let's talk baby food

jessica_gail2 · January 2014

S is about 8.5 months old, and I'm totally in a rut with her food. I make her purees (we haven't done BLW) from veggies from our garden and some store bought, but at this point I'm at a loss for what all I should be giving her. We made a ton of squash and zucchini (bc they were so plentiful in our garden) and she refuses to eat those. She loved green beans at first, but the last batch I made I think I watered them down too much and she hasn't been a fan. She'll eat green peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, pears, apples, and peaches.

We've started giving her some of our table food. She loves, loves, loves bread. She'll eat mashed potatoes too. And we've started puffs and yogurt melts and she does well with those.

I tried giving her a cut-in-half blueberry and she gagged because the skin got stuck to her tongue. She hates bananas.

What else should I be giving her? I've checked out wholesome baby foods and it has a great list, but like...onions? Mushrooms? I'm not going to cook and puree a think of onions.

So what do I do? How did you intro foods like blueberries that may have skins that are tougher to do? And I'm almost thinking buy some baby food that has meat in it so that she'll become used to that as well?

Sorry this is so long and ramble-y. I'm just confused!!

ccam · January 2014

I wish I wrote more stuff down because I already forget exactly what we were doing at this point!! The wholesome baby food website was pretty much my bible. But we were definitely doing yogurt and scrambled egg yolks by then, have you tried these? Yogurt is still one of DS's favorites. We also introduced a lot of fingers foods - shredded cheese, shredded chicken, steamed (really overcooked) broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, baby cereal muffins (there are a ton of recipes online and it was a way to use up cereal and purees that he wasn't eating anymore!). If you feel it's too early to move onto shredded chicken, you can puree it, even though it looks disgusting! But DS loved it and I would mix it with those veggies he wasn't too fond of anymore. Have you tried mixing those purees in with really small pasta or quinoa?

And the whole gagging thing with stuff like blueberries, I think it's sort of part of the process. As long as their gagging and not choking, it's probably more of a texture thing. I would just cut up the blueberries and DS eventually got the hang of it. I think it's just the fact that he was going from purees and cereals to whole foods.

Good luck. Even feeding your child is a confusing process!!

JBDamonM · January 2014

I don't have much to add other than yogurt like @ccam said. Does she eat Avacado? You could add that in as well. I have also made a few blends - including apples and blueberries - simmer on stove, and then puree together.

Also, if you aren't opposed to something bought - I have also tried the Plum Organic blend pouches (just used blueberry, carrot and spinach - or something like that)..... I make msot of LO's food and my rule is if I buy anything - it must be organic.

Not to hijack your post (I apologize) but my LO is 9 months and has little interest in finger foods. The daycare teacher tells me all the time that she is eating puffs but she doesn't seem to do it at home..... Anyone have any suggestions on how to work through this? at 9 months i want to be thinking about moving away from purees and towards real food!

kzawisl · January 2014

JBDamonM said:
I don't have much to add other than yogurt like @ccam said. Does she eat Avacado? You could add that in as well. I have also made a few blends - including apples and blueberries - simmer on stove, and then puree together.

Also, if you aren't opposed to something bought - I have also tried the Plum Organic blend pouches (just used blueberry, carrot and spinach - or something like that)..... I make msot of LO's food and my rule is if I buy anything - it must be organic.

Not to hijack your post (I apologize) but my LO is 9 months and has little interest in finger foods. The daycare teacher tells me all the time that she is eating puffs but she doesn't seem to do it at home..... Anyone have any suggestions on how to work through this? at 9 months i want to be thinking about moving away from purees and towards real food!

My niece refused to eat anything with texture. Purées for life. ;-) the pedi suggested breaking the puffs into pieces and sprinkling over a spoonful of purée, to introduce her to the idea. As for the OP, have you tried making blends of your purées? My littles hates spinach, but spinach-pear purée? Yes please. Ditto for cauliflower...but if it was mixed with sweet potato, game on. Ditto the gagging vs choking...they will gag as they try new things. And if my two are any indication, a baby's gag reflex is amazing. Molly would gag a lot, but never once choked or even coughed.

mcgeeva · January 2014

My son had a terrible time with texture but I wanted him to get proteins etc. I would make a really healthy chicken soup and puree the whole thing down so he could eat it like anything else. I did the same with pasta and meatballs etc. I just added BM to the food to make it a little more liquidy. They go through phases of what they do and don't like but I still now feel like they must get bored becuase I feel like you have go to items and will do those for a while till they can't stand it. So hard to keep giving variety.

PennyLane26 · January 2014

Hi J!!! Can you believe the girls are getting so old?!

We tried strict BLW but it didn't work for us so we sort of just made things up as we went along! I hated ye gagging too but G stopped pretty soon after she was used to things.

I think the easiest finger foods to start with are peeled and steamed zucchini, avocado and scrambled eggs. Also picking out veggies/beans from homemade soups is easy, they get softer as the soup sits in the fridge!

Once G handled those well we moved onto things with skin (blueberries, peas, corn) as well as things like ground turkey, egg noodle casserole with cottage cheese, and anything we have for dinner, within reason.

She now prefers finger foods over being spoon fed but I do spoon feed her hummus (really just pureed beans), yogurt with fruit purée, or things like canned pumpkin, applesauce, or store bought puree if we are out.

jessica_gail2 · January 2014

Thanks to all of you! It sounds like I've been lazy...I need to intro her to more stuff!!!

This whole baby thing is confusing

@PennyLane26 I can't believe the girls are nearly 9 months at all! This seemed so far away when we first had them.

jessica_gail2 · January 2014

Wait...question...so is a whole egg ok for S? Or just the yolk?

queenbone · January 2014

I used store bought baby food, but I'd add onions and mushrooms to some of the veggies you are preparing. Maybe they just need more flavor for her? And begin to introduce beef/chicken stock with those purees. I would feed cooked pinto or black beans, baked sweet potatoes, lentils. There will be some gagging as she learns to adjust, but that should be normal.

ccam · January 2014

I started with egg yolk and then moved onto the whole egg after a while. I guess the white is the part that people are allergic too?? Don't quote me though!

Oh and I agree with starting to season stuff.

TJ1979 · January 2014

jessica_gail2 said:
Wait...question...so is a whole egg ok for S? Or just the yolk?

Personal decision. We started whites at 6 months with all other allergens (except peanuts just bc we don't keep pb.) I think @pb_bride introduced potential allergens prior to 6 months to help prevent allergies which is a newer recommendation. My pedi said that the research regarding when to introduce potential allergens was conflicting an to just make a decision. So we went with 6 months because we have no family history of food allergens on either side.
Honey is the only food with a specific do not give before date. But that's bc of botulism not allergens.

Dragonfly1226 · January 2014

With DS we puréed blueberries, and he loved them. As a rule of thumb, I would try to give him a veggie, a protein, and a whole grain at each meal. I would purée chicken and fish and mix it in with sweet potatoes or whatever else I had made that sounded good. You can make lentils or beans and purée them too. I would also buy frozen fruits and make mixed fruit purées that he loved. His early finger foods were puffs and Cheerios, mandarin oranges, soft steamed zucchini, really well done whole wheat pasta... whatever I had that I could make really soft and easy to mush up.

pb_bride · January 2014

We did purees for about 6 weeks and m then refused the spoon, so we went the BLW-style feeding. Fruits are always a big hit. M isn't a big fan of blueberries. Our blueberry season was from June thru late August, and I offered to him almost every day and he would eat maybe 6 on a good day. Just keep trying, or wait a month or two before re offering. M used to hate strawberries but now he eats them. As for skins, I was peeling cherries for M, as well as plums and peaches. I don't peel blueberries though. He was not crazy about grapes initially, but again, when I offer them a few months later, he loves it. As for veggies, when we first started, we did a lot of overcooked carrots and broccoli. Surprisingly, M loves corn on the cob! We also do green leafy veggies a lot and m seems to like them okay. As @tj1979 mentioned, several new studies are now saying that it may be better to introduce allergenic foods to babies between 4-6 months, which reduce their future risk of food allergies (assuming no such allergies run in the family). M was given all those food before he turned 1 - whole eggs, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts etc

LeoLauren · January 2014

You can steam chicken with Rosemary and thyme in a cheesecloth then purée it. Tomorrow I'm making homemade chicken soup and then will purée that. I love making weird concoctions of purées - like spinach/mashed potatoes/butternut squash/apples. I love making mixed fruit purées too from frozen fruit. I want to try my 8 month old on more textured foods like puffs and bread but every time I do, he gags. Any recs?

Dstevens429 · January 2014

I just realized I am way behind in the food thing for A. We just started 3 meals a day and I recently started adding textures to his purees with pastina and rice. A still gags on puffs and then spits them out. I tried spaghetti noodles and again spit out. I done over steamed broccoli but he just mushes it in his hands. I think I may have to start pushing real foods a bit more.

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