Hi mamas. So far I've managed to make all my 8 month old daughter's food at home. She has tried an assortment of pureed veggies and fruits and is ready for mixed foods. Any simple recipes or websites you like?
I went to the store and looked at the store baby food to get ideas on mixes. My son's favorite was banana and avocado!
Your child should eat what you are eating. If you like the recipe for yourself and your husband, use it. Your child should just have their stuff cut up smaller. I wouldn't let them eat Jalapeno poppers, or other extremely hot foods, but your food world should be her food world.
the best advice I got from my peditrician is to just take whatever you are eating (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and put it into the blender. I would do this before adding salt and extra seasonings. I spent so much time preparing for my first child, I was manic. For my second, by the time she got to food, she had so many teeth, she just ate what we ate..not blended. Have a 3 month old now (#3) and plan to start blending and freezing.
good luck!
I also copied storebought baby food recipes. One my son still likes is a copy of the Yobaby apple pie yogurt. I realized how much sugar was in that stuff and never bought it again, but I started making that blend myself. I have always just bought plain organic whole milk yogurt in the big container, it is so much cheaper and healthier. (I had a one-time coupon so bought the yobaby, oops.) So I take his baby cereal when I had some left, or some regular oatmeal that I ground up smaller, mix with yogurt, applesauce, vanilla extract, tiny bit of brown sugar, and cinnamon. Now I just use whole oats and he loves it.
Another blend I came up with to use up the squash he didn't care for- applesauce, yellow squash, sweet potatoes, cinnamon (cardamom if you have it) and brown sugar. Another favorite of my sons was mango and avocado.
You've already been given my two favorite websites- wholesomebabyfood and homemade-baby-food-recipes. My third favorite is www.weelicious.com I like the homemade-baby-food because they send newsletters monthly. And weelicious is on facebook so you can fan her and get daily recipes in your news feed. She does toddler food and family food too. (She's actually a mama on here and answers regularly :)
And I agree that baby can eat what you eat. I ate a lot of spicy for a while because I couldn't eat it while pregnant, so I didn't start feeding my son what I was eating for a while, while I got my fill of spicy again. :) Plus when you make your own it seems to take FORever to work through all the produce with the wait rule. Jarred baby food has like 2 months worth but homemade has tons of possibilites. But go ahead and start giving her what you are eating that has been tried and safe.
love this site!!!
You've gotten some great stuff! A couple combos I did to mix things up: Apples and sweet potatoes (and when we were starting meats, I added chicken to that); sweet potato and avocado; carrots, potato and peas (added meat to this to make it taste like "stew"); I buy Mtn. High Organic whole milk yogurt and add cooked pureed blueberries; We did egg yolks scrambled with a little water and shredded cheese, cooked to quite done, after about age 15 months, we added in the whites too. Now, my daughter (26 mo.) eats whatever we eat...if it's a little spicy, I stir in some sour cream or plain yogurt to "cool". If she makes a funny face, I still say, isn't that yummy, and usually she nods and will take another bite. :) Hope this is helpful!
Hi- Neither of my kids ever ate jarred baby food. I just mashed up whatever we were eating. If what we were eating wasn't appropriate (too hot, spicy, hard to mash up) I'd feed them black beans mashed, frozen peas warmed and mashed, tofu cut up or mashed. They loved baked sweet potato and sometimes just regular potato. Really, as others have said whatever you have around that is pretty soft and healthy go for it. There are still a few things on the no list at 8 months but by a year she can pretty much eat everything and if your breastfeeding you really don't need to worry much about balanced nutrition, just expose her to lots of different healthy foods.
Hi K.,
You might find these sites helpful: http://organic.lovetoknow.com/Organic_Baby_Food_Recipes and http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/sitemap.html.
Have a great day!
Look into the Baby Bistro Box....it's put together by a child nutritionist and it has some great recipes plus information about nutrition for developing babies. She also has a toddler bistro box for making creative meals for toddlers. You can get it online or I got mine at Currant Baby in pasadena.
Get this book: "Super Baby Food." It has recipes, what foods to introduce in at what age, and EASY methods to prepare food in advance. We used it and we LOVED it. So much good luck to you!
Just stem fresh veggies till they are very soft and then cut them into small pieces. If you child does not have teeth, blend them. Add cooked rice. Add some soy cheese.
If you are cooking dinner, save parts of it from any strong seasoning and cut into small pieces or blend.. Your child will probably be able to eat what you eat if it is not spicy.
I used the Super Baby Food book, but also love this site, http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com. In the Super Baby Food book, she uses this super porridge, which you can put pretty much any kind of fruit or veggie in, I also used to always do yogurt with mixed veggies every day (pretty much anything I had frozen I would throw in). I did the yogurt for my son up to last month (he is now 20 months old), but now he just eats everything we eat.
I got the babyfood recipe book from Targen online along with 2 freezer trays. There are recipes for fruits/veggies & my son loved them. In fact, I myself would be licking the food processer clean! There are a lot of other great ideas here too!
