Baby Food Question

I am posting this to 3 different NG's, but not cross posting.

Alegra is not ready for solids yet. In fact, the pediatrician said that she
will discuss with us the introduction of solids at our next visit (september
30th). 4 month visit.

What I am wanting to know is how many of you make your own baby food?

What kind of processor (blender etc) do you use?

And lastly, where do you get the recipes?

We are very seriously considering making Ali's food ourselves so that we can
buy only organic veggies and fruit etc..

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :-D


thanx!

--
LES!

Daddie to Alegra Lee. May 25th 2003!
"Daddie's Little Diva"

before you reply to me via email, please remove your hat
YourHatDaddie at bonbon.net

ourHat wrote:

Alegra is not ready for solids yet. In fact, the pediatrician said that she
will discuss with us the introduction of solids at our next visit (september
30th). 4 month visit.

What I am wanting to know is how many of you make your own baby food?

What kind of processor (blender etc) do you use?

If you follow the APP recommendations of waiting until six months, it is easier
to transition straight to table food. My philosophy is that if it needs to be
pureed, they aren't ready for it anyway :-) That said, there are little baby
food grinders you can use. I have also seen a couple of brands of organic baby
food, Earth's Best and so on.

My kids used barley cereal (the rice stuff was not a hit) as training food and
then moved on to applesauce, bananas, sweet potatoes, etc. You try one thing at
a time and wait several days to a week before introducing anything new, so you
can check for reactions. By the time you get through introducing a bunch of
foods, your baby is old enough to pick up bits of stuff anyway. We didn't ever
really "make baby food," we just didn't use store-bought jars :-). Well,
actually, with my son I did use jarred foods sometimes, for convenience, but
they weren't *necessary*, put it that way.

My daughters tore into solids from the get-go, but my son was lukewarm about
them until about nine months. He'd eat a spoonful here, a few Cheerios there,
that sort of thing. Eventually he developed an appetite for them, there was
nothing wrong. I did have his iron levels tested at 10 months or so and they
were fine, but as Alegra is on iron-fortified formula, you don't have to worry
about that.

--Helen

I know the AAP recommendation is 6 months for breastfed babies, but is it
the same for formula-fed babies?

So far as I know it is the same. Why wouldn't it be? (Formula isn't lacking in
any vitamin that would need to be provided by starting solids earlier.)


Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator

(either remove spamblock or change address to to e-mail
reply.)

Naomi Pardue wrote:

So far as I know it is the same. Why wouldn't it be? (Formula isn't
lacking in any vitamin that would need to be provided by starting
solids earlier.)

I didn't say it shouldn't be; I looked on the AAP page and couldn't find any
information on the matter, so I *asked*. I wasn't trying to imply anything.
I was just wondering, because formula and breastmilk are not equal. For
example, it seems to be commonly held that rice cereal has some use to
formula-fed babies because it's iron-enriched, but it's not particularly
useful for breastfed babies.

--
iphigenia
www.tristyn.net
"i have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
i do not think that they will sing to me."

For
example, it seems to be commonly held that rice cereal has some use to
formula-fed babies because it's iron-enriched, but it's not particularly
useful for breastfed babies.

Which may have been valuable back when babies were commonly switched to cows
milk at 6 months. But today FF babies are usually kept on formula for 12
months, and formula contains more than ample iron.

I wouldn't be surprised if FF mothers tended, on average, to start babies on
solids earlier, but I'd guess it would have to do with parenting style (a more
'old fashioned' style that would tend to do things the way grandma did them,
perhaps?), than due to any nutritional need. (Also, of course, some mothers put
cereal in the bottle from a VERY early age, but that's another issue entirely.)


Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator

(either remove spamblock or change address to to e-mail
reply.)

Ali's Daddie wrote:

Alegra is not ready for solids yet. In fact, the pediatrician said that she
will discuss with us the introduction of solids at our next visit (september
30th). 4 month visit.

Along with the others, I'd recommend waiting to 6 months. Food
allergies in babies *suck*, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

What I am wanting to know is how many of you make your own baby food?

We did...sorta :-).

What kind of processor (blender etc) do you use?

Our stick/hand blender has a chopper attachment...that worked great, but
half the time we just used the stick blender.

And lastly, where do you get the recipes?

I just thought about what I would like. We waited to give our son
solids til he was 1 year (breastfed exclusively), so he was ready for
all types when we started him. Chicken and apricots are a big favorite
still. There is a great UK cookbook that I think you can get on Amazon
by Annabel Karmel called The Baby and Toddler Meal Planner. A lot of
the later foods can be made for the whole family, and the babies' food
just gets smushed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :-D

Enjoy yourself, and don't stress if she doesn't like something, but
don't push either. It's a learning experience for her until she's a lot
older...oh, one thing we've noticed. Babies like social settings...so
if you both can sit at the table with her when she's eating (or all of
you have meals together) you're teaching her interaction as well as
keeping her interested.

Hey, any pics of the Diva? :-)
--
Meself
mom to P, 23/12/01

"Herself" wrote in message
...
Ali's Daddie wrote:


. We waited to give our son solids til he was 1 year (breastfed
exclusively),

Which leads me to why I have been lurking....
My son was started on small bits of rice at 4 months (He self weaned from
breast to formula at 7 months) and was eating pretty much anything. Now, at
9 months he hardly wants food. We had a bout of diarrhea at 8.5 months and
did 24 hrs on clear fluids. Right after that, he decided he only wanted to
eat one meal a day. I know nutritionally, this is fine, but I am concerned
about the sudden change. His ped isn't. Thoughts?



--
Tracy

'Time is fleeting, Madness takes its toll'
Time Warp - Rocky Horror Picture Show

Tracy wrote:

Which leads me to why I have been lurking....
My son was started on small bits of rice at 4 months (He self weaned from
breast to formula at 7 months) and was eating pretty much anything. Now, at
9 months he hardly wants food. We had a bout of diarrhea at 8.5 months and
did 24 hrs on clear fluids. Right after that, he decided he only wanted to
eat one meal a day. I know nutritionally, this is fine, but I am concerned
about the sudden change. His ped isn't. Thoughts?

Sometimes kids go off food for a little bit...just like sometimes they
will only eat one type of food. How long has he only wanted liquids?
(if he only wants liquids, I'm just guessing).

--
Meself
mom to P, 23/12/01

What I am wanting to know is how many of you make your own baby food?

What kind of processor (blender etc) do you use?

And lastly, where do you get the recipes?

We are very seriously considering making Ali's food ourselves so that we
can
buy only organic veggies and fruit etc..



I know most people here didn't bother wish specially made baby food, but I
did, and I enjoyed it. Looking back, I probably wouldn't have needed to put
as much time into the whole thing as I did, but as I said, it was fun, and I
liked the fact that I had so much control over what DS was eating. Now that
I'm trying to keep up with a 2.5 year old, I think DD will have to do with
less production, but I still refuse to buy jarred baby food. For various
reasons: too expensive, too much trash/recycling, not enough control over
ingredients, inferior taste.

I used a blender, a hand-cranked food grinder, and a book called Super Baby
Food (forget the author). The book goes a little over the top in some areas,
but I really appreciated the timeline for foods, the recipe for cereal,
suggestions for healthy additions, and the suggestions for finger foods and
meals. My basic process was to steam veggies until very soft, blend them,
add water as needed, strain if necessary, and freeze them in ice cube trays.
Some fruit I cooked (applesauce, etc), the rest I just pureed/grinded/mashed
and fed to DS right away.

DS preferred pureed food for quite a while, so I kept this up for longer
than I think most kids need it. Most children, by age 7-9 months, do well
with feeding themselves small chunks of soft things, cheerios, etc. So it's
hard to tell how long you might want to continue the whole process--every
kid is different.

This time around, I still plan on making the cereal (made one batch a week,
froze individual servings, total time: maybe 10 minutes, so totally worth
it), and I'll probably do the ice-cube method for certain things. But this
time around I'm more likely to just pull out veggies before I add seasonings
(butter, salt, etc), make sure they're cooked extra soft, and either give
them to DD as is, or grind them in the baby grinder or fork-mash them.

HTH,

--
Jodi
SAHM to Oliver (2 years, 5 months) & Arwen (3 months)

"hobbes" wrote

I used a blender, a hand-cranked food grinder, and a book called Super
Baby
Food (forget the author). The book goes a little over the top in some
areas,
but I really appreciated the timeline for foods, the recipe for cereal,
suggestions for healthy additions, and the suggestions for finger foods
and
meals.

The author's name is Ruth Yaron. We have gotten lots of use out of the book,
and still refer to it frequently, even though DS eats what we eat now. I
like the craft suggestions and recipes for playdough etc.

Christina
mom to DS, 21 months