We started Dil on solid foods at the end of Jan, just before he turned 5 months. We decided to skip rice cereal as it has no taste, no texture, and can be constipating. I made the decision to make all his food from scratch so that I could control the quality of ingredients and the texture of the purees.
The only other thing I needed was something to freeze the food in. I found the Fresh Baby Food Stroage Trays, a 2pack of ice cube trays with lids, on Diapers.com for $12.99. Each cube is 1oz of food. (the great thing about diapers.com is that they price match any other website, plus all orders over $49 have free overnight shipping!)
I decided that pears were going to be Dillan’s first meal. They are easy to digest, not likely to have an allergic reaction to and have a sweet favor. They also help with constipation, which Dil had been having a bit of trouble with. I pealed the pears and cut them into cubes. After adding the correct amount of water to my Beaba (it has pre-marked lines on the bowl and you add a specific amount depending on the food), I put the pear cubes into the basket and placed it in the bowl. After clipping on the lid I turned the knob to “steam”. It automatically shuts off when it is done. So easy! I removed the basket and dumped the steamed pears into the bowl for pureeing. After putting the lid back on, I blended up the fruit to a mostly liquid consistency. Then I poured my puree into the trays, snapped on the lids, pop into the freezer and viola! Baby food!
I did figure out that it’s best if you put the trays in the fridge to cool before transferring to the freezer. And now that I am making so much food, I take the frozen cubes and put them into labeled freezer bags so I can quickly reuse the trays.
In all it took me about 20 min to make 2 trays of food. Each tray is equivalent to just about 3, 2 packs of Gerber 1st Foods (the plastic containers with 2 per pack). Each of the Gerber packs is about $1.25 in the store, but I made enough food to equal 6 of those packs for about $2 total…a $5.50 savings on just pears! Not only is it better for Dil, it’s saving us money! We fed Dil the pears diluted with just a splash of formula (more for a familiar taste than anything else) and he gobbled it up!!! It’s like he knew just what to do with the food. He didn’t push it back out with his tongue and he even tried to take the spoon and feed himself! I was amazed. I thought it was going to be more difficult to teach him how this eating thing works.
Since I made the pears I have made a freezer full of foods for him. His first foods were pears, sweet potato, papaya, banana (just mush and serve), butternut squash, fresh green beans, frozen peas, and avocado. He has also had apple, carrots, and a mixed berry medley (premixed bag of flash frozen strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries). He’s like just about everything. He’s still iffy on the carrots and peas if he’s not in the mood for them. I have lost count of how much money I have saved by making his food. The one thing I refuse to make though is prunes! I hate the smell and would prefer to buy the organic Gerber ones for when he’s really constipated. I did recently buy a few jars of food that have meats in them: Turkey and Rice, Chicken and Apples, Vegetable Beef, and Mac and Cheese. I want to see how he likes meat flavors before venturing into making them myself. He had the Turkey and Rice last night and loved it. It smelled just like turkey and stuffing at Thanksgiving!
A great site for all things baby food is http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/
Posts
Sounds like a great little device! We saved money by skipping the puree stage altogether, LOL. But Dil seems very happy with his food, and that's a good thing!
ReplyDeleteClearly you did not taste the rice cereal or you would have most certainly have written that "it tastes exactly like wet cardboard". LOL! Oh and it also has no calories, which doesn't help a growing baby.
ReplyDelete