When Baby H turned 6 months old, and I was figuring out what baby food to start with, I decided to start solid foods by making some of my own homemade baby food. I had a few samples and a few jars we bought at the store, but I also thought why not make some myself? I was deciding between baby jars or homemade baby food.
Trying to avoid encouraging a sweet tooth, I decided veggies would be better than fruit to start out with. I started with one sweet potato and some large carrots – figuring those were good and simple vegetables to puree for the little guy.
I decided to start with one solid food meal a day for now, and we will increase it later. For the time being, I feed him the puree when I get home from work as his “dinner” before I eat mine and nurse him.
Also important is to think about food allergies. I have a great post that shares how to introduce food to babies to prevent food allergies.
Making sweet potato puree:
The sweet potato I cooked on a baking dish for about an hour at 400 degrees. I started at 45 minutes based on a recipe I found online, but it was still too hard so I left it in a little longer.
Then I scooped the potato part away from the peel and tossed it in the blender. I added some water and pureed, adding more water until I got the consistency I wanted. This ended up making enough for 4-5 meals.
If you’re friends with me on Facebook, I shared a photo of Baby H licking his bib after his first-time eating sweet potatoes. I think they’re a hit!
Making carrot puree:
I boiled water in a pot and sliced up the carrots to cook. I cooked for a while, checking the carrots until they were soft and a knife sliced through easily. Then I mashed them before putting them in the blender on the puree setting.
I ended up making way more carrot puree than I anticipated, and I had to puree in batches with a few scoops of carrot mush and water. I combined everything in a bigger bowl, then decided to use some of my extra breastmilk storage bottles to store the carrot puree.
That pic above shows the containers of carrot puree that I froze. One of those bottles provides about 3 meals for him so I just thaw it when ready and refrigerate leftovers until gone.
In addition to the food I made, a lady from my breastfeeding support group was giving away some of the extra baby food she made since she will be out of town much of the summer and didn’t want it to go bad. I was happy to help her out, so now we have so many different flavors and options.
When all that runs out I’ll make some more of my own, maybe switching it up to avocado, green beans, and squash. Just from talking to others making baby food I learned a few tips I plan on using next time I make a batch.
Tips for making homemade baby food:
- Freeze the puree in ice cube trays, then transfer to freezer bags – this makes an easy 1 oz serving to thaw at a time.
- Don’t add salt or sugar, but do mix flavors together.
- If the frozen baby food is too thick, dilute it after thawing with some water, breast milk, or formula before serving.
- Warm the food up in the microwave for about 10 seconds and stir to get rid of hot spots. Test before feeding.
Do you have any tips to share? What foods did you pick for starting solids or did you put your homemade baby food into reusable pouches?
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Amy Ngai says
I love making my own baby food! I did that for the first year with my son and now that my daughter is on solids I’m doing it again! It’s much easier than a lot of people would expect. Great tips! Thanks for sharing! #ConfessionsLinkUp
Julie says
Thanks 🙂 Yea it isn’t that hard and it is kind of fun to watch him eat and enjoy something I made.
Kelly says
I used to really enjoy making fresh baby food. My son absolutely loved carrots and sweet potatoes!
So happy to have you link up at the May Everyday Friends Monthly Blog and Social Media Hop ! Have a great weekend! ~Kelly, Our Everyday Harvest
Julie says
You just can’t go wrong with yummy sweet potatoes:)
Marina @ Parental Journey says
This is great! I did almost all Nela’s baby food by myself and I think that was great for her!
Julie says
Agree, good job mama 🙂
Brandyn says
Glad this worked out for you! I had every intention of making my own baby food when my daughter was born…but I never managed to try it even once!! I’ll definitely do it next time around!
Thank you for sharing with us at #MommyMeetupMondays!
Julie says
I had intentions to do a lot of things, at least I made this one happen haha.
Pam says
If I had to do it all over again I would start with green beans. lol My kids hates anything green.
Pam
Julie says
Green beans do sound like a good starter since they are soft to begin with. Hope your kids start liking greens someday soon heh.
Dee says
Until my sister was doing it for my niece, I never knew how easy it was to make baby food! I always thought you’d have to buy tons of baby jars and feed through that! But it IS super easy. Just finding the right combo of ingredients that they’ll eat is the “tricky” part =P
Julie says
Yea true haha. He keeps trying to steal food off my plate though so he is curious about different flavors. Hopefully he’ll get the hang of purees soon and I can just start mashing up what we’re eating for dinner rather than making him his own special meal.
Trish says
The ice cube trays are a must! So easy to just grab a couple cubes out of the container in the freezer (I would make huge batches of all different flavors so had lots of choices) and microwave them for a quick meal. My second baby didn’t want anything to do with purees, though–we did more baby-led weaning with her.
Carrots were always my favorite. Yum!! 🙂
Julie says
I just made some banana puree last night and used ice cube trays. It is such a great tip, don’t know why I didn’t read about it (or remember it) when I first started making baby food heh.