Guest post by Lisa Cain, co-founder, Babyfood101.com
One thing that new parents need is time. It is a rare commodity when you are working, parenting, and getting very little sleep. If you are parenting a 6 month old or older, you now have the added responsibility to feed actual food to your baby. We suggest making some baby food from the dinner you will make for yourself.
It is probably time to put the take-out menus back in the drawer and use your kitchen again. You know which room I am talking about, the one with the large cold box and the other box that heats things up in seconds. There should be something called a stove in there and (hopefully) some pots and pans. Your mission is to start to eat the way you would like to see your child eat when he/she grows up.
Why start cooking now? Well, many research studies have shown that the biggest factor determining the eating habits of children is the eating habits of their parents. You eat fast food, your child will eat fast food. You eat brown rice and tofu, your child will eat brown rice and tofu.
The problem is, at the end of the day when we are all wiped out, the last thing we want to do is cook. Usually at 5:30 or 6:00 PM, your child is really cranky. It take self discipline and planning to cook. But you can do it! Not only that but you can have your “perfect” parenting moment where you feed your homemade baby food to your baby.
Cooking homemade baby food is actually really easy. The key is to just plan meals for yourself that will incorporate some of the foods that your baby can eat, and then feed some to your baby. You do have to go shopping and cook, but, with some planning, it should take you less time than waiting for the pizza delivery. Cooking a meal will be less expensive and more satisfying.
Below is an example of cooking for yourself and baby. This recipe includes a super easy pasta recipe for adults, a kind of grown up macaroni and cheese. It also includes 2 foods that you could serve to an 8 month old baby: spinach and ricotta cheese.
Shopping List:
1 pound penne pasta
1 10 ounce package frozen spinach
15 ounces whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
For Baby:
Serve ricotta cheese right out of container. For spinach, thaw and mash to baby’s current favorite consistency.
For Parent:
Cook pasta and spinach to package directions. Squeeze water out of spinach. In a large bowl, mix pasta, spinach, 1 cup ricotta cheese, and parmesan. Add salt and pepper to taste.
looks super yummy!!
Using baby led weaning, I was feeding my 7 month old ALL the foods we were eating. No pureeing, no cutting food up into itty bitty pieces. From the very beginning he ate off our plates, and learned how to eat and handle a variety of foods. Oh, and he didn’t even get teeth until he was 11 1/2 months old, and he was eating huge hunks of organic chicken breast before that. I think people just need to offer whatever food they are eating to their babies, and see if it works, if it doesn’t then it doesn’t. Really, no need to mash food. And jarred babyfood? That’s just a money making scheme by big corporate babyfood factories, babies over 6 months, do not need their food mashed. Even without teeth. Jarred food was invented in the olden days for babies that were having food shoveled in their mouths at 4 months. But the companies aren;t going to fight you if you want to feed it to a completely capable 6 month old!
This looks great! I’ll definitely be trying it for my 11 month old. I’m extremely cooking challenged, but I know I need to get into the kitchen. I don’t want my son growing up on frozen dinners like I did. I’d love to see more articles/recipes like this. Thanks!
I don’t always play by the rules. I slowly started feeding my son all the foods we were eating beginning at 7 mos and later when he got all his teeth i started giving him nuts even. He never choked once on them and was a pro in no time. My 11 mos old daughter refuses food cut up into chunks- she wants the big stuff so I give her half apples and other big pieces and she does amazingly well with just two teeth. Oh and by the way I let both my babies sleep on their bellies as I believe SIDS has more to do with vaccine reactions than sleep position.
if you want to grow your own organic vegetables at home in your back garden, you can set a section to be a plot, or use a raised flower bed or containers I use all three to maximise my space I have, my 1 year old daughter just loves the frest fruit and veg that I do for her.
i let her run about the garden knowing that just about all the plants i have there are edible.
great site! keep up the good work
thanks
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Susan
http://toddlergirls.net
It so easy not having to worry about what to feed my baby, its so easy giving them whatever i’m eating!
I found for the foods that were hard like carrots cucumbers or apples i would just grade it with a cheese grader and it was a perfect easy fast snack!