BABY FOOD- we don't use it

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

I had images of me making baby food...but I don't even "make it"...

I never visit this forum, but just saw the mention of jar food and this hit me and wondered if I am the only one.

If we have bought 10 jars of baby food I would be amazed, if we've used 6 of them I'd be amazed.

I give Tristan what we are eating and so far he has not turned anything down...

I doubt there's a problem with this since he appears to be thriving at 24 lbs...

But am I the only one???
Again this was not really "the plan", it's just working...
I've never discussed it with the ped...
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[toomanystrollers]

I usually prepare Neve's stuff ahead of time b/c I never know what I'll be making for dinner until the last minute. Plus the oldest two don't like anything - we're stuck in that vicious bland kid food cycle.

I'm interested to hear what Tristan eats - and I've heard you rave about Steve's cooking!

[nathansmom]

Neve-
We are almost in the same boat as you. I bought some cans of baby food but Nathan won't eat anything unless its what I am eating. You give him baby cereal and he refuses all solids for days. He does snack on some of the baby snacks out there but most of his solids is food that I'm eating.
I don't think its a problem either however your child is thriving at 24lbs and mine is sadly dropping weight again. We hit 18 lbs. Monday and yesterday we were at 17 1/2 lbs.

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

you had mentioned the vet scale before, and our vet scale is so out of wack...are you confident in the scale????

I'm just brainstorming...
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[nathansmom]

Yesterday's weight check was at the doctors. The vet scale is off by three ounces so he might have only weighed 17lbs. 13 ounces on Monday. Thanks for trying to help me feel better. I love you!!!!

[new2bmommy]

I am just starting to feed solids, but I plan to make my son's baby food instead of buy the jars. I bought an AWESOME book from Barnes and Noble called The Healthy Baby Meal Planner. It was written by Annabel Karmel, cook and mother of three young ones. It shows how to make your own baby food, has over 200 recipes and many of them are for the whole family. It might be a wise purchase to make sure your little one is getting all the vitamins and minerals a baby needs, and you can feed the rest of the family something good for them as well. Just an idea.

Sandy Leight
Mom to Christian 8/25/03

[AngelaS]

My babies rarely ate baby food either and both now are two of the least picky kids I know! :D If it works for you and everyone's happy--go for it! :D

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

I love you too girlie..and though I wouldn't question a medical opinion that you might have been given I can tell you hands down Nathan looks as healthy as can be to me....!!!! He looks very healthy and happy, I hope you are being assured not to worry!!!!
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

Pam,

Sorry just got a minute to answer your question...honestly with judgement I give him a lot of differnt things. I'm almost afraid to post incase something isn't "approved" or in a book...if it's not "approved" I don't want anyone telling me about it!!! But with that said if it not "approved" I don't want anyone following what we are doing :)...ugh... to be a parent!!!

Just off of the top of my head...
* Rice a roni w/brocolli (loves this!!!!)
* Salmon (baked)
* Cheese (a lot) he loves it...both chedder and mozzerella
* Jasmine Rice
* Fried Rice
* Shredded Turkey
* Chicken
* Ham
* Cranberry
* Stuffing
* Bread
* green beans
* sweet peas ( I squish them I worry about the roundness of them)
* mashed potatoes
* sweet potatoes
* beans of all shapes and sizes
* cheerios (not his favorite he prefers other stuff)
* cheese cake
* hummos
* eggplant (baba ganouj)
* yogurt
* fruits of all kinds

But an example of what we do is for instance Steve just made us steaks and rice a roni...we put the rice a roni in a container to serve to him for the next few days... We always have a few things to chose from...

He loves to finger pick his food, and luckily it goes to his mouth, I think he has learned if it doesn't the dogs will attempt to clean up :)...


Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[MartiesMom2B]

Neve:

I'm glad you posted the foods that you give. Most are similar to what I've fed her from our regular dinner. For example we went to mexican tonight and I gave her some of my chicken (she loved it). Dr. N. said that at 9 months she should be eating more of what we eat - so I think you are doing great! My mom told me that she never gave us baby food, we always ate what they were having for dinner.

Sonia
Proud Mommy to Martie 4/6/03

[lisams]

Hey Neve, thanks for the list it gave me some ideas I never thought of (cranberry and rice - I feel stupid for not thinking of those!). DD LOVES cheese also, she goes around saying "geeze" all the time. I think it's great that he enjoys a variety of tastes and textures!

Lisa

[Melanie]

I bought a mini food processor and set about making some food. I was going to give Ds homemade baby food. I forgot to ask him if he ever planned on eating it! LOL! We went through many types of foods (I finally just started buying the natural stuff, instead of trying to make things for him to refuse). I donated the unused jars to the local Crisis Pregnancy Center.

He started on finger/table foods when he got teeth around 11 months.

[daisymommy]

Neve,
You are SO COMPLETELY on the right track (in my opinion). I really wish I had of bought less baby food, and started Josh in regular (non pureed) table food that we ate MUCH sooner. As a result, is has been such a terribly picky eater. I can count on one hand the things this kid will eat. He has stopped eating fruits and veggies all together. So I was afraid he wasn't get enough nutrients. I did something I know you will all flame me for...I gave my 17 month old a baby food jar of fruit. And guess what folks? He ate every last bit of the 6 oz. jar. He will eat pureed fruit or vegetables of any kind, but not in it's solid form. He has plenty of teeth, so thats not the issue. I really don't know what to do to get him to eat like a big boy! I'm so sick of feeding him chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and fish sticks. Thats really all he will ever eat. Do I keep giving him pureed jarred fruits and veggies so he will get some nutrition into him, or stop before I shoot myself in the foot?

[flagger]

Neve -

I am also so glad you posted this list. We have been doing some baby food just for convenience sake, but mostly we are pureeing up different fruits and veggies. We are at the point where we think we are not worried about allergies.

Cocoa's big people food meal is at lunchtime. We are trying to keep up this routine in preparation for the move to make it as easy as possible on her. We did have a bit of constipation over the past few days, but some baby food prunes did move things along. Much more solid of a BM came out, I know TMI. We were talking about formula only for a few days to sort of flush her out.

I wanted to give her some of our homemade chili but Ms. Flagger thinks it would be much much too spicy.

[toomanystrollers]

Amy,
Hey don't be hard on yourself about jar baby foods. FWIW, my two oldest were great eaters - lots of variety & table foods right until 20 -24 months. Now we're stuck in the boring kid food cycle - lots of pasta, rice, chicken - fortunately they still love fruits and carrot sticks. Maybe their taste buds kick in full-throttle at that age - who knows?

[deborah_r]

I only thought of this because I avoid it myself - Rice-a-roni has MSG in it. I didn't realize it for a long time, but I have a bad reaction to MSG. Not sure if it is a problem to give to a baby, just wanted to mention it...

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

I don't give Tristan any spicy foods...we don't puree either, if it is a bean etc... I take a fork and crush it but we've yet to puree anything...
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

the cranberry only occured to us since it was left overs from Thanksgiving :)...he loves them!!!
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[egoldber]

Neve, I mainly did fork mashed foods too. There were a few things I did puree just because they were stringy or had harder outsides, but in general, the fork method worked well for us.

[egoldber]

Amy, I really wouldn't beat yourself up over it. My ped warned me at DD's one year appointment that even the BEST eaters tend to reduce the number of foods they will eat significantly when they become toddlers.

HTH,

[littleme2]

Hi,

I was wondering how old Tristan was when you started giving him adult food. I'd like to also give adult food that's just fork mashed. It would be easier to transition to real food.

The only concern is that we're Indian, and so of course we eat spicy food. I was thinking of making it a little blander so DD could eat too. Thanks.

By the way, when can babies start cow's milk?

Thanks
Meetu

[flagger]

The general rule is one year for cow's milk.

A couple of the books I read suggested not making your regular food any less spicy or blander than normal since your baby will have to get used to your cooking eventually.

[pritchettzoo]

For parents who have done this--did you start out with rice (or whatever) cereal or just go straight to "people food" ? Not that I'll be trying for a couple more months...

Thanks!

Anna
Mama to Gracie (9/16/03)

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

We first gave Tristan rice cereal maybe at about 4 months...I don't think we've given it to him more than 5 times, I can't say it seemed like that big of a thing to us...

He started fruits shortly after that...

I'd say I fully converted him to his formula and "our food" in late Novemember which would be at 9 months. I say that becasue Thanksgiving seemed to be when we realized how many things we eat that he can too...

HTH,
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[nathansmom]

Nathan flat out refused any type of cereal. If we have another child I think I'm leaning more towards just mashing up whatever I am cooking and feeding my child that.

[amp]

Neve, Joining this discussion late, but wanted to tell you that I don't think you are doing anything wrong with how you are feeding Tristan. Jacob does eat jarred baby food, but he also eats our table food with glee! I mostly do the baby food to introduce new foods that are healthier and more basic than our food, just to be sure re: allergies. DH & I don't have any food allergies, but we do have other allergies, so we wanted to be slightly cautious. We also don't always eat as healthy as we could, so this way I make sure he gets fruit and veggies! LOL! He definitely prefers our food though, so he's getting lots of practice. He's had the typical cereals & jarred baby foods, but he's also had real sweet potatoes, mashed pototoes, pizza, chicken, turkey, cheese, broccoli, cherrios, yogurt, quesadillas, pasta w/ sauce, bread, etc. We just make sure that we either break into tiny bits or mash as needed. And we don't worry too much about flavor or spices. We don't feed him some of our stuff that has lots of pepper in it or is heavily seasoned or too greasy, but if it has some pasta sauce, garlic or fajita seasoning (which is often does), we don't worry too much about it.

[cinrein]

Have you tried mixing fruit in? Anna refuses straight cereal, but will eat it if I mix in fruit and yogurt or cottage cheese. I also add a tiny dab of cinnamon.

I find that Anna prefers food with strong tastes, like sharp Cheddar cheese over mild. I know, strange kid. For a long time she hated everything I gave her and I realized it was too bland for her. I don't salt her food, but will add parsley, parmesan cheese, or something to give it more of a taste. We can make almost anything edible to her if we mix it with yogurt or cottage cheese.

Cindy and Anna 2/11/03

[nathansmom]

Thanks for the idea but he flat out refuses it no matter how I hide it. I mised it in with some fruit he loves and he took one bite and that was it for solids for the day. He then taste tests every food offered to him for days to make sure there is no cereal. Doesn't matter which cereal, he doesn't like any of them.