Solids!
The thing about parenting that I’m learning is that you will never do everything exactly the way you think it’s best done. You can read and read and formulate ideas and plans and decide where you stand on a thousand issues. You can write a list of rules and work to implement as many as possible or you can follow no rules at all. But there is always going to be compromise, so the only way to get anywhere is by prioritizing what’s most important to you.
That means a lot of things to a lot of different people. For me there are several issues in regards to parenting and raising a child that I am passionate about. One such issue is nutrition and feeding my kid(s) healthfully. It’s why I’ve breastfed from the beginning and continued to do so after returning to work. And let me tell you, pumping three times a day at work and once before bed is not as fun as it sounds! Ha. But I want Annabel to have the best, and since I’m very fortunate to be able to do it, I’m going to continue.
And now, it’s why I’m making my own baby food! I’ve been ridiculously excited for Annabel to reach six months because I’ve so been looking forward to trying my hand at baby food making. Not that there’s much to it at this point, but I’ve still been excited.
So two weekends ago, I bought my supplies and got to it. We already had a food processor, so it was really just the vegetables that I had to buy. Annabel had already tried avocado and loved it, so next I bought a couple of sweet potatoes, some green beans, peas and carrots. So much cheaper and so much better than jarred baby food! And really very easy.
Simply chop,
cook, puree,
and freeze. Then each day you can pull out a cube or two or three,
let it thaw,
and feed to baby.
Annabel has LOVED everything she’s tried so far. I’ve heard of babies refusing to open their mouths for solids, shaking their heads, spitting it out, gagging and other different reactions, but so far, Annabel has had none of those. She has gobbled it all down and already has an identifiable noise for when she wants more. So funny!
I’m excited to keep adding new vegetables to the rotation, along with some fruits and eventually some oatmeal and yogurt combined with fruits. I’ll never say that I’ll never give her processed foods (because that’s very nearly impossible and probably overkill), but my goal is to limit her diet strictly to whole foods for as long as possible. I know I won’t have long before outside influences start in on her.
We’ll see how that goes since the other thing I’m learning about motherhood is that no matter how much you plan and no matter how good your intentions, there are always surprises and curve balls!
I rarely gave Kaylee jarred/processed baby food (typically the MIL’s doing if she got it) and I loved that I didn’t have to. This was my FAVORITE site for ideas….
http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/
There’s all sorts of things I wouldn’t have thought to give her. She’s not a picky eater and I credit starting her out on all sorts of things.
The other thing is, I have a strict no fast food policy with anyone who watches her. And even now… Kaylee is 21 months old and rarely has processed foods… it’s possible. It just takes some planning… plus it’s kept a lot of the processed stuff out of MY diet, which I find awesome. Outside influences will leak in, but stay strong, Momma! It doesn’t have to take over.
Have fun with the new diapers
hehehehe
I love that site! Been using it a lot lately and probably will for a long time. Thanks for the encouragement!
Yay!!! Way to go – that’s so awesome! I regret not having done that for Jaden… I don’t know if it just felt too intimidating, or what. In hindsight I see how very easy it would have been and how good it would have felt to do it… oh well. I’m glad Annabel’s enjoying her new menu!
Don’t worry, you’ve done a fantastic job with Jaden and everyone knows it!
you rock! i’m totally into the good, real food, too. it looks delicious!
Ha, I don’t know about that, but I appreciate your kind words:) I’ll remember them when I’m feeling lazy and unmotivated to make baby food.
I read this yesterday and meant to comment. I think it’s awesome that you’re doing this because I get more upset than anything at parents who are feeding their kids crap, because those kids aren’t yet able to make their own choices about food. One thing I’ve always wondered about – parents say their kids refuse healthy food, but how can they know any different at such a young age? I would imagine spinach would taste good if that’s all you knew, right? I mean, I saw a baby being fed a donut once, so that makes sense. But what about in the case of like your daughter, where she hasn’t had that stuff? Is that really what it comes down to, just being introduced to addictive foods at too young of an age?
Ugh, it drives me crazy to see that as well! I don’t claim to be an expert, but yeah, it seems to me that if you just steered clear of those foods your kid wouldn’t even know they liked them! It drives me crazy when I hear people say that their kids “will only eat chicken nuggets and mac and cheese.” Well yeah, if that’s what you feed them, that’s what they’ll want! The most frustrating thing is the outside influences that I alluded to in my post. I can only control this for so long and then there will be school and play dates and birthday parties and an endless number of other situations where she will be introduced to those foods. Bummer:(
Ehh I think babies still have opinions. I mean, they do have tastebuds and sometimes things like parsnips or spinach wouldn’t taste too awesome if they know breast milk or yams tastes better to them. The problem *I* personally have is parents who don’t try the foods the baby rejects more than once… or twice.
Donuts for a baby would cause me to go into a rage.
The good thing, Adrianne is you will be the most prevalent source of nutrition for her for a while. Keep things consistent at home and she might surprise you and go for that strawberry at her friend’s house instead of the cookie… ya never know… I’ve seen kids of all ages surprise the heck out of me with their food choices – good and bad. I even had a friend who was in her 20s and NEVER had processed or fast food. This is back in my fast food days. I had to show her how to use Sonic. She didn’t care for it (thankfully, looking back I didn’t start her on a bad path).
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