Who here made/makes their own babyfood?

[commander bunnypants]

Is it worth it?


CB

[Robb]

1. I stopped a few years ago

The price of babies went too high, OH! :D

[Maine-ah]

3. ROFLMAO!

"baby, the other, other, white meat!"

"get in my belly!"
:rofl: :rofl:

[Maine-ah]

2. my babe is still too young, but my sister

did with her kids. All she did was take what she and her hubbie were having and toss it in the blender, less a few ingredients. It saved money on baby food, and you know what your baby is eating. It worked for them. I don't know if I'll do it that way, but I have certainly been looking into making my own baby food. There are plenty of recipies on the internets, just google.

[trof]

4. My daughter did, a lot of it.

She's on a kind of jihad against 'additives'.
It's pretty easy and generally cheaper.

[crim son]

5. I did, and it was worth it.

I always had a small food processor on the kitchen counter and made everything fresh. When the kids were able to eat a wide variety of table foods, I'd puree every part of the meal (and if I was lazy, I'd puree it all together :) ). I don't know what good it did my kids but it certainly did not harm them and they eat anything you put in front of them except mushrooms.

[reyd reid reed]

6. I've done it

and it's not that hard...if you've got the time, go for it. You know exactly what's in it and you don't have to worry about picking up enough at the store or the portion size. You make what they'll eat (and you can freeze the rest. When I did it, I froze it in ice cube trays) and you don't have all the half-full jars of baby food in the freezer. I don't think it really saved me that much in the way of $$, but then my kids were eating table food (albeit minced -- I swear, I still instinctively reach to cut my youngest's meat sometimes and he's ten now) before they were a year old. I figured, the guidelines keep changing and when my oldest was a baby (he's 23 now) the pediatrician had me start him on solid food a lot earlier than they recommend now.

One thing that I do recommend is to start baby on veggies. Skip the applesauce and pears and bananas. Go through all the veggies until baby's learned to like them all -- and baby will because the fun thing here is that you get to teach them what they like and what they don't. Think about it...if you were little and someone started out giving you bananas and pears and apples and then turned around and expected you to eat spinach and green beans and squash...which would you prefer?

[BarenakedLady]

8. I second the freezer tray method

perfect one size servings, just pop it out, heat it up and serve. I would make batches of pureed veggies, fruit, etc. I also second the advice to start with the veggies first.

RRR is a smart lady. :thumbsup:

[raptor_rider]

7. I do now with my 7 month old

and will do the same with the one due in May.

My parents bought a couple of jars of baby food and I tried feeding them to my son. He gags on them, however if I make the same thing from home, he just eats it up.

I think it is healthier and better for them. We can our own fruits and veggies every year, so I know what is going into my son's mouth.

[Nicole]

9. I did

It was definitely worth it. I was able to feed my baby fresh food without a lot of other crap added to it.

[uppityperson]

10. I did, it was simply, easy, fast, affordable.

UPJr ate whatever we did. Many foods can be easily squashed or minced or nibbled into tiny pieces. Makes we parents be aware of what we eat also.

[Beausoir]

11. I used to. Not all of it, but the carrots and applesauce and things like that.

[Ravenseye]

12. we did for our daughter

and will for our son.

It's cheaper and better for the baby. All you need is some fruits or vegetables and a will (though a food processor helps). We would make a bunch all at once and then freeze 'servings' in ice cube trays that we could thaw out, that way we weren't constantly doing it.

One hour or so a month. Cook some veggies or fruit, mush them up, put them in ice cube trays, voila.

SO much cheaper and easier and better for the baby.

[Burma Jones]

13. We do, we have a five month old daughter

she is very fond of sweet potato

[Dora]

14. I did, and yes. It saved us serious money.

I made batches of applesauce, sweet potatoes, prunes, and froze them in 8 oz glass jars. A jar would last 2-3 days. I also pureed peas and froze them in an ice cube tray. I used a chinois and pestle for the apples and prunes - I found that pureeing apples actually liquified them. I tried a mini food mill, but it was a joke.

Given a few favorite fruits and veggies, you'll find that you can make enough combinations to keep you and your child from getting bored. We also continued to feed him rice cereal, as well as oatmeal and multigrain baby cereal. Pretty soon he was digging hard on mashed spaghetti w/ parmesan, and also bites of liverwurst.

Opinions on "veggies first" vary. I didn't worry that our son was getting so much "sweet" stuff. Some kids won't eat vegetables no matter what because they taste a bitterness that is unpalatable at their age. When we entered the table foods stage we were still breastfeeding, so I decided that as long as he was getting all of his vitamins and nutrients, it didn't matter to me whether it came from a head of broccoli or a sweet potato or my breast. Lentil/carrot soup was another of his favorites, and very easy to do. Oh, and chocolate custard too.

For what it's worth, he's almost two years old now, and he loves steamed broccoli, zucchini, yellow squash, tomato sauce. Sausage (of any kind) is his favorite food group - I blame it on liverwurst.

[commander bunnypants]

15. thanks all

She is only 5 weeks old but I saw an article to day in the newspaper. So I thought why the frig not

CB

[Bjornsdotter]

16. I did

...I liked knowing what my babies were eating. I don't think it was actually cheaper because I would try to buy organic for the ankle-biters and 20 years ago that was pretty expensive.

cheers

[Beer Snob-50]

17. i helped make some babies

that was worth it.