He did the same thing with sitting up, the silly boy. Even though he was physically perfectly capable to sit up – and proved so on occasion – he preferred not to, choosing rather to sit on someone’s lap or with some other supporting edifice, or even just to lie down. Whenever we tried to sit him on his bottom, he would arch his back so that there was no way no how to set him down. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, he simply chose not to.
Same with finger foods. Even though he could find the smallest tiniest crumb on the floor in his crawling adventures, pick it up firmly in his little pincer grasp, and deposit it in his mouth before I could stop him, he absolutely refused to pick up his own food off his high chair tray to feed himself.
He’s still a little reluctant, depending on what he’s given to eat, but I have found a few tricks that helped me encourage him to feed himself more often. It’s a process, like anything else in child-rearing (or life), and he’s definitely not as receptive to it as his older brother was, but we’re getting somewhere. Today, he actually fed himself (quite happily, I might add!) some carrots and chicken! Success!
Here’s what I did to help him over his little hump:
1. Make sure Baby is physically capable of eating finger foods. He has to have a good pincer grasp – able to pick up small items between his thumb and fingers – but also has to be able to insert the item into his mouth. Baby Boy demonstrated his pincer grasp quite readily on many other occasions, so I was sure that wasn’t the problem here. Besides which, he had eaten a whole pile of diced squash all by himself before refusing to feed himself anymore.
2. Pick up the food yourself and put it in his mouth. Seems simple, no? This was my sister’s advice, and it was very effective. Not a magic pill, by any means, but it definitely helped him out. It was like a visual demonstration of what he was supposed to do, a reminder of how it’s done. I would give him a piece, wait a while to see if he would try it himself, then give him another. Sometimes, I ended up feeding him the whole serving, but other times, he would get the nerve up to feed himself a few bites, too.
3. Try sticks of food instead of small pieces. Proponents of the Baby Led Weaning method swear by this. It’s been a mixed bag for me as far as results go, but over all, I’ve had some good success with it. The stick shape is successful because Baby can hold it in his grasp and chew on the other end. My Baby Boy can only handle really soft foods with this method, like cooked sweet potatoes, squash or similar.
4. Try foods Baby really likes. He’s not going to make much effort for something he’s already demonstrated that he hates, so stick to the yummy stuff.
5. Use a net feeder. My Certain Little Someone never really got into these, but Baby Boy loves them! And while it doesn’t help with the whole grasping food issue, it does give him some measure of independence with very little struggle. A break for Mommy and a break for Baby!
My Certain Little Someone has never struggled with constipation, not even a little bit. It’s incredibly rare for him to go a whole day without… well, you know… pooping. (How is it that moms’ conversations always inevitably end up on the topic of their children’s pooping habits?!)
Baby Boy, on the other hand… Let’s just say that since he started on solids, he has been far from regular. The poor little guy will go sometimes several days without pooping, and then has to strain so hard it makes him cry. This is a whole new ballgame for me since it never even crossed my mind with my first baby, wasn’t even a minor concern.
Thankfully, my pediatrician prefers to approach the problem through diet, rather than getting out the big guns (meds) from the get-go, but I know many pediatricians are not so wise. Here are some tips, both from him and from other smart mamas I consulted, that have helped me get Baby Boy on a more regular schedule.
1. Make sure Baby’s getting enough liquid.
This is easy enough if you’re feeding him or her formula, because you can clearly see how much liquid Baby is getting. If you’re breastfeeding, it’s a little more tricky, and frankly a little disconcerting at times. It’s difficult to know if Baby’s getting enough to eat (and drink!) at times, and unfortunately, constipation can be a sign of a supply problem. However, if Baby has enough wet diapers (4-6 in a day), and seems satisfies after feeding, then your milk supply is likely not the issue.
Older babies might benefit from sips of purified water when they eat solids to help it move on through the digestive system. Learning to drink from a cup is a valuable skill, too, so you can kill 2 birds with one stone here.
2. Make sure a specific food or type of food is not bothering Baby.
Try and figure out if there’s a particular food or type of food – like dairy, for example – that might be constipating your little one. Eliminate it from the diet, and give him a few days to recover, observing the results. If the food definitely seems to be an issue, avoid it for a while, then bring it back slowly into the diet in small amounts. If constipation recurs, take the food out of the diet again. Note: this is probably not an allergy or even a sensitivity, just a sign that Baby’s not ready for XYZ food.
3. Try some “moving” foods.
My pediatrician’s advice was “Eat prunes every day”. And let me tell you, that’s some great advice! If Baby Boy goes more than a few days without prunes, he gets really backed up, but as soon as I re-introduce them, things start moving again. I also try to feed him other foods that keep his bowels moving. Some foods that seem to help him out:
prunes
pears
beans
sweet potato
I just buy prunes in the baby food jars because they take too much time to soak and puree at home, and I dont’ consider it worth the cost in terms of time and health benefits. But if you want to fix baby prunes at home, just soak them until they’re rehydrated, then puree them in a blender, adding water as necessary to get the texture you desire.
My mom also suggested corn, which I haven’t tried yet because I’m still trying to keep him grain-free for a little while longer. But older babies and babies who are already accustomed to grains might want to give that a try.
4. Try a little bit of pear juice.
This is not my favorite recommendation, but it does seem to help keep him regular if I give him a bit of pear juice (diluted in water) every day when he eats solids. I avoided juice entirely with my Certain Little Someone until he was 2 years old, and even now he rarely drinks it because I just feel it’s not all that nutritious. However, if it keeps my Baby Boy’s bowels moving along, and keeps ups from resorting to laxatives (which I consider even worse), then I’ll compromise!
5. Avoid “binding” foods.
Stay away from these foods, as they’ll likely increase the constipation:
bananas
white potatoes
rice, rice cereal, rice snacks
applesauce
refined white-flour based snacks
Do you have any tips for helping Baby deal with constipation?
Ideally, the baby food puree stage shouldn’t last all that long. As baby gets accustomed to different tastes, and the process of mashing and swallowing, he’ll quickly be ready to try more textured foods. Right on the heels of that will be his developing pincer grasp, which will enable him to eat finger foods, too.
Baby Boy is now 8 months old, and has been eating progressively more chunky and textured foods for the past few weeks. I’ve also experimented off and on with finger foods, but have started in earnest now, as I’ve noticed his pincer grasp developing quite nicely.
So how to transition from the purees to real table food? Here is what I’m doing:
1. Gradually decreasing the smoothness of the purees so they become thicker and chunkier with more texture. Homemade baby food is rarely quite as fine as store-bought anyway, which is actually a good thing, because it’s far more like real food that baby will eventually eat. But you don’t want her to be stuck on purees forever (It can happen: if textured foods aren’t introduced soon enough, some babies refuse to try them and can be difficult to wean completely to table food.) in any case! Some babies will go with ease from purees to real solids, but my Baby Boy has a strong gag reflex still, and also doesn’t really seem to understand the concept of mashing. Inhaling is more his style. A few times, I gave him some “real” table food, and he wasn’t really quite sure how to handle it. However, when I offer him some purees that are quite chunky, he handles them fairly well, so now we’ve been able to move on from there.
You can create a chunkier texture simply by processing the food for a shorter time in the blender or food processor. Also, if you’ve been adding liquids of some kind (breast milk, formula, water or broth, for example) to help thin out the purees, you could start eliminating those to retain a more accurate texture of the food in question. I also recently read a suggestion to grate foods on a grater instead of pureeing them.
2. Offering certain foods in their whole state for him to gum and mash. Foods perfect for this are:
soft, ripe, melons on the rind
bananas
sweet potato fries
peach slices (although these can be stringy, so watch carefully)
soft-cooked green beans (canned or French cut)
3. Experimenting with finger foods. Certain vegetables and fruits lend themselves well to a baby perfecting her pincer grasp. Anything is game as long as it is soft, either naturally or cooked. If baby is eating grains, I have read suggestions to roll the pieces of food in dry crushed cereal, or rice cereal, or oatmeal to help give more of a grip to a struggling eater. You can cut the food into small pieces or cubes (small enough to go down her throat whole without gagging or choking), or you can take a cue from Baby Led Weaning, and cut it in a French-fry shape so that she can hold it in her fist and eat what’s sticking out the top. Some healthy finger food ideas (no Puffs or Cheerios!):
sweet or white potato (diced or in sticks)
diced banana
very soft cooked carrots, diced or in sticks (Be careful: I find that carrots sometimes harden back up as they cool, so make sure they are truly soft enough for baby to mash.)
diced cooked squash or pumpkin
diced or sliced cooked apples
soft cut green beans
beans (any kind)
cooked peas
broccoli ( baby can hold the “trunk” and eat the “foliage”)
diced peaches and nectarines or very ripe pears
chicken thigh meat, cut in strips or diced
ground meat of any kind
grated cheese
One thing my Certain Little Someone enjoyed as a fledgling self-feeder was fishing peas out of mashed potatoes. Simply stir some cooked peas gently into a dish of mashed potatoes, and let baby fish them out with his fingers! Fun and filling!
4. Moving on to grains when ready. I’m holding off on the grains for now, but once we start with those, a whole new world of finger foods opens up, including:
homemade teething biscuits
pasta
small pieces of bread, any kind (tortillas, wraps, sliced, rolls, etc.)
organic and all-natural cereals (this for a treat, not a mainstay in the diet)
rice
barley
Here’s a delicious recipe for one of Baby’s First Finger Foods:
Spicy Diced Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
1 sweet potato
dash paprika
dash cumin
dash garlic powder
dash onion powder
2 tsp olive oil
Instructions
Peel the sweet potato and dice. Steam until easily pierced with a fork. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat; add sweet potatoes. Stir and saute the sweet potatoes for a few minutes until lightly browned. Sprinkle with seasonings. Cool until safe for baby to touch and eat; then serve.
Not very long ago, the common recommendation was to avoid meats until baby was 9-12 months of age. I’m sure many doctors and other experts still advise the same, however, there’s a growing number of professionals who advise that meats be among the first foods offered to baby rather than the last. The biggest reason is because at the age of 6 months or so, babies begin to require more iron and protein from their diet than they previously did.
That doesn’t mean that you need to go rush out to the store and buy every iron-fortified baby product you see (and there are a lot!). No, no. Remember, babies are small, and too much iron can be as much of a bad thing as not enough. Furthermore, supplemental (aka, fake) iron is not nearly as effective or as well absorbed as naturally occurring iron.
There are also those who suggest that maybe Baby doesn’t need as much iron now as s/he did before, hence the depleting supplies, and the truth is that I don’t know enough of the biology and development of babies to be able to say whether or not that is the case. However, my conclusion is that beyond the age of 6 months, it isn’t going to hurt Baby to introduce some naturally occurring iron into his diet, and it may be helpful at that. If baby is ready to eat solids in general, then she can probably handle some meat with the beneficial iron and protein.
The problem with meat is that it in its normal cooked state, it’s not soft enough to mash with the gums, therefore for any babies younger than 9 months and without teeth, it’s useful (although not 100% necessary, especially if you are following the Baby Led Weaning method) to puree the cooked meat first.
I just puree a little bit of whatever meat I have prepared for the family; which in this case was chicken. I used my Baby Brezza machine, but any blender or food processor will work. There’s no need to cook up a whole batch of baby-specific food, especially since he’ll eat so little of it. Honestly, I pureed about 1/2 cup or less of meat over a week ago, and he’s still working through it (I keep the extras in the freezer).
A few tips to keep in mind when feeding Baby meat:
Watch for reactions, as with any other food. My Certain Little Someone is allergic to beef, of all things, and there was a time we were concerned that he was allergic to turkey.
Meats can be difficult for Baby to digest, so there’s no harm in holding off if they cause intestinal distress for your little one. You can try re-introducing meat a little at a time by adding in tiny bits of it to foods that are well-received by Baby (like applesauce or pumpkin, for example).
Baby might not like plain old meat, but don’t despair. Mix it in with something she does like! Baby Boy was not at all excited about plain meat, even though it was tastefully seasoned. I mixed it in with some mashed banana – one of his favorites – and suddenly he was all over it! Since then, he’s had it in green beans, applesauce and sweet potato, and has loved it each time.
Puree with a bit of chicken broth for added nutrients and flavor. Breast milk is a good liquid to add as well, if you pump.
Welcome to Ice Cream Week here at Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy!
Ice cream is the topic of the hour, all week long. I’ve got some sorbets to share, plus some fun ice cream flavors I’ve been experimenting with, and some other ideas for what to do with all the ice cream you make.(Note: All the recipes are intentionally dairy-free; but with the exception of the sorbets can be made with regular old cow’s milk and cream should you desire.) Come back every day this week for a new recipe!
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Ice cream that baby can eat? Ice cream that is completely devoid of cream of any sort? Ice cream without sugar? Creamy ice cream? Ice cream that is all those things and also delicious?!?!
Why yes, my friends. And once again, you need go no further than the humble banana. (Maybe I should have called this Banana Week instead of Ice Cream Week!) Except this time, instead of just exploiting the banana’s attributes to make a regular ice cream even better – whether by flavor or by texture – we’re just going to use the banana. Just the banana, that’s it.
OK, you can add in some things if you want. For instance, cocoa comes to mind, or chocolate chips. Or maybe a big spoonful of peanut butter (or non-peanut substitute). Coconut, maybe? Some berries or berry syrup?
All right, now I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. First, let’s make the “ice cream”.
Baby’s First Ice Cream, aka Banana Ice Cream
Ingredients
slightly overripe bananas*
splash of vanilla
freshly grated nutmeg
Instructions
Peel the bananas and slice them into 1/2″ rounds. Place the rounds in a single layer on a pan and freeze for an hour or two. Remove from the freezer and put into a blender (or put in a bowl, and use an immersion blender, in which case, don’t freeze them rock hard – they should still be a tad moist). Blend, blend and blend some more until you have a creamy ice-cream-like consistency. Add water, a tablespoon at a time, if necessary to help the blender run. Stir in vanilla and nutmeg. Serve immediately soft-serve style, or place back into the freezer for a harder ice cream. I found the ice cream tasted better the next day after the flavors had some time to blend. *There are no specific quantities. Each banana makes about one serving, so adjust to however many servings you want to make.
Instead of the vanilla and nutmeg, consider other flavor combinations, such as:
dried ginger and candied ginger
cinnamon and cardamom
almond extract and coconut flakes
grated semisweet or dark chocolate
small chunks of fresh mango
a drizzle of honey or maple syrup
a tablespoon or two of peanut butter
a tablespoon of cocoa (you may want to add a little honey or sugar, too, to offset the bitter)
Take the simple to the sublime by topping it with:
Whoever said that baby’s food has to be bland? I am actually having difficulty pinpointing the origin of that practice, which appears to be largely North American in its scope. To be sure, different countries do feed their babies bland foods like porridge (aka oatmeal or some other grain cereal), but they also feed them more exciting and exotic – to us – foods as well.
I am also having difficulty pinpointing the reason for avoiding all spices and seasonings in baby food: the best I can come up with is that it might upset baby’s developing digestive system. I suppose there is merit in that thought, but so far have found no proof of it.
The only other reason I can find for keeping baby’s food bland is that baby isn’t used to strong flavors, so you don’t want to scare them away from solids by feeding them something spicy or heavily flavored. Now this one I can refute with confidence: if baby has been breastfed, he’s already enjoyed a variety of flavors. Whatever mommy eats goes into the milk, and that includes spices and seasonings. Even if baby has been fed formula hitherto, the sooner she experiences different flavors and spices, the more likely she is to incorporate them into her diet later on.
Not to mention that different cultures around the world are not afraid to give baby whatever spices and strongly flavored foods they enjoy as adults. Some examples I’ve found around the web:
India: turmeric and curry
South America: cilantro, cumin, hot peppers
Thailand: lemongrass, tamarind
Russia: teas made with mint, thyme, chamomile, anise and other herbs
Israel: sesame
My thoughts on the subject can be summed up thus:
I can think of two valid concerns regarding feeding spicy foods to baby. They are: 1.)It might upset baby’s delicate tummy. and 2.)Baby might be allergic/develop an allergy to said spicy food.
Both statements can be true of any food you introduce to baby, spicy or not.
A wise mommy watches her baby carefully for signs of digestive distress or allergic reaction, such as constipation, rashes, vomiting, and gas pain, no matter what she feeds the little one.
Therefore, spices and seasonings and strongly-flavored foods can be introduced to baby with the same care and caution as any other food.
Furthermore, I have additional thoughts on the subject that are more opinionated than logic-driven:
Traditional North American baby food is bland and yucky. Why should Baby be forced to eat bland and yucky food?
Introducing Baby to a wider range of foods and flavors from a young age is likely to broaden his palate as he gets older, a useful tool in developing a healthy diet and eating habits.
Certain spices and seasonings are very high in antioxidants and other nutrients and are beneficial additions to baby’s diet.
If that doesn’t convince you, I’ve read quotes from different medical and nutritional professionals who admit that there is no reason to avoid strongly-flavored or spicy foods when baby is otherwise ready to begin solids. And here are two other authorities on the subject that agree with me: Wholesome Baby Food and BabyCenter.com.
A few things to keep in mind when adding spices and seasonings to baby’s food:
You don’t need much. Since baby’s portion is small to begin with, you just need a tiny pinch to add flavor.
Avoid salt and sugar until at least 12 months. There are a lot of other options besides those two standards of adult fare.
Do watch for reactions to spices just as you do with more substantial foods. For example, cinnamon can sometimes irritate skin (although it’s not an allergic reaction, just evidence of sensitive skin). Just avoid cinnamon until the baby is older, or can avoid getting it on his skin.
Now, the fun part! Here are some of my favorite spices and seasonings to add to common baby foods. Please add your suggestions in the comments section!
Pumpkin/Winter Squash
Sage
Rosemary/Oregano/Thyme
Cinnamon/Nutmeg
Sweet Potato
Red pepper or Paprika
Cumin and Garlic
Cinnamon and/or Nutmeg
Ginger, fresh or dried
Avocado
Cilantro and Garlic (Guacamole anyone?)
Mint
Banana
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Peaches
Cardamom
Ground cloves
Pears
Ginger
Vanilla
Cardamom
Cinnamon/Cloves/Nutmeg
Carrots
Garlic and Onion (powdered or fresh, cooked with the carrots)
Dill
Of course, the possibilities are endless. However you like to fix your fruits and veggies is how you can fix them for baby. You love Mexican food? Throw on the cumin, cilantro, and red peppers! Thai food your thing? Add the lemongrass (be sure it’s ground finely enough for baby, as lemongrass is rather tough and fibrous) to everything. Whatever your culture or your favorite cultural food, feel free to incorporate those flavors into baby’s food.
When pregnant with my Certain Little Someone, I determined that I was going to make all his baby food from scratch in order to give him the healthiest start to life possible. It would be hard, I told myself, cooking and pureeing and freezing huge batches of food, all for the sake of my sweet little baby… but I could push through! I read all the books, browsed all the websites, learned about all the different methods of cooking (steaming, baking, boiling, microwaving) and freezing (ice cube trays, flash freezing, made just-for-that-purpose little containers) and determined to do it all.
And I did. (Mostly. We did have some random jars of baby food when out and about, and/or as a last resort.) I discovered, however, that it wasn’t all that big of a deal.
Seriously, people. When just starting out on this food adventure, babies eat like a tablespoon at a time. Or less. And the puree stage simply just does not last long enough to justify freezing batches and batches of homemade baby food… unless you’re feeding triplets. Besides, you want to explore a whole world of tastes and textures with your little adventurer, and that’s hard to do when you have to finish half a gallon of mashed sweet potato, one tablespoon at a time!
I discovered a few more surprising elements to this whole homemade baby food venture along the way; namely, that it’s not always cheaper than the jarred baby food, and it’s not always that much healthier. And it’s certainly not always as convenient.
You know by now that my approach to life is QECH: Quick, Easy, Cheap, and Healthy. It’s pretty much my philosophy. If it ain’t QECH, I don’t do it. Most of the time. So the bottom line is this: Is making baby her own food QECH? Or not? Here’s my analysis:
Is it QUICK and EASY?
It can be. It all depends on the food in question, as some foods naturally lend themselves to easier prep. I found, for example, that unless I had pumpkin puree left over from some other purpose (like my annual fall pumpkin cooking extravaganza), it was simply not worth it to go to all that trouble of peeling, baking, and pureeing pumpkins and other winter squash just to give baby a few spoonfuls. There are plenty of foods, though, that just require a bit of smashing with a fork, or a quick whirr in the blender. Bananas come immediately to mind. Peel, mash, feed. That’s my kind of baby food.
You can also avail yourself of the tools available to you these days. This time around, I have a Baby Brezza machine that does most of the work for you: it steams and then blends whatever food you put into it. You do still have to peel and chop, but that doesn’t take a lot of time (depending on the food).
I also used these handy dandy little mesh feeders for my Certain Little Someone: all you do is put in a piece of fruit (like part of a plum or peach, for example), and they can safely gnaw away at it until it’s a little pile of pulp. Some people even put frozen foods in there for teething little ones, but I never tried that (was a little nervous!).
Of course, very little is as easy as unscrewing the cap off a jar, but there are many things you can feed baby fresh without a lot of time and effort.
But is it CHEAPer?
Again, I say, it can be. It all depends on what exactly you are comparing in cost. Do you pay full price for the jars? Then, yes, homemade baby food is definitely cheaper. However, if you use coupons and shop sales, baby food jars can be very inexpensive. I compromised by buying the jars when they were very cheap and saving them to use when we were away from home. I also shopped around and got the best price possible for all the foods I fed baby, just like the foods I fed everyone else in the family. If sweet potato was in season and on sale, that’s what baby ate. I remember he was really getting into solids during the summer, so I would buy him whatever was at the farmer’s market that week. There was one week in particular that nectarines were on sale. We gave one to him – whole – and he ate it all (we took out the pit of course), and loved it!
Some foods just aren’t any cheaper than the jars, no matter how you cut it. That’s when you have to decide what is more important to you: cost, convenience or the health factor.
Which brings us to the last question:
Is homemade baby food any HEALTHY-er?
My answer to this is: mostly, yes. The biggest advantage to homemade baby food is the freshness factor; because it is fresh, it retains the majority of nutrients. Who knows how long the canned baby food has been there, and if the food was fresh when it was processed to begin with?
Other than that, I don’t see where homemade baby food has any clear advantage in the health arena over the jarred baby food.
However, there are some jars you just don’t need to buy. I would stay far far away from any baby food jars that contain any of the following:
dessert (baby does NOT need “dessert”!)
yogurt (baby needs FRESH yogurt)
hot dogs (really, now, do we need an explanation?!)
grains (my personal opinion is that baby is just too young to process these properly, so hold off on them until they’re past the puree stage anyway)
I would also be very choosy about mixes containing meats as well. Personally, I prefer to make all his meat dishes myself, even if it is a little more work. To make it easier, I’ll just puree a portion of whatever meat the rest of us are eating for dinner until he’s capable of chewing it himself.
Whether or not you want to go whole hog with this homemade baby food idea, there are some foods that are just so easy to fix for baby that it would be silly not to! These foods definitely fall under my “QECH” philosophy, and can be incorporated into pretty much anybody’s routine. I’ve blogged about some of them before, but here they are again, in no particular order:
Avocado When I told my people I was feeding my Certain Little Someone avocado, I got a lot of strange looks and a lot of questions. Just two years later, it’s a lot more widely accepted, but it still may be a new idea to you. There is no reason not to feed a baby avocado, and all kinds of reasons why you should. There are two main reasons why I personally chose it as one of my babies’ first foods: it’s high in healthy fats (every baby needs fat in their diet) and it’s soooo easy (just scoop it out and mash a bit. You won’t find it in any jars, but that’s only because it’s difficult to can. It’s pretty cheap, too: I can almost always find them around here for $1.50 or less, and some areas of the country are much cheaper than that. And since baby only eats about 1/4 of it at a time, it definitely costs less than a jar.
Banana Just like an avocado, all you have to do is peel and mash. This one’s a no-brainer, folks. And if you consider that one banana costs about $0.20, and baby only eats approximately 1/3 of it at a time, it’s definitely one of the cheaper options.
Frozen Butternut Squash At my local grocery store, one package costs $1.00, and it has at least 3 or 4 servings. It has all the goodness of homemade pureed butternut squash… but without all the work. Just defrost it and feed to baby: easy!
Canned Pumpkin No, not pumpkin pie filling (please). Once again, almost as healthy as doing it yourself, but a lot less work. The main advantage of buying a can instead of jarred pumpkin for baby is that it’s a lot cheaper.
Applesauce What could be easier? Making applesauce at home is easy, too, but I find that around here, jarred applesauce is often cheaper. Just be sure to buy varieties without added sugar, or – horrors – high fructose corn syrup.
And there you have it folks! Five super easy foods you can feed baby without breaking into one of those pricey little jars. Bon appetit!
(Click on the picture to watch a video of Baby Boy enjoying his First Food!)
What to feed baby for his or her first food is a loaded question these days. Ten years ago, nobody thought twice about it; they just started spooning out the cereal when baby hit 4 months.
Thankfully, these days we know better. I am certain that almost a century of feeding babies non-nutritious rice cereal long before they are ready has paid a toll in a variety of ways, including increased occurrence of certain diseases, obesity, digestive issues, and eating disorders. Can I prove it? No. It is difficult to prove exactly what is the cause of the current terrible state of health here in the US. I believe that how we feed our infants has played an important part, though, and I am happy to see that the tide is turning.
You’ll find a lot of conflicting information, online and in real life, about what exactly to feed baby when. Not much of it is accurate, and some of it is merely a matter of opinion, open to interpretation and individual practice. I’ve sorted through the myriad of common claims, and come to my own conclusions, but instead of merely sharing my own opinion (which is just one more voice adding to the confusion) I’ll point you to some trusted reliable sources that can help you determine when and what to feed your baby, and most importantly, the reasons why.
Fiction: Start baby on solids at 4 months. In the old days, mommies started them even sooner, as early as 6 weeks or even a month. These days, 4 months is a typical starting point. On the other extreme, there are parents who wait until baby is 9 months or older.
Fact: Six months is a great age to start baby on solids. And not before. Most babies (I’m sure there are exceptions, but just to be safe, I think 6 months is a good rule) have simply not developed enough physically to begin solids prior to 6 months. Dr. Sears, the most balanced pediatrician in the public limelight today, highly recommends waiting until 6 months, and gives his reasons in this article, “6 Reasons to Wait”. You’ll note in his article that of all the physical developmental milestones he mentions, only one is typically reached by 4 months; most are achieved by 6 or 7 months. As for the other extreme, I think 6-8 months is a perfect window of opportunity for introducing solids; after that, you run the risk of nutrient deficiencies and an outright rejection of solids (I have seen the latter happen), especially the closer you get to the one-year landmark. On the whole, though, waiting longer is preferable to jumping the gun.
Fiction: Start with rice cereal. The reason behind this advice is that it is easily digested by baby, even younger babies, and it is not very allergenic.
Fact: Rice cereal has very little nutritional value. Brown rice cereal is a little better, but there are much better choices out there, like fruits, vegetables and even meat. Dr. Greer, a member of the AAP Committee on Nutrition, explains why other foods are preferable to rice cereal from a nutritional standpoint in this excellent article from Pediatric News. By the way, even though I knew all this already, I did go ahead with a half-hearted attempt at feeding my Certain Little Someone rice cereal; only because I didn’t want to be “weird”, and as a first-time mom, everybody was all up in my business about every little decision I made regarding his care. He hated it. After the first swallow, he wouldn’t touch it, so after a few days, I gave up and started with some real food, which he absolutely loved. This time around, I have no such compunction about what others think: I will feed my baby what I believe to be the best food for him!
Fiction: Feed baby vegetables first; hold off the fruit for later. The thinking is that baby will develop a sweet tooth if you give them the fruit first.
Fact: Breast milk is sweet. So is formula. Baby already has a sweet tooth. And the sugar in fruit is more helpful than harmful. Even nutritionists agree that it doesn’t really matter if you start with veggies or fruits first, as long as you eventually offer both. A good compromise is to start with sweeter veggies, like sweet potatoes or carrots, which is what I did with my Certain Little Someone (after the rice cereal fail), and now with Baby Boy.
Fiction: Avoid highly allergenic foods until baby is at least 1. The idea is that if you hold off highly allergenic foods, baby might not develop allergies to them.
Fact: There’s nothing you can do to prevent a child from developing allergies. Take it from the mama of two food allergic kiddos. And another fact: if you’ve been breastfeeding, your child has already been exposed to the proteins of the food you eat. So if they are allergic to something, they will already have exhibited the symptoms. It’s taking a while for the word to trickle down, but new food allergy recommendations suggest that there is no reason to wait on allergenic foods like cow’s milk or eggs simply because they are allergenic.
Fiction: Start with purees. After all, baby doesn’t have teeth, right?
Fact: You can offer baby soft foods that haven’t been pureed. I don’t 100% espouse the Baby Led Weaning theory, but I have adopted some of its ideas. There are definite benefits to offering baby soft foods in a stick (or french-fry) shape that he or she can hold and eat independently. Things like sweet potato french fries, or well-cooked noodles are great ideas for beginning baby foods. Besides which, there are foods that are naturally soft enough (like avocado, ripe peaches and ripe pears) for an infant to eat raw and unpureed from the beginning.
Based on my own conclusions drawn from the wide variety of methods and formulas I’ve read, here’s my basic plan for feeding Baby Boy:
Pureed and seasoned fruits and vegetables, both raw and cooked.
Also soft foods in a french-fry shape that he can explore eating on his own
Meats, pureed with some homemade broth, starting with chicken
Since he is allergic to dairy, I won’t be offering him any dairy products, but I will offer him some non-dairy yogurt (probably coconut milk if he’s not allergic to that).
If he proves not to be allergic to eggs, I will offer him mashed egg yolks early on, then scrambled whole eggs later.
Closer to the age of 12 months (maybe as early as 10 months; we’ll see), I will begin offering grains. Probably not Cheerios, though! I haven’t thought extensively about it, but I think oatmeal will be one of his first grains at some point.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the recommendation to hold off on foods like nuts, seeds, and raisins because of choking hazards. Baby has to grow some teeth and molars before he or she is ready for those (usually by the age of 2). And I do abide by the recommendation to avoid honey until the age of 1, and sugar in any form until the age of 1 as well.
So, what was Baby Boy’s Very First Food? Here you go:
Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Ginger
Ingredients
1 sweet potato
1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger root
Instructions
Wash, peel and dice the sweet potato. Steam (I used my Baby Brezza machine) together with the ginger until easily pierced with a fork, then mash with a fork or blender.
Read the next installment in this series: a discussion on the pros and cons of making Baby’s Food yourself. Is it worth the investment of time and energy? Are there ways to make it easier?
I haven’t been very good about posting lately, mostly because life has been just a trifle busy with all kinds of activities going on, including (but not limited to) baby showers, birth days, family visits and a funeral. But I’m having a quiet afternoon at the moment, so I’ll take a minute to actually post some of what I’ve been cooking up in the kitchen lately.
Yesterday, I took pretty much the last container of food for my Certain Little Someone out of the freezer. Any other child his age would be mostly eating table food with the rest of the family by this point, but he has multiple food allergies so I just fix him big batches of his own food and store them in the freezer.
Although this post is of particular interest to those of you with little someones, and especially those little someones who have allergies (bless them and bless you!), read on even if neither of those is the case with you because you might still find an idea for a quick and easy dish for you and your family!
1. Crock Pot Applesauce Applesauce isn’t normally something I bother to make, even though it’s quick and easy. If I had an apple tree in my backyard, I’d probably make it a lot because then it would be cheaper than storebought. But since I have no apple tree in my backyard, I just buy the jars of applesauce when they go on sale.
However, at this time of year, apples go on sale for .99/lb or less and I had a 5-lb bag of McIntosh apples to use up. I’m not super fond of McIntosh apples to be honest, but neither my DH nor my Certain Little Someone are as particular as I am, so I figured for .99/lb, at least 2 members of my household would be happy! I took approximately 4 lbs worth of the apples (10 small apples), peeled, cored and sliced them and then placed them in the crock pot with about 1/2 cup of apple juice and 3 small cinnamon sticks. I set the crockpot to cook on high for 4 hours and voila! At the end, I didn’t even have to process the sauce through the blender like I normally do when I make applesauce on the stovetop. All I had to do was stir. So easy! My mom gave me this little tip: she makes extra applesauce (she DOES have an apple tree, only it’s in her front yard) and freezes it. So if you have extra apples and extra room in the freezer, make as much applesauce as you can fit in the crock pot and save the leftovers.
2. FUNky Beet Shapes This is a great tip I read at WholesomeBabyFood.com: Clean and peel beets (I guess turnips would work, too?) then slice them into fairly thick slices. Use small cookie cutters to cut them into fun shapes. Place the shapes on a lightly greased cookie sheet, brush them with olive oil, sprinkle them with black pepper (or other seasoning as you desire) and cook at 350 until the beets are tender, about 15 minutes or so. This makes a GREAT finger food that might even entice your picky pre-schooler to try beets. I think this is a great idea that would transfer well to some other vegetables as well.
I also made this beet salad which I thought he would enjoy because he loves prunes. I used dairy-free yogurt instead of the mayo and garlic powder instead of actual garlic, and omitted the walnuts altogether. Either he hates beets or this combo just doesn’t work for him, because he refused to eat any of it but the prunes!! Oh well, I’ll keep trying, and next time I think I’ll omit the garlic.
3. Chicken Rice Squash “Casserole” I use the term “casserole” loosely here. Basically this is just pureed butternut squash, cooked brown rice and cooked ground chicken mixed together with some spices for extra flavor. This is a great toddler food because it’s easy and they don’t know the difference between this and any other casserole, but I wouldn’t recommend serving it to your family if you want them to stay your friends. But if you have a food-allergic child, “casseroles” like this are easy because they don’t have any allergenic ingredients (dairy products like white sauce and cheese or creamed soups, or thickeners like wheat flour, etc.). Also, if your child is learning to self-feed with a spoon, like mine is, this is a great recipe to use because it sticks to the spoon pretty well. Food flung around the room: not cool!
4.Kidney Beans My Certain Little Someone L-O-V-E-S beans like crazy. It’s pretty funny, actually! I’m happy though, because as restricted as his diet is, the fact that he can eat beans and rice is good. As I understand it, beans and rice together form complete amino acids such as the kind found in meat. Since he can’t eat beef, and we are unsure about turkey and fish, this is a good thing. To make the beans, I just cooked them normally (quick-soaking and then simmering for a couple hours) and seasoned them with olive oil, black pepper and some other spices.
5. Chicken Meatballs Chicken is one protein he CAN have, so he gets a lot of it. I had never bought ground chicken before, to my knowledge, but now I buy it pretty regularly. Making meatballs for a food-allergic child is kind of tricky because of the eggs and bread-crumbs, but I skirt around that by using rice cereal and either vegetable puree or, in this case, enough apple juice to moisten the meat/rice mixture. I added in some spices and formed the balls with a melon baller. Cook at 400 for about 20 minutes. I used a mini muffin pan, but they can be cooked on a cookie sheet or in larger portions in a regular sized muffin pan.
6. Stuffed Acorn Squash Here’s an allergen-free side dish the whole family will enjoy! Use a sharp knife to poke some holes in the acorn squash and cook it whole for about 5 minutes in the microwave, until it’s soft enough to cut in half. Place the halves face up in a casserole dish and fill the cavities with chopped apples, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger to taste. Cook at 400 for 30-40 minutes or until soft. To serve it to my little foodie, I just scoop out some of the “meat” of the squash together with some of the filling, and chop it roughly with a knife. He eats the chunks with his fingers.
7. Cooked Carrot Sticks I make these as a side dish all the time, and my Certain Little Someone devours them. Cutting the carrots into sticks makes it easy for him to grasp and eat, even though his pincer grasp is now well-developed. I make a batch for the whole family and save some extra for him. First, I cook the carrots in my microwave steamer with just a little water. Once they’re tender (I cook them a little longer so they’re soft enough for him), I stir in about 1 TBSP of allergen-free margarine (try certain types of SmartBalance and Earth Balance) and a small amount of seasoned salt or salt replacer (such as Spike).
OK, so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice – just an afternoon of hard work – but it made for a good title, so I went with it!
I don’t know if you other moms out there are like me or not, but I always seem to have trouble knowing what to feed my Certain Little Someone, who is not quite an infant anymore, but not quite a toddler yet (although we’re getting there!). I struggle with this very basic issue for several reasons:
*his allergies *his preferences (wow, he’s picky already) *his capabilities *and my own desire to feed him food that is healthy.
What typically happens is that he’s ready to eat and is telling me in no uncertain terms, and I’m scrambling around the kitchen trying to figure out what in the world to feed the kid.
I think I have hit upon a solution! You’ve probably heard of Once a Month Cooking. Well, I decided to try Once a Week (or two) Cooking. I bought all the fresh produce and other ingredients I would need, found a few recipes of food I wanted him to try (Wholesome Baby Food is a great website!), and then spent the entire afternoon whipping it all up and storing it in the freezer. Now all I have to do is pull his lunch or dinner (I even made muffins for breakfast!) from the freezer, defrost it and his meal is served. The last time I did it, I made enough to last almost two weeks. I think today I definitely made enough for two weeks, and then some. My plan is to do a little bit every week to keep my supply going, and to generate variety in his diet.
How is this QUICK? Although it seemed like a really long time because of all that I accomplished, it actually only took me about 3 and a half hours to do all this work. Now, 3 and a half hours is a big chunk of time, but when you spread it over 2 or 3 weeks… all of a sudden, it seems like a great exchange!
It makes my life EASY. See, I have this dilemma. I try to feed him more or less on a schedule every day. But if I try to prepare his food ahead of time, he sees what I’m doing (he’s no dummy!) and starts following me around, grabbing my legs, fussing and crying and generally insisting that he must eat NOW. But if I wait until he’s actually hungry, that scenario is just magnified. It’s a lot easier if the food is just prepared and all I have to do is pop it in the microwave a few seconds (or take it out early if I’m REALLY prepared).
This method is CHEAP, because I do not resort to jarred or pre-packaged foods, which I tend to do on occasion. At any rate, he’s getting old for jarred food, but I still have to bring his food with me wherever we go because of his allergies. So this is a cheaper way for me to provide his food wherever we are.
And it’s HEALTHY. It’s mostly vegetables with some grains and a little meat thrown in. And, of course, some fat, which is healthy for all of us, but especially for baby. Nothing processed here, which is great for his growing little body.
So here’s what I made:
1. Kidney Beans I did the quick-soak method (you know me, quick and easy!) in which you bring the beans to a boil, boil them for 2 minutes, then let them soak for an hour or so. After that, I boiled them in part chicken stock, part water. You would not believe how much my Certain Little Someone LOVES beans. They’re a great finger food for him and not too messy.
2. Shredded Chicken My Certain Little Someone has this little irritating problem that he doesn’t like to chew food unless it’s food he loves. So, although he likes pureed chicken in just about anything (applesauce, pumpkin, squash, rice, you name it), he strongly dislikes chewing pieces of chicken. So I am slowly trying to ease him out of that by pureeing it less and less. My food processor has a “shred” button, which works nicely for that purpose. My next step will be to dice it in small pieces.
3. Butternut Squash Puree He has definitely grown out of the need for pureed food, but the fact is that even we as adults eat pureed foods! They are useful in making a variety of dishes like casseroles and soups and even baked goods. I like to keep some simple purees of single ingredients on hand to mix with chicken or rice for a quick meal.
4. Chicken Rice “Casserole” I combined some of the pureed squash, the shredded chicken, rice and applesauce to create this baby casserole. I added just a touch of garlic powder, black pepper and thyme just to get him used to some different flavors.
5. Orange Muffins The recipe on the back of Bob’s Red Mill White Rice Flour is a lifesaver! It mixes up easily and bakes up nicely, which is rare for allergen-free baked goods. Also it’s flexible so you can make it however you want. I’m sure you could substitute regular flour for the rice flour, but I’ve never tried it.
Sue’s Rice Muffins 1 egg (I used egg replacer) 1/2 cup liquid (I used orange juice) 2 TBSP sugar 2 TBSP Canola oil (I used coconut oil) 1 cup white rice flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt
Mix in 1 quart measuring pitcher until well mixed. Bake in greased 6 cup muffin tin (I used a mini-muffin tin) at 425 for 17-20 minutes.
The recipe also calls for 2 TBSP of chopped nuts or carob/chocolate chips, or 1/4 cup raisins, chopped dates or blueberries. I typically throw in some kind of fruit, although I did not this time.
6. Irish Griddle Cakes The original recipe is from Cooking Free by Carol Fenster. This is how I make it:
1 cup mashed potatoes 1/4 cup rice flour 1/4 cup tapioca flour 1/4 cup potato starch (You can use 3/4 cup of regular flour in place of these) 1/2 tsp xanthan gum (not necessary if you use regular flour) 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp rosemary 1/2 tsp onion powder 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 TBSP coconut oil (or any oil) 1 TBSP milk of any kind (I actually used coconut milk kefir because that’s the only allergen-safe milk-type product I had on hand) oil for frying
Use a food processor to mix all ingredients (except the oil for frying, of course) until thoroughly blended. Roll the dough out (it’s useful to use sheets of wax paper because it tends to be somewhat sticky) into a 1/4 inch thick circle. Cut the circle into wedges. Heat a cast-iron skillet on medium high and add oil. Fry the griddle cakes for a few minutes on each side, until they are golden brown.
My Certain Little Someone really enjoyed this until he got to the last little bit, then he threw it over the side of the high chair and said, “Done!”
7. Sweet Potato Fries Wow, he LOVES these! I just peel and cut a sweet potato into fry-shaped pieces and mix them with some olive oil and whatever herbs or spices I feel like using at the time. (Sweet potatoes work well with either sweet or savory spices; they’re very flexible.) Then I spread them in one layer on a baking sheet and cook them at 400, turning them over after about 10 minutes or so. Most recipes I’ve read say to cook them for half an hour or more, but mine burn long before that. I’ve learned that about 20 minutes is all I need.
(Sorry about the really bad pic! Not sure what happened there!)
8. Sweet Potato Pancakes Scroll down the page on the link above to find the recipe for this sweet little treat which my Certain Little Someone simply adores. He gobbles these things up in no time flat. I make it with egg replacer, rice flour, dairy-free margarine and non-dairy milk, and they turn out great, in case you also cook for a food-allergic child. These are probably pretty tasty for adults, too, but I’m not a huge fan of sweet potatoes myself.
9. Sweet Potato Puree Sweet potato puree is so simple: all you have to do is wash the sweet potato and put it in a 400 oven for 30-60 minutes (depending on the size). Slice it down the middle and peel off the skin, and there’s your sweet potato puree! Great for babies, but also for cooking any kind of recipe with sweet potato puree in it (like sweet potato pie, which is just disgusting, but some people love it!).
10. Mashed Potatoes … with Peas! I have tried feeding my Certain Little Someone pureed peas with… amusing… results. The faces he makes! BUT if I “hide” the peas in mashed potatoes, he gobbles them up like they’re chocolate chips (except he doesn’t know yet how wonderful chocolate chips are…). I make mashed potatoes allergen-free simply by using dairy-free margarine and non-dairy milk. Simple!
Whew! It was quite the workout and I was hot and sweaty by the time I was done. But now I have a whole slew of food in my freezer (packaged in individual servings, by the way) that I can pull out as needed! Now I can go relax… This post is part of:
* QUICK - because who has time for anything more?
* EASY - because I'm no gourmet.
* CHEAP - because who has money for anything more?
* HEALTHY - because you are what you eat.
I also used these handy dandy
