Homemade Baby Food - Saco,ME

Hi T.! My name is L. and I am 23, expecting my first baby in April. I am really interested in making my own baby food too. I was wondering if you could forward me the information you get on it? Thanks so much!!
-L.

What we did when my son was born is we bought a little electric grinder i kept it right in the counter and I would grind what ever it was that we had for dinner I would a little water and I too also used to freeze fruit and veggies for him in ice cube trays I would let them freeze and I had upperware containers marked what it was when he was hungry i would pop one cube out and heat in the microwave and he was good to go

GOOD LUCK

Making your own baby food is really not hard at all, all you need is a blender or food chopper that is clean, something clean to freeze it in if you make a big batch, and a clean pot, and clean water,

I bought frozen veggies and boiled them till they where very soft, then put them in the blender with a little bit of the water i boiled them in and blended away, just add more of less water to get the tick ness you want. then if you made alot freeze whats left in somthing that is covered. I put it in ice cube trays and used press and seal wrap untill its frozen then i poped them out and put them in a dubble seal zip lock bag. this cubes are good for a long time as long as there kept nice a frozen and sealed.

The best things to make are
Pea's
carrots
green beans
squash
sweet potatos

a lot of times i would read what was on the jars at the store and make it at home,

there are other things you can make too
bannnas are good becuase you dont even need to cook them but you may want to put in a little bit of lemon juice (like a teaspoon) so they dont turn brown, you just put them in a blender with a little water and a squeeze of lemon and blend away.

it really sounds like more work then it is! it cant hurt to give it a try.
That part the was a pain in the but for me was remembering that i have to get his food ready ahead of time becuase it was frozen

i never made fruits though because i did know what \needed to be cooked and what didnt and what needed to be pealed and so on so i just bought jared fruits

Hi T.,
Congrats on your new baby. It is really easy to make your own food. I did for my two children & really just made whatever I had on hand. A food mill comes in really handy for those days when you are just too bleary eyed to figure out how to use the food processor. I remember that I just checked every book out of the library that was related to making your own baby food & found that my own recipes worked the best (sorry, can't remember the recipes). I remember that you are not supposed to make your own carrots (pesticides). Boil pears, apples, etc & be creative!
Good luck -

T.,
I make all of my daughter's baby food. I love knowing that what I'm giving her is the best possible start. At home and at work (I'm an infant toddler specialist) we use First Meals by Annabel Karmel. It has beautiful pictures, and great information. Making baby food is very low cost, doesn't require a lot of time (or cooking skill either!), or a lot of equipment. You can also find a great startup kit at https://www.naturalfamilyboutique.com/heidim/Shop/Product....
Good luck to you. And feel free to email me (____@____.com) if you'd like any other info on feeding your little one when she's old enough!

I would talk to your ped. before anything else. My ped told me not to give my son baby food because he will not learn to chew properly. The only baby food that I gave him was cereal. On our 6 month checkup he gave my son a silver spoon and said he eats what you eat AFTER his bottle. He also had 2 teeth then too. Every ped is different. Mine also told me to give my son 2% milk instead of whole milk at a year old.

Hi T.,
My daughter will be 15 in about 3 weeks. When she was small, I made her baby food. It was very easy. I would buy fresh vegetables and fruit, or I would copy down the combinations that I saw in jarred baby food and I would buy the ingrediants. Then put them in a blender with some juice or water, depending on what the food was and I would make a batch of it in the blender and then pour it into ice cube trays. Then I would freeze it. when it was frozen, I'd take the cubes out and put them in freezer bags. Then when it was time to eat, I'd take one out and defrost it either in the microwave or if I had time, just let it defrost naturally. It was very easy. I think some books make it harder than it has to be. It must have worked, because I have a straight A student in 9th grade now! Good luck.
S. P.

Hi T.-
I didn't do it, but my sister-in-law did and she would spend a small amount of time once a week and have food for quite a while. She swore by this book. I believe it has all the nutritional info and a lot more useful information as well. Here is a link to the book. Good luck!

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Baby-Food-Ruth-Yaron/dp/09652...

Hi T.,
I did this for our son who is now 21 months old and it was so easy. It also saved us a ton of money in baby food. We started at 4 months and slowly made the food chunkier as he got older. We used fresh fruit and some canned fruit with no added sugar. I also boiled sweet potatos and all sorts of frozen organic veggies. I would throw them in the blender with a little water and put them in the ice cube trays to freeze. Then, when meal time comes, you can pop out a few and mix them together. We did
Bananas - don't add water
Pears
Pinapple
Peaches
Peas
Greenbeans
Sweet Potatos
Someone told me to stay away from carrots and spinich (which our son loved!) because of the nitrates, so we did buy those in jars. A word of caution - label your bags when you take the food out of the trays. Pureed foods look an awful lot a like.

I do somethings myself...and enjoy it, at least I know what she is getting. Here is a great website that I have used to get tips on menus and otherwise...hope it helps
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

Hi T.. Congrats on the new baby! Im no expert re: homemade food but I did do some when my sons were at that age. They are now 4 and 1. It's not hard. I did squash, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes, but you can do what ever you want. I tried peas but they are pretty grainy no matter how much you puree. All I did is mash potatoes the same way you do for yourself. sweet potatoes and squash both can be split in halfs, face down on a baking pan w/ a little water in the bottom. 375 temp for apprx 30 minutes. Scoop the middle from the skins and puree. I saved the plastic containers that I got baby fruit in from the store and used those to store in the freezer. You can write dates and content on the containers easily. You can by baby food freezer containers but why waste the money if you get the others anyway. You can also use icecube trays. Each cube s You shouldn't use glass containers pace is about 1oz. to freeze. Dn't know why but I read it when I researched. My best research was my mother and she said not to be afraid of doing it. You can season if you want but remember babies don't recognize those tastes yet and the food tastes fine w/out it. Good luck. I never tried fruit but you just peel them (aples, pears) and boil them down as if you were making applesauce. Bananas you just puree. Enjoy and if it seems to complicated... buy it! Don't stress yourself out too much. I believe the self life in the freezer is about 3 months but I never had enough time to make that much anyway! Take care
Beth

I use a book titled "Super Baby Food" and it has a lot of recipes, etc. I have found it very helpful, but I have to say that when my son was less than a year old, I just cooked fresh vegetables and pureed them and mixed them with things like cous-cous or other grains.

Hi, I am new to responding but wanted to tell you that it can be really easy to make your own- I just kept a food processor on the counter and when I was cooking meals I'd put whatever (fruits, cooked veggies, meat as I cooked it once the baby was older) into it- I'd give the meal I made to my husband, cut it up for my 2 year old, and the food processor stuff to the baby. You can also do batches of things (like cook a bunch of sweet potatoes, put them into the food processor) then empty it into a clean ice cube tray (that divides it into serving sizes for a baby) Put it in the freezer then just pop out an "ice cube" per meal of whatever you made. You can do that with just about everything. Good luck!

Hi T.! I have been making my son's baby food and I absolutely love it! We began rice cereal with him when he was five months old and then introduced banana's shortly thereafter. He is now eight months and I make squash, sweat potato, beans, peas, brocolli, avacado, cauliflower, spinach, peaches, pears, apples, mango, banana, plumbs, chicken, turkey, etc. We slowly introduce more and more into his diet. To begin with, I used a food mill. I find, however, that using any old blender works really well and that's what I use now. If you are making something like banana or avacado, you can just peel them and mush them with a fork. I usually add a little water to them (I added breastmilk when we were first starting out). With things such as pears, I steam them until they are nice and soft and then mash them with a fork. With potatos I boil them until they are soft and then mash them. With things like plumbs I peel them and throw them in the blender and puree them. With chicken and turkey I cook them and then blend them up. When all is said and done, I spoon the food into ice cube trays to freeze. The ice cube trays that I happen to have have covers on them which makes it that much easier. Each cube is equal to about an ounce of baby food. To heat, I just put it in the microwave and we're good to go.

I found a website that I think is great. www.wholesomebabyfood.com. Check it out when you get the chance if you are interested. You'll find great recipes and an age by age guide to baby food introductions. This has been the best baby food website that I have found so far.

I'm a big advocate for homemade baby food. It really can be much cheaper. I buy things on sale and cook in bulk and then freeze it all. It's really not hard at all. I make food maybe a few times a month and that's it.

Best of luck when your daughter is ready for solids! (I love this topic!) :):)