Saturday, February 1, 2014

Yummy in the Tummy


I have jotted down how Syd and I make Easton’s baby food for some of the girls’ friends who are asking me. I am just a Grandma, not a nutritionist so this is just how we did it, not thee way to do it. When the doctor said to go ahead and give Easton solid foods this is how we did it.

First of all we bought these trays from Amazon. There are cheaper ones on Amazon now but I haven’t used them. Some covers look like they slide on… I dunno about that.  


 



 


We bought organic fruits and vegetables when we could. Sprouts has a good selection, but any of the grocery stores and Wal-Mart has organic produce. We also bought a Nutribullet which was perfect for the job of pureeing.

We started with rice cereal and oat meal. After four days of each of them, we tried apples. I peeled, cooked and pureed about six apples in distilled water about half way up the apples. After freezing them we fed him one cube once a day for four days, (watching for any allergy symptoms like rash or breathing issues), to start out with. After four days we made carrots (organic baby carrots) the same way we made the apples. Only cook them until they are soft enough to puree. For example, we fed him apples and rice cereal in the morning and carrots and oatmeal at night after enough days had past. Next we added one fruit or veg every four days. In the stage one category are:

 Apples


Apricots

Mango

Nectarines

Papaya

Peaches

Pears

Plums

Prunes


Carrots

Green beans

Peas

Squash

Sweet Potato

He also ate bananas and avocados( he doesn’t like avocados much but we try it) which we didn’t freeze and fed mashed up

 

After the baby food is cooked, pureed, and frozen at least over night, we bagged them in labeled gallon baggies (dollar store) and put them in the freezer. I get the cubes out of the trays by running hot water on the bottom of the tray. The trays with the green lid just take a quick twist. The mumi ones you have to push one end of the cube with your finger and they come out. You can even freeze breast milk in these but we just used the little plastic bags for that.  I did use my microwave about twenty seconds to thaw them knowing cooking in the microwave might be not as good as heating on the stove but it was fast.

We added whole milk yogurt at eight months and he started eating three times a day- the recipe for that is on my blog too. He ate these foods until he was a year old, and the doctor told us he could eat whatever we ate. At that time we started mixing and adding to the list.

We are still experimenting as he is only fourteen months now. We don’t have a full menu but some of the things Easton likes, that we added are green peas mixed with organic black beans ( which I freeze in the cubes with a little water on the top, I don’t have to puree them for some reason and he likes them)! At fourteen months he eats two or three green pea cubes and one black bean mixed in. I also make him chicken pot pie, puree it and freeze it in cubes. We also buy organic rotisserie chicken, roast it a little longer with some water in the bottom of the pan, let it cool and puree it with some of the water for chicken cubes. He only eats one of those because it’s solid protein. I make cauliflower and broccoli and add some white cheese, puree it, and freeze. I make him whole wheat baby pancakes and freeze them in a gallon zip lock and take out what I need. He’s up to five little pancakes in the morning with some spiced apples (apples with cinnamon in them). I make pumpkin pie filling and freeze that. We have frozen mashed potatoes.  If I have left over bean soup I puree it. You wouldn’t have to puree it at this point but he has only certain things he likes the texture of. He could be eating macaroni and cheese and lots of things you will think of but he doesn’t like a lot yet. The doctor wants Easton to drink two cups of whole milk a day so he has yogurt every lunch right now, with a vegetable and a fruit on top and a little pumpkin muffin or raisin toast or something. If he has a green veg at lunch then he has orange at night or vise versa. I keep potato flakes and rice cereal handy and if whatever hes going to eat is runny or something I add tablespoon of potatos or a little rice cereal to thicken it.  

I could go into a long spiel about how much cheaper this is but I will leave it at this. Apples are 2.67 a bag and one bag makes about 40 cubes. That is .07 a cube. There are probably three cubes in a pouch of apples for 1.83 in some stores compared to .21 cents and you know what’s in it! When you are going somewhere you just put the frozen cubes in the bowls. I like these because the lids are good and tight.

 
 

When were home we heat in glass bowls only, like the ones below.


 


This is just a rough guideline. It depends on your children, your life, how busy you are, and how making baby food fits into your life. If you’re already doing a balancing act then it’s probably not for you because it is time consuming, which is the biggest drawback. For Sydney and me it was good because I am home all day, and she is a single Mom without a lot of money. I was asked to write this down for some of the kids’ friends and that’s all this is…what we did. Growing up all of my kids ate Gerber’s in a glass jar, drank juice etc because that’s what we did then so don’t beat yourself up if that’s what you want to do.
 
They all grow up! Speaking of that this is the cutest baby movie.
 
 
 
 It shows how babies all over the world have a different norm and all grow up fine!  Here’s to all the sweet babies in the world!
 
 

 

 

 

 

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