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November 2011 Moms
JKTTC1
member
Let's talk Making Your Own Baby Food!
JKTTC1
member
LO started eating solids a little before 5.5 months. He is 6 months today! He is EBF (I pump at work) and has never STTN. He cut his two bottom teeth one week before he turned 5 months.He is in to everything we are eating. He gets very made at us if we are eating and he can't eat too!
I started making his food about 2 weeks ago. He would never eat rice cereal but he does eat oatmeal (flavored w/ bananas) every morning for breakfast. At first we tried bananas and apples from the jar. He wouldn't eat any of it. Then I mashed avocados and he LOVED it! My granny passed away right after LO was born. We recently cleaned out her house and I was able to get her food processor and steamer basket. I put the avocado's in the food processor and pureed them, put them in the baby fresh ice cube trays to freeze, and then put them in ziploc freezer bags once they were frozen. I've labeled the bags. How long can foods be in the freezer? (We have a side by side or I can put it in the deep freezer in our garage.) Ive read online different things: 6 weeks or 3 months??
Once we got avocados we did bananas and he loved those! We've since moved on to peas, sweet potatoes, apples, pears, plums, and carrots. LO has LOVED everything. I bought frozen peas & carrots, steamed them, and purred them. Everything else was fresh and steamed or either baked before pureeing.
When I was pureeing everything in the beginning I was adding BM to thin it out. LO likes his food warmed in the microwave but I got to thinking....Is it okay to microwave the food if it was made with BM?
Today I cooked sweet potatoes, plums, pears, and carrots but I used water instead of BM. He usually does oatmeal in the mornings, fruit at lunch, and veggie at supper. Last night he was SUPER hungry and wanted more so I opened a jar of the Earth's Best Chicken & Brown Rice Dinner (squash, chicken, rice, and corn). He LOVED it too!!! I guess we have a hungry boy on our hands!
I got a little chart in from Gerber. It says cereal in the morning with applesauce, lunch: veggie and some dinner combo, afternoon snack: fruit, dinner: cereal, veggie, and another dinner combo. It also says you can introduce yogurt at this time. I bought the yobaby organic blueberry yogurt. (made w/ whole milk)
So after all this I guess these are my questions:
1. How long can the purees stay in the freezer?
2. Can I warm the food in the microwave if it's been made with breastmilk?
3. What is your LO's schedule like if he/she is on solids?
4. Have you tried yogurt yet?
#2-BO 6/6/13 D/C #3 natural m/c 8/6/13
#4 EDD 5/19/14 It's a boy!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Let's talk Making Your Own Baby Food!
!. I'm not sure
2. Baby food shouldn't be microwaved whether it has BM in it or not. Even if it's heated evenly and not too hot, microwaves kill the digestive enzymes in food.
3. So far, about 2 tbsp between 12 and 1 pm and about 2 tbps between 5 and 6 pm.
4. We've been letting her play with yogurt melts, and she's eaten a couple, but I haven't introduced regular yogurt yet.
my read shelf:
1. Up to 3 months but the sooner, the better.
2. Probably but next time I would wait and just add it after you have heated the pur?e. Then there's no question :-)
3. (Edited) About an hour before her last bottle of the day
4. No, and we are still on single foods once a day
That list from gerber seems like a lot for 6 months. I'm waiting to talk to pedi before adding more meals. just my gut on it though, all babies are different.
1. How long can the purees stay in the freezer?
- I have the baby bullet and it says freshly made baby food is good in the fridge for 3 days, frozen is good for one month.
2. Can I warm the food in the microwave if it's been made with breastmilk?
- You can but like PP said it takes out the nutrients in the food, so your best option is to steam. Also, just like heating BM/Formula, it's not recommended to heat it in the microwave because you can get "hot spots"
3. What is your LO's schedule like if he/she is on solids?
- LO eats 8 oz of formula every three hours, and then at 4-430 he will eat one serving (one ice cube tray) of purree. This is usually one hour after his last feeding, and less than 2 hours before his bedtime feeding.
4. Have you tried yogurt yet
- Nope not yet... they don't recommend cows milk til LO reaches a year... so unless it's soy/etc (not recommended anyways b/c of allergies) he won't be having it
I am not an expert, but will just share what we're doing:
1. I'm just using my own judgment on this one...but I'd say a month is ideal. 3 months might be long enough for freezer burn or whatnot.
2. So, we add breastmilk to cereal - the milk is in the fridge and is always pretty cold so we do microwave it for 3-4 seconds. Just enough to take the chill out. We always check for hotspots. It may be true that microwaving it affects the enzymes, but that's the case with microwaving in general, even for adults. Or heating food at all, for that matter. The reality in our family is that we don't have a ton of time to heat up small quantities of food on the stove all the time so we're microwaving in tiny amounts and I have no guilt about it. Or - we also just let the puree sit out for awhile so it's not super cold and just feed it slightly cool/room temp...though my baby likes it a little warm.
3. LO eats 5 oz (give or take) of breastmilk every 2-3ish hours during the day. We've just been doing one meal a day so far in the evenings, and will feed 2 -3 tablespoons (but we just started solids). My plan is to do cereal in the morning and a fruit/veggie or meat/veggie combo puree (when appropriate in the evenings).
4. We will probably hold off on the yogurt until 9 -10 months when we also start doing cheese.
1. 1 month
2. Not sure, I don't use breastmilk, but I do heat food in the microwave sometimes. Usually only 8-10 sec, that gets it about room temperature if its pulled straight out of the refrigerator.
3. Right now, we do solid food at his second feeding of the day, which is around 11:00, and around dinner time. He eats about 2 oz each time. He doesn't really like cereal, so we just do a fruit or veggie at both feedings. We're going to try moving up to 3 a day soon. We started solids when he was about 4.5 months, did it once a day for about a month, and then started doing twice a day
4. No, I probably won't until 7-8 months.
I use this website alot, https://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/index.htm
It has a ton of information and has been really helpful for me
1. How long can the purees stay in the freezer? 3 months
2. Can I warm the food in the microwave if it's been made with breastmilk? I don't add the BM when I make the food. I freeze without and then add breastmilk when thawed to get to the right thickness
3. What is your LO's schedule like if he/she is on solids? Nurse at 7 am, bottle at 11am with solids following, bottle at 3pm with solids following, nurse at 6:30 pm with solids following, bottle before bed around 8:30.
4. Have you tried yogurt yet? Not yet, but I am asking the doctor about it this week (6 month appointment)