This post is a little overdue but I just have been so busy going to doctor’s appointments, nap training, physical therapy, etc. I haven’t had much time to write but I want to share about what I’m doing about solid food for Roo.
At her six month appointment in December, the pediatrician said that we could start to feed her solids in a few weeks. So, at the end of January, we tried it! Roo had been expressing interest in food for a couple of weeks. She sat and watched me eat and drink very closely. We knew it was time. When she first tried it, she was a little more than seven months old and her adjusted age was about five and a half months.
Her first solid was Plum Organics Oatmeal cereal. She didn’t like it too much the first time. But, she loved eating. So, we kept at it. We tried the oatmeal for three days and then introduced mashed banana. I bought organic bananas and let them ripen until there were spots on them so she had an extra mushy and sweet taste of banana. I’m not surprised but banana is her most favorite food to date.
She’s been eating solids for about a month. I started out only giving her it once a day but now we are up to twice a day – before her mid-day nap around 10:30 am and then after her afternoon nap around 4pm. She loves eating!
In order, we have given her:
- Plum Organics Oatmeal
- Organic Bananas
- Applesauce – I baked organic apples and then mashed them to a textured puree
- Organic Carrots – steamed and then mashed
- Organic Sweet Potatoes – baked and then mashed
I think we will try organic avocado next!
I love making her food. It takes no time at all and is so easy for me to do. I either steam or bake the item and then mash it up using my hand blender. I freeze the food into cubes and then the next day I put the frozen cubes into snack bags that are placed into a larger freezer bag. I wish there were BPA freezer bags but I haven’t found any.
Do you make your little ones food? If so, what are your favorite recipes? How do you store your baby food that you’ve made? If you don’t make your own food, which brand baby food do you use? I know I will need to use prepared food at some point and I want to know which are the best ones to try!
A Miracle In the Works 
Around 8 months I started mixing foods and discovered that Timothy likes onions. If I boiled vegetables with onions and than mashed it all together with a blender – he LOVED it. And the I went on experimenting with lentils, celery, herbs (not spicy), garlic… he loves it.
And from what I read, the earlier on you get them on to “interesting” tastes – the higher the chances they will be normal eaters, no too picky.
I don’t mean to say you have to do this now, of course 🙂 Not that early. Timothy was about 8 months – I am not sure how you go around when you need to take adjusted age into consideration.
But I definitely recommend not sticking to bland foods for too long 🙂
As to store-bought food – my personal experience is that Timothy loves anything with meat. Literally, anything So I just buy whatever they have; the government regulations for baby food are tough enough to make me feel comfortable 🙂
We make all our own too, its so easy! Sounds like we use the same method, ice cube trays and freezer bags. I usually do an entire day of baby food making for the month which is convienent. I also try and mix cubes up so that he doesn’t get totally biased to one food, my usual mix is one chicken or turkey with one sweet potato and one small spinach. We freeze our spinach in really small ice cube trays becasue its a little over whelming with a whole cube!
I mostly make his because with all his food allergies I’m scared of cross contamination in processed foods… But I have found a few things that he can eat, Organic plain baby mum mums are great! They’ve taught him the fun of feeding himself!
I made baby food and really wanted to do that exclusively, but we also had some store bought (no specific brand but organic) and wouldn’t you know it, the babies liked that way more than the stuff I made. My little hippie heart was crushed! But now…they turned 11 months today and are all about feeding themselves finger food and it is super fun…so many different things I can give them and I love that I am giving them real food not something from a jar. I’m also grinding up things we have for our meals…giving them all sorts of spices and flavors and that seems to be going well. Lots to look forward to with Roo! Glad the solids are going well! 🙂