Homemade Baby Food Questions

raepny2

I just got a Baby Bullet! Yay! And I'm really excited for when DS starts solids (which won't be until he's closer to 6 months, but I'm thinking ahead here). My questions for those of you who have already started:

If the recipe calls for water to added (like to the cereal) and I want to use BM instead, do I just use the same amount?? For example, the recipe calls for 4 cups of water to thin it out. Would you use 4 cups of BM or half and half ? 4 cups seems like a lot BM to me and I'm thinking it would take away from his bottle (EPer here). WWYD??

Also, for buying some veggies, can I buy frozen steamer bags and use those? Like for the peas and such? I would love to buy fresh for most everything, but would hate having to shell peas!

 Do you have any general tips or advice for a mommy who wants to make homemade baby food?? 

TIA! 

 

vaohara

Ive made carrots, peas ( frozen bag), avocado, squash, frozen bagged peaches and 4 of liquid cups seems like it would be way too much. I used water instead. For example, I did one bag of peaches and added maybe 1/2 cup water. Also when I did carrots I did 4 and it made about 10 1 oz portions. The bag of peas made 25 1 oz portions. I would love to use breast milk but I don't have much to spare so water it is! Have fun!

SusieBW

I think the recipes are a good guide, but it's more important that you get the right consistency for your LO.  So maybe that 4 cups is perfect, or maybe you'll need a little more or a little less.  Just be prepared to be flexible, I guess.  You can use whatever you want to thin it out - if you want to use all BM, go for it, but if you feel like that's cutting into your stash too much, you could use the water that you cooked/steamed the veggies in (except for high nitrate foods like carrots), or just regular water or even formula if you want something higher nutrient than plain water (but you should introduce the formula to LO alone before you do that, to make sure that he doesn't have any kind of allergy or reaction).  I haven't made any big batches of anything yet, but for the stuff I have made, I've been using ready-to-use liquid formula that we have left over from when LO first started formula and I kept for this purpose.  I have some BM saved up for making bigger batches of stuff.

Fresh or frozen are your best bets for fruits and veggies, and you should avoid canned whenever possible, except for pumpkin.  Canned pumpkin is just pumpkin, while most canned fruits and veggies are either in sugary syrup or water that will suck the nutrients out of the actual veggies, so they're not as good.  Fine in a pinch, but better to use fresh or frozen whenever you can.

Have fun with it!  Introduce just one food at a time, but remember that he's just a tiny person - most foods aren't going to hurt him, and he'll probably have likes and dislikes just like everyone else, and those tastes might change over time.  If he hates something, shelve it for a couple of weeks before you try again.  I'm not planning to make any big batches of anything until I try it out for a few days and make sure DD likes it.  Also, food is just for fun and practice at this point, so don't stress out about it!

Wholesomebabyfood.com is a great online resource, and I just got the book Super Baby Food for Christmas and I'm finding that to be a great reference in terms of what foods are good to introduce at what age and the best ways to prepare and store various things.  Good luck and have fun!

babyAutumn

I use water to cook the baby cereals.  Once you refrigerate them, they thicken up so that's when I add BM too thin them.  I do the same for other fruits and veggies.  I don't add BM before freezing because I'm too worried that the BM will seperate and change the texture of the food.  It might not but that's just me.

baby2011boy

I was told to never, ever mix formula and breast milk, as it changes the make-up of the breast milk - but to feed it separately. I would do some research on mixing the breast milk with the food.