When did you start giving LO more than just formula/breastmilk and what did you start with? What's your preferred brand of baby food? Our pedi says to wait until 6 months - what does/did yours say??
Just wondering since I'm already starting to read/research. I'm not sure if I want to puree my own baby food since I know that can be time consuming, but I do want to make sure whatever I give Vivi doesn't have a lot of preservatives or any hormones in it.
Re: Baby food . . .
We will be waiting until he is 6 months old to start. With DS #1, he never took to the cereal so we went right to veggies- it was SO much easier to make the purees and cheaper too! Just steam, blend and serve or freeze in ice cube trays. We'll likely start with sweet potatoes.
I started all three kids at different ages. My oldest started at 6 months, per both our pediatrician's instructions and the readiness signs on kellymom.com. My middle one started at 8 months because that's when she was ready and interested. My son started this week at 4.5 months with our pedi's approval (she said that theories on the best time keep evolving) based on his readiness signs from kellymom.
Right now my son has oatmeal, which I do buy the baby version of because grinding whole grains can be a pain. We got beechnut because that was the only one that was only oat flour. I mix it with breastmilk, so it's mostly breastmilk with a touch of oats.
My oldest took to purees, so I made them myself. Including clean up I spent maybe 1 hour a week on it. Really easy, I had more control over what was in it (added garlic in early to get her used to the flavors I cook with). She only did purees for 4-5 months as I very quickly thickened them and it was a quick transition to table foods.
My younger daughter never ate purees (she still won't eat anything of that texture) and had no interest in foods until 8 months and she ended up going to small pieces of food just cut up.
I plan on doing some purees with my son, but like with my oldest I'll mix in my own flavors and move him to table food very quickly.
Having looked at the price of baby food (it comes out to something like $10/lb for bananas!) I realized I could easily steam and puree food myself for less than 1/4 the cost. I'm way too cheap to waste money like that.
My pedi said to start when DS starts showing signs and expects us to have tried a few different foods before his 6 month appointment. I'll probably start with baby oatmeal just to get him used to texture and the spoon. I've thought about making a few things on my own but that won't last long. I go back to work teaching in August and I'm not spending my time at home making baby food in addition to everything else I do.
I want to do BLW for the most part though so purees may not last long anyway.
TTC #1 since 3/2011
DX: anovulatory and severe MFI
DH is a testicular cancer survivor
IVF#1 w/ICSI lupron, gonal f, ovidrel
ER 6/15/12 6R 6M 6F! ET 6/20/12
Beta #1: 154 Beta #2: 509 Beta #3: 7326
Baby Boy born 3/1/2013
TTC#2: 6/2014 all testing came back normal
IVF#2 (#1 for LO#2) 9/2014 - 17R 10M 10F 4 blasts frozen on day 6.
FET #1 10/15/14 - Beta #1: 216 Beta #2: 823
Baby Boy born 7/10/2015
I am going to start putting rice cereal in his bottle at 4 months and baby food at 6 months
I started at 5 months, with Baby Led Weaning. LO now eats one small meal a day, at dinner. It can be just bananas, or (like tonight) spaghetti. Last night she ate some of my pork and beans. She has tried basically everything and loves feeding herself.
She is one messy little girl though
I just started DS on cereal within the last few weeks and he has been eating like a champ until he picked up a stomach bug at daycare this week and isn't eating anything... Now that we have this disruption when he's back to his normal routine I think I'm going to nix the cereal all together and go right to the purees; there isn't a lot of nutritional value from the cereal and I'd rather DS get it from his milk and/or fruits and vegetables.
I made all of DD's baby food, I even made the meat (which in hindsight she hated and I gagged while making it). I didn't have any of the fancy food prep machines, I just baked/steamed the food as each one needed to retain nutritional value in bulk and froze it in ice trays. It lasted about three months frozen, so I would just pop a few cubes into a bowl and send to daycare for her. Last weekend I bought pears, apples and sweet potatoes to start the process all over again with DS and ended up spending a lot of time doing this- it took me away from spending time with DD (who is 4 and wants to help with everything), DS and DH- as well as put a lot of pressure on DH to handle both kids while I did this.
It was a lot easier for me to make everything when it was just DD and she was napping- this time I think I'm going to spend the extra money and buy food. I see the HappyFamily brand a lot, as well as Plum organics. Not sure, I just know that I want to introduce a great variety as DS gets a little older since DD was pretty much a basic fruit/veggie/no meat eater and is still picky to this day.