Monday, February 27, 2012

Baby food.

The ambitious mother in me planned on making all of Hazel's food from scratch, and not letting anything else near her. As she neared the age where she could begin solid foods people started offering her things, and I just didn't want to be that crazy mom who won't let her kid have a cracker or try a sip of soda (soda, really?*). Well we started out strong with the baby-food making, but like most things I start, it didn't last. I failed to come up with a good program for storing the food, and all of the purees I have made are stored in pint sized canning jars in the freezer. Feeding it to her requires thawing of a large amount of food, and then feeding that one kind to her for a few days until she either finishes it, or I get worry it might spoil, and I throw it our. Like I said, not a good system, so we feed Hazel a lot of store bought baby food. We like Ella's Kitchen, or HappyTot which comes in pouches, and is organic (and tastes fantastic!). We also feed her a lot of what we are eating. Her favorite thing to do is gnaw on a piece of broccoli. We are doing well with feeding her now, mostly fruits and veggies. For a while there I resorted to what was easiest. I gave her pieces of bread, and some puffy things we got from the store that are kind of like cheetos puffs, goldfish, and pasta when we were eating it, along with her fruits and veggies. After a while I realized that she was having some serious poo problems because of it, and I decided she wasn't quite ready for all of that grain and processed four products. About the same time that I decided to remove that from her diet, she decided that all she wanted to do was breastfeed, and that kicked her digestive system back into gear, and she is doing great now. We have never given her rice cereal, but I have pureed brown rice or quinoa and mixed it in with her fruit and veggie purees. I really haven't been scientific about it, or really anything when it comes to parenting....I actually think that I am pretty lazy, and tend to take the easier route most of the time. I have read about a few different "theories" of introducing solids. I don't really get parenting "theories" so I just do what feels right, and it seems to work out okay. Today I stumbled across this post on home made baby food, which for like the umpteenth time this week made me wish I were a more organized individual. It kind of inspired me to try a little harder with Hazel's food. Does anyone who reads (you know, all five of you) make their own babyfood?

*The person who offered her soda does in fact read this blog.

2 comments:

Sycamore Girl said...

We bought the Vitamix specifically for the making of Baby food, and I did pretty good with it until Henry decided he wanted the real deal.
I started out pretty good and bought itty-bitty freezer storage cups made for baby food (Target, $10). That was cool. Then, instead of that, I just blended each meal as it came and fed him what we were eating. Nothing was ever consistent, but I attribute his big pallet to just giving him what we were eating. We started him on veggies and he has no problem with them.
Talie, on the other hand, we started her on fruits and she has a difficult time with many veggies. I wish I would have started her on veggies! Anyway, you're right about doing just whatever your mama instincts say. Breastfeeding is always a plus! And well done not forcing anything. Try it, if it works, then good. Otherwise, back off and try something else. I'd say you're doing fine- who says it has to be 100% homemade? Being realistic about it all may help.
And there will come a day when she'll have Soda...and you just be the one to give it to her! ;)

Holly said...

I've done some store bought and some homemade (our move to Italy right after miles got the hang of solids kind of three a wrench in things...)
The easiest thing I did was prepare the baby food and freeze it in ice cube trays. Once frozen I moved them to ziplock baggies. Then I could just take out one or two cubes, defrost and serve.