have two boys 8 and 3 and a baby girl 8 months and it
seems like I am spending a lot on baby food these last couple of
months. -Mandy
Having only
had three young children so far, I'm no expert when it comes to
parenting, so I'll just share what we've done with our girls (Silas is still nursing exclusively). Each
child and family is different so please do what works best for your
family. However, since you asked, here's what has worked for us:
1. I nurse exclusively for the first six months. For me, nursing is easy, simple, a great post-pregnancy weight-loss program, the best nourishment for my child, and it's free. (Well, it is unless you count all the extra food I consume while nursing!) I know some women would love to be able to nurse and have been unable to do so and I feel very blessed that nursing is something I've never had troubles with.
2. I start introducing a few foods here and there at around six months.
This is normally in the form of just giving the child a couple of
tastes of banana or vegetables a few times per week. I usually mash up
something that I'm already eating and offer a few bites. Nursing
continues like usual.
3. I start encouraging our children to eat small meals three times per day at around a year old.
We stick with fruits, vegetables, and whole grains first and then
gradually add in other foods. By this time, a child can easily eat soft
table foods (or fruits/veggies mashed in the baby food grinder) so
we'll just offer the child whatever fruit or veggies we're eating at a
meal plus some homemade bread or other wholegrain finger foods.
As
our child catches on to eating more, nursing is, in turn, gradually
reduced to only 3-4 times per day (usually once in the morning, once in
the afternoon, and once before bed) and will continue to be replaced
more and more by table food over the next six to twelve months. (I
weaned Kathrynne at 18 months and Kaitlynn at 19 months.)
4. I rarely ever buy or make my own baby food. I personally see
store-bought baby food as one of the most overpriced items ever, so I
don't buy it except on the rare occasion when I can get it for free with a coupon.
I've made baby food up ahead of time and frozen it in ice cubes before (see more information and ideas on doing that here),
but I found that didn't work very well for us.
Instead, I've found it to be much simpler to just
offer some of whatever foods we are already eating. Since I normally make
homemade bread every few days and we eat a lot of fresh or frozen fruits and
vegetables, it's been quite simple to have something for the baby to eat
from what we're already eating.
I do recommend you invest in a simple bay food grinder (I like the Kidco Baby Food Mill
and then just make sure you plan fruits and
vegetables into your menus that your baby can eat. If it's something
which can't just be easily mashed with a fork, stick a small bit in the
grinder when you sit down at the table, grind it up, and
you're good to go!
So that's how we keep our babies nutritiously fed without spending a lot of extra money. I'd love to hear what works for others: do you make your own baby food, buy baby food, or just feed your baby mashed up table food?
Helpful Resources: If you are interested in making your own baby food, you might check out this post here or see if you can check out Feed Me I'm Yours
or check out some of the books listed here
Subscribe for free email updates and be entered to win $100!
{ 56 comments }
← Previous Comments
I just started feeding my baby solids at 5 and a half months. She took right to it. She seemed a little fussy, so that is why we started solids even though I had planned on breastfeeding exclusively until 6 months because in my mind, that was the “right” age to start solids on. She definitely wanted solids, she took to it so well! So far I only give her pureed baby food that I freeze (sweet potatoes) and mashed up bananas. I also give her some organic rice cereal which she loves and I got super cheap at Target.
I wrote a post about this a few months ago, based on my experiences and those of my friends.
http://frugalmomskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/06/save-on-baby-food.html
I made almost all of my son’s baby food and it was not hard at all. I found it easier to do the freezing in ice cube trays probably because I work full-time so I wasn’t home for breakfast and lunch to make it on the spot. I also breastfed until 1 and pumped until 1. I would make up a whole bunch of a certain kind of fruit or vegetable (sometimes steam it or bake it-squash), then put it in my blender. I know a lot of others who have used a food processor, but we didn’t have one and we had a blender, so that is what I used and it worked. I would save a few servings in containers in the fridge for use over the next 2 or 3 days and freeze the rest in ice cube trays. The next day I would pop out the ice cubes into reusable lock-n-lock or pyrex containers. I kept a roll of masking tape and a sharpie in the kitchen so that I could label containers with what it was and the date.
Every night, I would pack up my son’s “lunch box” for day care with bottles of breastmilk and small lock-n-locks with individual veg and fruit servings. I would take 2 or 3 cubes out and put them in a small lock and lock for each serving. I would label the lock and lock so his day care teacher knew what it was (just because she was curious and that way she could talk to him about what he was eating instead of just saying, “your green stuff)” Once he hit around 10 months, I started introducing chunkier foods that we ate like lasagna and would also send that in a lock and lock (cut/mashed up). She would send home all of the empty bottles and lock and locks each night and I would run them through the dishwasher so this did require a lot of bottles and lock and locks — one set in the dishwasher and one set being prepped for tomorrow. Oh and another set of 4 bottles at work because I pumped directly into bottles to avoid another step! We still use the lock and locks and it seems that no small ones are ever available, they always have food in them, so I guess we will have to buy some more if we do this again for another child!
On weekends or at dinnertime, I would sometimes do something on the spot that didn’t freeze well like blueberries and banana mixed together and just barely heat up the blueberries in a bit of water in a small saucepan and mash them up with bananas.
I got most of my ideas from a $10 cookbook that someone gave me, but I also found a free “recipes” on the internet. By recipe I mean tips like should you steam it first or just throw it in the blender. Blanch peaches and they peel quickly. These will freeze well, these won’t, etc.
A few times we went out of town and bought “baby food.” He usually didn’t like it and he is not a picky eater and always eats a lot! The only thing I made that he didn’t like was peas–consistently doesn’t like them. I bought some of the Gerber graduates once while visiting great grandparents around age 1 because their meal times are so funny and I knew he would not always wait for us to eat; he wouldn’t touch them.
Going out of town tip to save money instead of buying a lot of baby food- individual servings of unsweetened applesauce are usually cheaper than baby food. I also would buy bananas when we went out of town and mash them up with a fork!
It’s so nice to read some of your posts! My 8 month old has zero interest in food– he’ll sometimes gnaw a teething biscuit, but he’s had fabulous projectile spit up every time we’ve given him a single bite of puree. It comes right back out along with most of his last breast milk. Our doctor doesn’t like it, but honestly, when you combine the normal mess with spit up and the prep work and the unhappy baby, it’s just not worth it. And the child is off the charts, so he’s clearly not suffering too much without baby food. Presumably someday he’ll eat solids and not be exclusively breast fed as a teenager, but for now it works for us.
I would suggest that you consider buying special trays designed for breast milk. They don’t have the nasty plastics that a lot of normal ice cube trays do. I like the Fresh Baby ones.
My daughter doesn’t care much for jarred baby food & barely tolerates some of the food that I make. I have found that she much prefers whatever we’re eating, especially rice. She doesn’t seem to want to feed herself much though, except for things like crackers or Cheerios. I think she doesn’t like the texture on her hands. When my 4yo DS was a baby & I tried to feed him jarred baby food if we were on the road or something he wouldn’t eat it very well. He always preferred what I made & now he’s a great eater & will try most anything. I might buy jarred food if it’s free or VERY cheap but it might just be given to the food pantry.
I personally found a baby food grinder to be the biggest waste–it didn’t “puree” the food enough so I’ve ending up just using the blender we already have. It was probably the worst $10 I’ve spent on the baby.
← Previous Comments