Baby Food - Norman,OK

Have you tasted or smelled jar baby food before?! It's nasty. I can't imagine how anyone would like it.

Make her food. It's easy. Get a few packages of frozen veggies - peas, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, etc... Steam them til they are mushy, then puree them in a blender or with a food processor. So fast, so easy. Then fill an ice cube tray with the puree. After they are frozen, pop them into a ziplock baggie and label it. If you are making your older girls green beans, then just make a bunch and puree the leftovers.

You can also do this with white potatoes, sweet potatoes, chicken, fruits, anything really! Sometimes you need to add just a little bit of water to make it easier to puree.

Some things don't even need to be heated to mush.... bananas, avocados.

And you can mix any of these homemade purees with her baby cereal. She will probably eat it right up!!

Mmmm. She is too young for Cheerios. You probably know that though. ;)
Yes, you can make her food. The only thing my kids have ever really eaten for me was homemade sweet potatoes w/ a touch of cinnamon.

I just wanted to add...she does not NEED solids. For the first year of life all she needs is breastmilk or formula. That is where she gets ALL her nutritional needs met. She's not wanting to nurse more because she didn't eat that jar of green goo. ;)
Solids are purely experimental right now. So if she has no interest right now...don't sweat it. Try again in a few weeks. And if you want to wait until she is 9 months and then go straight to finger food-that is perfectly ok.
Relax! :)

Actually, she's nursing more often because she's about to hit a growth spurt. And even if she was eating a lot of table food, she'd stop and nurse more. Think of breastmilk (or formula) for babies like a 12 course holiday meal with 2nds. Think of table food like a single piece of bread. That's the comparable nutrition. Breastmilk and formula is the giant gut bursting meal, table food is nada. Infants are growing sooooo fast they need the concentrated gut busting nutrition in breastmilk and formula.

ALSO... only about half of babies can digest table food by 6mo. Most can by 9mo. Very few can't by 12mo. So if she in the 50% of babies who can't digest table food yet, she's getting even LESS nutrition from it. About the same you or I would get from cardboard. Mmmmmm. Cardboard. Yummy!

:) Wait a few months. OTW you're likely to get a lot of gas, pain, sleep disturbances, fussiness if you make her eat food she's not ready for yet.

Oh... and nope. My son never had babyfood. At a year (when we started solids) he just ate what I ate. Just wetter and softer.

try making it thicker- add cereal to the baby food. She might not like it now but might like it a little later :)

if all else fails you can make her foods- this way you'll know what went into it.

With both my kids I just mashed up bits of what we were eating at the dinner table. Or boiled and mashed veggies we were eating to make them soft. My 2nd child only wanted what her brother was eating and often refused mashed "baby food". She just got soft bits of whatever we were eating. Those canned baby food in jars taste terrible I think...I would just skip them.

Cut up small pieces of vegetables after you cook them. You can spoon them in her mouth. Don't put salt on them even if you like it that way. Cheerios are good too. That's how they learn to eat with there fingers.

At 6 months, it's all about textures. So you can start your baby with cereal mixed with formula or breastmilk. If she's not wanting any solids, I'd suggest waiting for a couple of weeks.

When you start on actual food, feed her real food. (If you're not willing to eat it, don't be surprised if the baby won't. And have you ever smelled some of the baby foods?? ick.) You have some good ideas below. You can just throw a whole sweet potato in the microwave, cook until it's soft, and scrape some out for your baby. Or cook some apples or pears until they are soft and mash em a bit more (doesn't take much). If you have a food mill or blender, all other sorts of food can be cooked/mashed with very little trouble (peas, lots of fruits, beans, prunes, carrots). The only things my babies spit out were egg yolks and salmon. (Mushed up egg yolks would be a great food if she'll eat it!)

Why don't you try making a couple things for her like sweet potato or squash or something easy that the rest of the family would eat anyway and then add in a bit of the jarred food to use it up? Just bake them and then spin it in the food processor. You could add water/milk/broth to thin it, or just thin it with the jarred food to start. Sweet potato and squash were the base for most of my son's meals, you can add fruit or other veggies (and it makes them more palitable.) good luck