fun with solids!

we started rice cereal yesterday - the girls seemed to really enjoy it! Riley got the hang of it quite quickly, Danika took a little longer - which surprised me as Danika's always been the one who seemed most interested in food when DH & i were eating. i also just made & froze my first batch of pureed carrots, which we'll try out tomorrow. and i picked up some squash & apples to puree as well. i expect at some point this solids thing may become tedious, but right now, i'm really enjoying it!

 

Glad it went well. You never know who will take to it first. Clayton was always my 'need to walk around' before he could walk kid, Audrey would just plant her feet and not move them. Guess who walked first? Audrey by about 3 weeks! Have fun making the baby food! IT's worth it!

 

Glad it's going well!! :banana:

 

Isn't it fun? I want to hear how the carrots go...we're still going with cereal for a bit longer before we add in anything else. I can't wait to start making my own from veggies, too! Happy eating, girls! :good:

Off topic, but have you (or anyone) heard something about carrots from certain places not being good for making your own baby food? I read it somewhere, but I can't remember where and I haven't seen it again. Something about nitrates in the soil or something...I think it said baby food companies have to get them from specific places where they are tested so that you should make sure your carrots only come from those certain places, too...problem is, I can't remember which places. I figure I'll just go organic and it should be ok, but I wondered if anyone else had heard that...

 

QUOTE(mamabee718 @ Jan 24 2009, 07:28 PM) [snapback]1160914[/snapback]
Off topic, but have you (or anyone) heard something about carrots from certain places not being good for making your own baby food? I read it somewhere, but I can't remember where and I haven't seen it again. Something about nitrates in the soil or something...I think it said baby food companies have to get them from specific places where they are tested so that you should make sure your carrots only come from those certain places, too...problem is, I can't remember which places. I figure I'll just go organic and it should be ok, but I wondered if anyone else had heard that...


was this what you were thinking of?

 

QUOTE(miss_bossy18 @ Jan 26 2009, 12:59 AM) [snapback]1162043[/snapback]
was this what you were thinking of?


Thias isn't where I read it, but yes. I guess organic is fine. Thanks for posting the link! How do they like the veggies? Did you try them yet?

 

QUOTE(mamabee718 @ Jan 26 2009, 12:17 PM) [snapback]1162703[/snapback]
Thias isn't where I read it, but yes. I guess organic is fine. Thanks for posting the link! How do they like the veggies? Did you try them yet?


not too bad - i mean, they end up with more on their faces then in their tummies but i think that's just par for the course! i think mostly they're both still just trying to figure out how to swallow. i'm going to try apples in a couple of days & see what they think of that. and i'm cooking up some squash to puree & freeze as we speak - or type.

 

I just started mine on oatmeal this week too. I plan to start Avocado as the next baby food and I'm doing to do that next week.

 

Way to go!!!

 

QUOTE(dezmitch @ Jan 26 2009, 04:47 PM) [snapback]1162980[/snapback]
I just started mine on oatmeal this week too. I plan to start Avocado as the next baby food and I'm doing to do that next week.


This must sound silly, but how to do you cook oatmeal for infants? I have steel cut, any info out there on how to prepare it for little babies? Thanks for input- we are starting solids soon... which I am not overly excited about b/c it feels very overwhelming.

 

QUOTE(lmayer @ Jan 26 2009, 03:28 PM) [snapback]1163055[/snapback]
This must sound silly, but how to do you cook oatmeal for infants? I have steel cut, any info out there on how to prepare it for little babies? Thanks for input- we are starting solids soon... which I am not overly excited about b/c it feels very overwhelming.


unfortunately, i don't know how to cook regular oatmeal for babies, but i do know you can buy infant oatmeal cereal. hopefully, someone else will have some ideas for you.

and i know how you feel about it being overwhelming - when i first started looking into how/when to start solids it seemed like for every method out there, there was someone else saying there's a better or different way of doing it. finally, i just cut myself some slack, decided to have fun with it & go with my babies' cues & my instincts. so far, we haven't had any major disasters! GL!

 

About cooking grains... there's a great book I've been reading - Super Baby Food Book by Ruth Yaron, basically you take the grains and grind them up for up to 2 min. I've been making Millet and even though its already little pellets, you just have to grind it a little bit. Then you cook on the stove... I haven't done oatmeal yet, but will attempt soon. You can always make the oatmeal first and then stick it in the blender afterwards.

I hope you continue enjoying making baby foods. We've done avocado, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, millet. The babies had horrible diapers w/the brown rice cereal so I dropped it out and then just this weekend added it back (made my own from grinding the brown rice this time), and my girl had horrible diapers still... so I think we'll be skipping rice for a while.

I enjoy reading and learning from everyone.

 

I, too, am enjoying making the food. After going through all of the cereals (pre-made Gerber),
we tried:
*butternut squash--went great!
*sweet potatoes--bad gas and blowouts, so we might come back to that one later
*green beans--those were a bit grainy so I mixed in a little formula, and they loved it!
*pears--just started these, they love them!

I don't know what to move on to next. I'll have to jump on wholesomebabyfood.com, I love that site!
Maybe peas?

Do you think we should cook the bananas and avocados before pureeing them? I read somewhere about
breaking down the fruit for ease on the digestive system.

Also, everyone talks about using bananas on the spot, no need to freeze. However, my twins would never eat an
entire banana in one day! Do you moms just eat the rest of it? What about avocado?

How long does the food you prepare stay good in the refrigerator. I've frozen cubes of squash, sweet potato, and green beans.
The pears I've just made to order, so far!

Sorry to ask so many questions on another posters territory, but it seems like we're in the same boat!

 

QUOTE(Olivia602 @ Jan 26 2009, 08:41 PM) [snapback]1163533[/snapback]
I, too, am enjoying making the food. After going through all of the cereals (pre-made Gerber),
we tried:
*butternut squash--went great!
*sweet potatoes--bad gas and blowouts, so we might come back to that one later
*green beans--those were a bit grainy so I mixed in a little formula, and they loved it!
*pears--just started these, they love them!

I don't know what to move on to next. I'll have to jump on wholesomebabyfood.com, I love that site!
Maybe peas?

Do you think we should cook the bananas and avocados before pureeing them? I read somewhere about
breaking down the fruit for ease on the digestive system.

Also, everyone talks about using bananas on the spot, no need to freeze. However, my twins would never eat an
entire banana in one day! Do you moms just eat the rest of it? What about avocado?

How long does the food you prepare stay good in the refrigerator. I've frozen cubes of squash, sweet potato, and green beans.
The pears I've just made to order, so far!

Sorry to ask so many questions on another posters territory, but it seems like we're in the same boat!


Yep, I eat the rest of the banana! With avocado, I use half and stash the other half in a ziplock bag in the fridge for their next feeding or for our dinner salad! If I use it for their next feeding, I mash it w/a fork and then microwave it for 10 seconds or so to take off the chill. Bananas and avocados are fine uncooked but I think you are supposed to cook apples and pears until they are 8 months or something like that. Also, try the peas. They are a little grainy because of the skins, but add some formula or EBM to thin it so your blender will smooth them out. I hate our blender. It's supposed to be a good one, but I groan every time I use it for baby food and wish i had a food processor (although I've never really tried one so I don't know if they really are better)! Hope yours is better than mine! I thought the sweet peas were yummy. The girls needed them mixed w/rice cereal to tolerate them. But then again, peas were the first veggie I added to their diet after rice cereal. I am going to make them again soon. Oh, butternut squash comes out very smooth and my girls LOVED it!

 

QUOTE(Olivia602 @ Jan 26 2009, 09:41 PM) [snapback]1163533[/snapback]
How long does the food you prepare stay good in the refrigerator. I've frozen cubes of squash, sweet potato, and green beans.
The pears I've just made to order, so far!


from what i was told, frozen baby food is good for 3 months.

 

I love that there are so many of us starting solids right now! Can I add some more questions (just to keep it all in one place)? When you start veggies, are you sticking with just the one veggie for a few days before moving to a new one? Do you give them any cereal to change it up (so not just peas for 4 days straight) or if you do more than one meal a day, cereal for one meal and peas the other? We just moved from rice to oatmeal so I'm just asking to see how you're all doing it before I get there. Missbossy's right...everything you read says something different!

 

QUOTE(mamabee718 @ Jan 27 2009, 08:20 AM) [snapback]1163937[/snapback]
I love that there are so many of us starting solids right now! Can I add some more questions (just to keep it all in one place)? When you start veggies, are you sticking with just the one veggie for a few days before moving to a new one? Do you give them any cereal to change it up (so not just peas for 4 days straight) or if you do more than one meal a day, cereal for one meal and peas the other? We just moved from rice to oatmeal so I'm just asking to see how you're all doing it before I get there. Missbossy's right...everything you read says something different!


this is what i've done so far (although i don't claim it's "right" ) - we do one meal a day. i did two days of rice cereal. two days of rice cereal & carrots. and today i did rice cereal & apples. they don't usually finish everything but i just let them eat as much as they want. i mean, today Riley gagged on the apples & then absolutely refused to let the spoon anywhere near her mouth. so i just gave her an empty sippy cup to play with & fed Danika. Danika seemed to like the apples but preferred to spit them out & suck them off her bib than take them from the spoon. we'll probably add our second meal next week, although i'm not sure how i'll divide up the food yet.

 

I'm glad it's going well...baby food was not a big hit in this house! I was terrible at making it too!