Thursday, August 17, 2017

Homemade Baby Food & Introducing Solids





Since birth Georgia has been exclusively breast fed, she hadn't had anything but breast milk up until a couple weeks ago when I thought it might be time to start introducing some actual food into her life.  I knew that I was going to skip rice cereal and move right into purees and eventually baby-led weaning (BLW) so that's exactly what we did!  I know there are some different opinions out there about when to start introducing solids, but I felt like since we were almost to the 6 month mark it was a good time to start.  Here is an amazing article from BeHealthy that talks about the best superfoods for babies who are just starting solids.


I reached out on Insta stories to see what my followers had the most success with, what they started with, and how they did it, homemade or store bought.  I knew I wanted to try homemade at first, especially since she is still getting the majority of her meals from breast milk.  After lots and lots of responses and suggestions I decided to start with peas. 








I bought Target Market Pantry frozen peas for .97, you steam them directly in the bag so I did that, pureed them in my food processor and added about 3oz of breast milk to get them the consistency I wanted.  Without some liquid, they would've been a little too thick & pasty.  3oz seemed to be perfect and we let her try them.  She was pretty uncertain at first but has really taken to them, opening her mouth now for us and even helping with the spoon!  It's the cutest thing, also very messy.  One thing I can say is do not go out and buy an expensive baby food system, you can use a simple and cheap food processor  and it does the exact same thing and is much cheaper!




We also did sweet potatoes and butternut squash, both of which have been a hit.  I bought 1 medium sweet potato, poked holes in it, set it on a baking sheet and baked it for about 45 minutes at 350°.  You can also steam or boil potatoes but baking them holds the most nutrients.  With both the peas and the sweet potatoes I used the "Milkies" milk tray to freeze the purees.  I did it with this tray because I know each stick is equal to 1oz which equals out to 2tbsp. of food which is what is recommended for them per day in these early days.  So far everything has went well and we are kind of just experimenting to see what works.  I added a few ounces of breast milk to the sweet potatoes as well to make it the consistency that I desired.



For the squash, I bought the smallest one I could find because I wasn't sure how much it would make and if she'd like it.  I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, and then placed cut side down in a glass microwave safe dish with about a quarter inch of water in it, I cooked it for about 6 minutes (or until the skin is soft) then scooped out the insides and also froze it in the Milkies tray.  I got about 8oz of food from the small squash and it didn't end up needing any breast milk added, I just added a little bit of the water I had cooked it in to get it a bit thinner.  


Another important food that we incorporated is beef broth.  I found this article from Mama Natural all about the importance of introducing beef product, broth & pureed red meat, in the early days so that is also something we are doing.  My mom had tons of soup bones from our side of beef we bought this spring so she went ahead and made it following Mama Natural's recipe, but she only boiled it for 8 hours instead of 24 – 8 was plenty.  She did soak the meat in water with vinegar which is said to bring out the nutrients.  She then froze it in an icecube tray which measures out to about 1oz servings.  Right now we give her 1oz of this a day in a TomeeTipee sippy cup with a nipple on it.  She's really loving the broth.  We also cooked & pureed some ground beef and froze it but haven't introduced that to her yet.




So far making baby food at home has been relatively quick and easy.  It's been fun to watch her and I can't wait to continue introducing foods to her.  I'd really like to use BLW technique soon, I know purees are really not necessary if going the full BLW route, but I just felt like puree was where I was comfortable starting.  There are a few things that baby needs to be doing before you can start BLW and we just now reaching those milestones!  Stay tuned for more about the next part of introducing solids!

5 comments:

  1. Bone broth is a lifesaver! Both my boys took to it early on, and it really helped strengthen them! BLW is also big for us - it's messy, but it's so good for them!

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  2. I LOVE that first picture!! Isn't it so fun to get to a new stage and watch her do new things? I am still always amazed when Bowen starts doing something new.

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  3. Keep it up! If you can stay with the vegetables only for awhile she will probably do better with eating them. I didn't give my son any fruit until 14 months because he was loving his veggies. We also did plain yogurt (full fat) with fish oil (SO gross!), and he LOVED it. ;)

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  4. She is just so cute!! Glad BLW is going well so far.

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  5. That is so interesting about the beef broth. I honestly have never heard about that before! I made all the kids foods too. It's so easy and much cheaper! Healthier usually too! Except now I do buy some organic pouches for easy on the go meals for ML, which isn't a huge deal to me. But I enjoyed doing the homemade food as long and as much as I could. A lot of it we grew in our garden as well and on our fruit trees. Pears were a huge hit!

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