First Foods - Arlington,TX

I made my youngest's food. I used a stick blender & froze in breast milk bags. It was fun making her stuff. The few times I gave her jarred food I felt guilty because my stuff was soooo much tastier.

I started with orange veggies, then green; followed by fruits & then meats. I used a baby food recipe book (can't think of the name of it now) after the first intros for ideas on combinations.

Have fun! :)

i always dilute 1/2 and 1/2 water with juice. there are also toddler juices you can buy that are already diluted. be prepared that babies like to feed themselves very early. my kids were comletly on finger foods by 8 to 10 months. here's things they have eaten. crakers, cherios, baby puffs (good finger food starter) oatmeal ceral, little blocks of cheedar cheese, sandwhich meat, cannded green beans, gold fish.

I always start with the veggies, once we get through all veggies, I go for meats, then fruits. I always save fruits for last, I do not want the kids to get a sweet tooth and not want the other foods. I do not introduce juice until a year old and when I do I dilute it with 1/4 juice to 3/4 water. I have alwayse made my own food as well (except for the meats). I buy frozen veggies and steam them in the microwave, once cooked, I throw them into the blender and put it on the liquify setting. once all liquified, I put it in Ice Cube trays to freeze. Once frozen you can break it out of the trays and store it in a ziplock bag. I start with pumpkin (I use the canned pumpkin for pies) put it straight into the Ice cube trays. I also do avacado as the first green. Once I get to fruits, I buy the canned and rinse off all the syrup then blend. There is a great book for making your own baby foods called "Super Baby Foods" it has lists by month on what they can eat when and about how much they should be getting. Don't forget to run one food for about a week before changing. I also start the food for only one meal. I did cerial for a few weeks only at lunch, then moved it to breakfast once starting the veggies for lunch. Once I went to meats, they moved to the lunch spot and the veggie went to dinner. I chose lunch just in case there was a reaction, I could get them into the Dr. right away if needed or call the Dr. Dinner would be too late. I steam the veggies because that helps the veggie to retain all nutrients, I also add the little bit of water to the blender, it helps the food to process better and will keep all the nutrients. I have found that my kids only like the steamed veggies, not the canned. I think Gerber uses the canned style and if you have ever tasted jared veggies, they are grose no onder most kids don't like veggies. Both my older kids eat all their veggies, and I have alwayse done it this way. My 9 month old eats anything as well. Please be careful when you start apples, my 2 big kids developed an "allergy" to them, we were giving apple sauce, apple puffs and (I found out later) undiluted apple juice all in one day. They were overdosed on apples. We had to pull it from thir diets for about a year before slowly reintroducing it. Good luck, it is not hard to do this. I steam everything for the week on a Sunday afternoon and when the kids were in daycare, I pulled a cube or however many they needed, pit it in a storage bowl for each meal and sent it to daycare. They popped it into the micro to heat it up and whala, my kids were eating healthy foods. feel free to contact me ____@____.com.

I would recommend avocado for a first food. It's got everything you need, healthy fats, fiber, vitamins and minerals, etc.

I did store bought baby food for my son and he had horrible allergies. The dr. said it was the ascorbic acid. So with my daughter I did home made baby food. I have a "magic bullet" food processor, which was my method of thinning it out. I basically put the fresh veggies (green beans, broccoli, frozen mixed veggies) in the jar with some water, put the steamer lid on, microwaved for about 1 minute, drained most of the water off and then changed to the blade lid and processed it. Then I divided it up into an ice cube tray and froze it. When she was first starting out, 1 ice cube of veggies was enough. As she got older, I made it thicker and gave her 2 ice cubes of veggies. Some combinations I did with success were:
plumb, pear (I did these fesh, no cooking, just wash really well)
Apple, blueberry
Banana, grape
Apple, grape
Veggies I just did alone, cooked in the microwave

Carrots and beets are really good mixed in with the veggies. It was way cheaper making my own. I would suggest buying a few jars of store food for convenience, like if you eat Sunday dinner out or something.

When my daughter was about 9-12 mo, I started just cooling a bit of the dinner I made for the family and blending it all together as her serving. Sounds so gross but she loved it. Something like Salisbury steak, green beans and mashed potatoes...looked nasty but she ate it up!

I would HIGHLY recommend getting a book called Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. I used it from the very beginning and I don't know what I would have done without it! Each month she goes over what foods are safe to introduce to your baby, and teaches you how to make your own baby food (so much cheaper and healthier!) It also gets your baby to have an aquired taste for healthier food.

Buy a used copy for really cheap on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Super-Baby-Food-Ruth-Yaron/dp/09652...

Hope this helps!
J.

At that age, I gave Aubrey apple sauce, pureed bananas, mixed with rice cereal. I also started her on the sippy cup at 5 months with breastmilk and a teeny weeny bit of apple or other 100% juice and mostly water. They sell the soft spout cups for this age group. She was a pro at it by 7 months old!
They get most of their nutrients from milk at this age, and eating is mainly for practice.
Be careful of the juice and fruit though. They can cause a diaper rash until their body gets used to it.

I made most of my daughter's foods, too. I used wholesomebabyfoods.com to tell me how to cook each food. I froze mine in ice cube trays (each cube, if full, is 2 T). Basically, you should be able to give him any foods you want to. Wholesomebabyfoods.com has a list that tells you at what age you can introduce each food, for allergy sake, but if no one in your family has food allergies, you shouldn't have too much problem. I just read that even chunky food is okay to give to babies early on (it doesn't have to be completely smooth!) to help them learn about textures. Just experiment and see what he likes. You'll likely stop making food at about 1 year and start the transition to table food, so keep that in mind as you make foods.

I don't give my daughter any juice because she simply doesn't need it. I'd rather her get her fruits from the fruits themselves and learn to like water. She will drink water at room temperature now because that's all we've ever given her. (We also give her milk, but you'll have to wait until your son is 1 and your pedi okays it.) However, if you want to give him juice, yes, you can dilute it. About 3 parts water to 1 part juice is a good amount.

Hope that helps!

I amke my own and it is super easy and so cheap. I have done squash, banannas and avacado. I have a food processor that is about 20 years old and then I pour into ice cube trays and freeze. Then transffer to zip bags in freezer. To thin squash I added a little OJ, banannas were thin already. I added formula to avacado. I used microwave steamer bags.

http://wholesomebabyfood.com/Meals.htm

You should dilute the juice 50/50. And as for foods go..you only want to give them 1 at a time so like green beans for 3-4 days then applesauce for 3-4 days..etc so you can make sure the baby isnt allergic to anything..but as far as what you can give him..applesauce,bananas,peaches,pears,prunes,green beans,carrots,squash,peas,sweet potatoes..are all the 1st foods that gerber makes ..as far as making his food..i would steam them because when you boil them the nutrients disipate in all of that water..as for freezing them after you puree them i always put them into the larger ice cube trays and froze them then into baggies

Hello, first start with veggies, later fruit. It is best fresh, then frozen last canned. Cook the fresh food then put it in a ( what I use is a Cruinart food processor) add his formula or water and blend. To lumpy add more liquid. I mix in the cereal for grain or Mashed potatoes with peas Sweet Potatoes are great. I do add a little brown sugar in them. Beets,peas,carrots. It only takes a couple T fulls. At that age diet should be about breast milk or formula with iron in it.Steam or boil but do not make it too mushy. The only thing I had trouble with was meat. Hamburger with potatoes are fine but some meats just were better to buy that. Any baby food that says desert we are not to use in my day care on the food program. Juice needs to be 100% juice. Some times more expensive. Years ago I gave my kids a lot of apple juice then my step daughter when her children were young the doctor said not so much because it can give them the runs. We focus a lot on water during the day. What we do as children can become nautural as adults. God bless and have a blessed day G. W

I love this site!
wholesomebabyfood.com/
Good luck!