever jar was sitting around. Instead, I would put the estimated amount of food in the fridge and would know exactly what dd was eating. Also, I wanted to be the one to feed dd, so I usually gave her new foods when I came home at work. That way, I could guage whether she liked it, approximately how much she was eating, etc. She is a very good eater and will pretty much eat anything now. I would strongly recommend that you try it. I think if you have the will, which you obviously do, then you can definitely do it!!

Like you, everyone told me it would be too much work, etc. Don't listen to that bunk! You can pretty much make up a few batches of food in one evening, freeze it and have it for a couple of weeks. Go for it and GOOD LUCK!!

Libby

 

[buttercup]

Someone mentioned Super Baby Foods - here is a link to their website. They offer sample chapters regarding baby food introduction, making baby food for 7 month old, info about preparing veggies, etc.

http://www.superbabyfood.com/mainmenu.htm

We have been feeding mostly table food to dd since she was 6 mos. She does not like baby food (my DH is a chef so the baby food is not good enough for her tastes) While cooking, we set aside a small portion of food for her and add less seasonings. Her favorite is any type of stew. The only way we can get her to eat cereal is by adding a meat broth made from scratch w/ a little garlic.

Jenni and Helon 6/29/02

 

[QueenSheba'sMom]

We did. We cook every day anyway because of money issues, so putting some extra steamed veggies in the blender or food processor was never a problem.

But we did, because we're so busy, delay solids a while. The feeding was always more of a time hazard than the foodmaking ever was.

and even worse than the feeding was the cleaning afterwards!

around 9-10 months, though, our girl insisted on feeding herself, and that was a big load off our shoulders. We could just feed her, take pictures of the mess & take her straight to the tub afterwards.

 

[Foobar]

We make some foods. I cook her some tofu, we mash bananas and give her graps (cut). She eats a lot from us. We give her some avacodo and some other fruits too.

Read the jarred foods and except for Heinz, you'll see the basics don't have added sugar or preservatives. Usually vitamin C is added simply for iron absorption. I have found the Beechnuts to be fairly basic. We avoid the stage 3 Meals because Goo would rather eat off of our plates!

 

[Liz]

I didn't think I would do it either but a friend (THANK YOU WENDY!) gave me a little hand operated baby food grinder and when I decided to start solids there was this grinder sitting on my shelf and it just made more sense to make a little bit at a time instead of opening a jar and having to throw out 3/4 of it. So I started with apples and bananas then before I knew it I was making all of his food! So if you're making brocolli for dinner, for instance, you just steam some extra and then after dinner you grind it up and freeze in an ice cube tray. I found meat a bit trickier because our meals didn't always lend themselves to being ground up but then I just steamed some chicken on the weekend. I graduated to a Braun chopper too because it was faster. I also made a batch of chicken broth every once in a while, froze that in ice cubes and used it to make his cereal. So I just always kept a bag of fruit cubes, 2 bags of vegetables cubes (two different colours) and a bag of meat cubes in the freezer at all times. It sounds like a lot but you're not making it all at once just maintaining your inventory.

I also found that the jarred foods offered very little variety, even the organic foods. I kept some on hand for emergencies but rarely needed it.

Edited to add: I was working full time 10 hour days with a 1 hour commute each way. YOU CAN DO IT!

 

[Coyote star]

My sister-in-law was the one who suggested I make my baby food. I'd never even thought about it before that.

I can honestly say, that as a full-time mom and public school teacher, my 10 month old has never had a single bite of commercial baby food. I made all of her food for her. It was really simple. That Super Baby Food book was my culinary bible. I highly recommend it.

You can do it! I ended up dedicated about 3 hours one Saturday a month to it. That's it!

Good luck

 

[owen&mama]

I'm not sure that I was making "baby food" or not, but I voted yes. I mean that I made his food, but I don't think it would qualify as Baby Food (come to think of it, it was for a baby so I guess it was

) I have a book called "Child of Mine" which isn't really about making food for babies, but it provides guidelines on what to try and visits with the psychology aspect of feeding children. (The only thing I don't really like about the book is that it recommends weaning by the time the baby is a year.) Anyway, DS was never really interested in solid food until he was almost 9 months, so maybe that made it easier. He had avocado, sweet potato, apples, bananas, pasta with tomato & cheese sauce...whatever. I tried the food grinder thing, but I found that a small electric hand chopper to be much easier (DH gave me a Braun for my birthday) or I just mashed it with a fork. By the time DS was really interested, we were pretty much just giving him table food. I bought one bottle of organic baby food once I think.

So, I don't see the problem with WOH and making your baby's food. Truthfully, I find it harder now that he's almost 17-months, and his tastes are more...ummm...complex. Pasta is my friend.

Good luck!

 

[kimmysue2]

I work full time (getting to bring my son with me).
My son didnt eat solids until he was 8 months old and by then he had 6 teeth. He never had jar baby food of any kind. No wait my aunt got a jar of something and wanted to try it on him and he would have nothing to do with it. He wanted grandmas potato salad instead.
The ice cube tray is wonderfull. Or I use sarewrap and twist little round balls of whatever. I make enough for the whole week.
Right now he favorite is fresh homemade cream spinich and noodles. I never get tired of making his food because I love to cook, even baby food.
Don't let people discourage you. Its not that hard and in my opinion so much better for them to eat.

Good Luck

 

[spatulagirl]

I voted yes but I don't make it anymore because DS is 20-months-old. I made everything from scratch (even his rice cereal) and he was (and still is) a very healthy boy!

it's easy... you can totally do it. Make sure you get Super Baby Foods. It is my bible!

 

[1jooj]

I voted yes but really we did very little special food for him. We didn't start solids until he was a good 7 months (my Mom started working on him at 5, but that was occasional entertainment we just put up with), and we eat many things with cooked veggies, so we'd fish out something from our food, mash it, and feed it to him. Dh comes from a culture that does not have jarred food, so this was really easy for us to manage.

 

[comet]

Yes!

Actually, I made almost all that I made especially for her on one Sunday afternoon. About 4 hrs of peeling, boiling, steaming, mashing, and freezing.

At that age (7 months- yr) she didnt' eat that much in one day, so it wasn't very hard to make it stretch a long time.

I concentrated on the fruits & veggies: apples, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, other fruits & veggies - I can't remember them all.

I also kept a supply of jarred foods, especially peaches. I found they were good to un-constipate her, which she got fairly frequently upon starting solids.

BTW, most jarred foods nowadays do not have preservatives, additives, sugar, etc. Check the labels.

I got the organic jarred foods and al lthat was in there was the fruit (or veggie) and water. Even the non-organics didn't have additives, but I just stuck with the organics.

Once she got to be 11 months or so, I just mashed up what was on our plate and gave it to her (mashed with a fork) and that was good enough. So don't feel like you'll be making special food forever - just enough for a few months, probablyl.

 

[mnnice]

I didn't vote. I had a similar experience as Ocean. My ds didn't like smooth textures so he ate very little "baby food" either homemade or jared. I did try to make one or two things in each meal that where baby friendly. Jarred food seems like such a waste to me (high cost and then I threw most of it out).

 

[Indigo73]

My ds hated pured food too, so he ate lots of small chunks of soft food, ie diced carrots, sweet potatoes and brocolli florets. He also liked old fashioned oatmeal and mushy rice and rice milk.