Hi everyone. My baby is 6 months old, and loves eating. Right now I give him cereal with fruit or veggie (sweet potatoes, carrots, or squash) 3 times a day and he still drinks pleanty of formula and watered down juice.
Yesterday at his 6 month check up the doctor said I can move on to mixed foods and meats.. yuck.
Is it time to give him the "chicken and vegetables medley... you know what I mean. I am grossed out by the meat in a jar thing. Does anyone grind their own food for baby? I have a mini food processor just for that. Can I mix some roasted chicken and potato and formula.. of my own?
What are your opinions on the meat in a jar?
And when is a good time to let him have desserts? Never? What about the baby custard, or rasin stuff? Is it good for them, or just extra calories. Baby is 20 pounds already!
Thanks for the cool link to the homemade baby food recipes! Last night my boy ate a whole jar of BeechNut Chicken Soup, and LOVED IT. Tonight we are trying Turkey and rice, and we also have Mac and Cheese..
The other puree meats still look very disgusting, so thanks to the cool link I am planning to make him his own baby soup and dinners at home.
Thank you all!
It is never necessary to give a child meat. Look at this link, you will find it interesting and informative: //www.pcrm.org/health/Info_on_Veg_Diets/veg_diets_for_child...
i did at the beginning of feeding my son the only thing you hve to worry about is not to give him meat with spices on it his tummy can't handle the spices yet but you can boil or bake the meats without spices or seasoning and grind it and ive it to him thats not a problem
Hi,
My son is 8 months (well on Friday) and I've been making own food. I don't do pureed meats. I do what my husband calls the baby bird method. I'll chew up a little chicken while we are having it and let him try it. This is a great website for making your own babyfood hope it helps.
http://wholesomebabyfood.com/MeatRecipes.htm
R.
ok so its not as bad as it seams. the mixed foods are great my son loves them all but he has never said no to a food yet just like his dad. The foods with meat are fine you just have to get over the fact that they come in a can-if this is a problem for you make your own baby food. cook up a plain chicken beast and throw it in your food processor grind it up and feed it to your little one as for other food just do the same. we started doing this with our son but he was more interested in what we had so now he just eats what we do-with in reason (we had chili last night and he got a can of spagitti and beef sauce gerber is great.)
hope this helps,
K.
Hello S.,
I have a 7 mos old boy who was WAY under weight at his 6mos checkup. Only weighing 12lbs. 5 oz. anyways they told me to give him table foods anything he wanted. So I tried chicken and meat babyfood for him. He hated it. And peas forget about it. His favorites are Rice cereal, oatmeal, with some vegetable, usually carrots, sweet potatoes. Try graham crackers if he has teeth, or the dissolvable puffs, cheerios, any of that baby food treats. The only meat he likes is if we have ground beef, but really, really small bites, watch him closely. Chicken isn't really his favorite yet. I hope that shines some light on this issue for you.
My girls never liked baby food much, so they ate table food. I would "over cook" veggies so they were really mushy, no salt or anything else added. They would eat the cereals with fruit and they both loved chicken, I always just chopped it up really tiny. And there was a chicken and brocolli baby food that they both liked.
I worked of the list of baby food by age and fed them that way with real food, use the baby food sites not "bob's baby guide" lol.
As for desserts, if your Doctor isn't worried about weight then you shouldn't either. Let him have some fun stuff too, but I would stick to the respected name brands for that.
when my daughter was getting to that stage in life, my doctor agreed that the meat in the jar thing was pretty gross, and told me she wouldn't give it, wait until the child can handle meat I cook. She should be getting enough protein at this point from her formula. So I skipped those until she could handle small pieces of meat I made.
As for the desserts, I was told to stay away from them...they are empty calories, and they are taking the place of food that could be giving her precious nutrients. Remember, at this age, they don't eat b/c they are bored, they eat because their body needs the nutrients. I also stayed away from them for fear that she would only want the desserts, and refuse the good stuff I had to offer. Now, I did however occasionally give her a taste of some goodies that I had...such as vanilla cake or ice cream, the smallest bit, you have to have some fun!
I made most of my own babyfood. There's so much junk in the jarred stuff! The single and double ingredient ones weren't too bad, but once you got into the mixed stuff, it was full of chemicals and processed stuff. Once you get to that point you might as well give table food anyway.
It's important that you try all the ingredients to anything singly before you give a mixture of stuff. So if you wanted to give a soup with chicken, carrots, and potatoes, you have to have already tried at least 2 of those. Then if he reacts you know it was the third. Give 4-7 days in between trying each new thing.
At 6 months, he's probably only ready for certain fruits and vegetables, maybe meat, though I'd probably wait a few more months for that. Grain is really rough on their tummies because they don't make the enzymes to digest it until 9-12 months. Juice is just basically sugar with a little nutrient, you're better off giving the fruit (in appropriate texture, but still the whole fruit) and giving water to drink.
And I don't think there's any problem with putting spices on their food, as long as you introduce it like any other food, ie plain chicken one day, then chicken with garlic 4-7 days later. You want him to develop an appetite for tasty things and not be picky later on. :D
Whatever you do, stay away from the solo meats in a jar. They smell bad and don't taste good at all.
Making your own baby food is admirable, but you need to be careful to make sure that you are avoiding the necessary foods. I don't recall all of them, but I know that they say to use caution with making your own spinach baby food. I attempted to make my own baby food a few times, but I felt like it wasn't worth the mess and time commitment. You have to get the perfect amount of liquid to food ratio. I also just tried to "process" the food I made for the rest of the family, but didn't feel that it was appropriate for the baby to have more grown-up amounts of salt, etc..
As far as desserts, stay away. There is plenty of sugar hidden in the finger foods (i.e. the puffs, wagon wheels, etc) that you don't really need to give it to your child from a jar. My rule of thumb was if the ingredients contained no sugar or corn starch, then it was good.
Good luck. Whatever your decision, I'm sure it will be what is best for you and your family.
I actually just took my son to the doctor yesterday for his six month checkup, and the doctor told me that they mostly think baby foods are a waste of money from this point on, and that as long as you mash/grind healthy foods up really well, and obviously don't salt the baby's food, (or use sugar, butter, etc.) the baby should be eating table foods. She did mention that jarred meats will have more iron in them than the soft meats like chicken or fish that you would just grind up and give the baby, but otherwise, she said she prefers grinding your own meats.
(And, I'm sure you already know this, but obviously stay away from hyper-allergenic foods like peanut products, shellfish, honey, etc. She said a few dairy products like yogurt are good in moderation, but don't give the baby cow's milk to drink until he's at least one year old.)
