Ideas for Food

For my kids, I just gave them whatever we were eating off the table (meat and veggies and starch) and ran it through a food processor until it was small enough. I have a mini one that I found at Kohl's for $10-20. A food chopper works great for that too. I also thought that the baby food selection was very limited and started making my own. I never had a problem with any frozen vegetables except lima beans. You may want to until he is older because of the shell on those. My kids tended to choke on it until they were older.

If your son is able to swallow things ok try giving him bite 1/4 - 1/2 chucks of banana, peachs pears, and melon. My son's loved sweet potatos and squash. Also my 1 year old son does good with small chuncks of soft bread. I slice up the string cheese into small disks and he loves being able to feed him self. He likes the pasta pick-ups and does ok with small noodles as well.

I have made all my son's (he's 8 months) food, so I'm not exactly sure what all Gerber has but so far he's had
broccoli, eggplant, cauliflower (he hates it!), papaya, mango, lentils, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, plums, plus the usual peas, grean beans, carrots, sweet potatos, apples, etc. Oh you can do canned pumpkin (WHOLE pumpkin NOT pie pumpkin)- my son LOVES it, sometimes I mix it with apple or pear too. We have given him pieces of rice and mashed potatos from our plate. My friends daughter loves advocado - a ripe one doesn't have to be cooked (but it turns brown like a fresh banana would). Also, small pieces of melon have worked well, canatloupe and watermelon are what we've given, he did pretty good there too.
Hope this helps, really don't limit yourself! My friend gave her daughter parsnips, rutabaga, etc even though they don't eat them, I myself did not go that far, but it's good to expose I guess!
Good luck, and happy eating. Feel free to email me if you have questions. ____@____.com

There is also a "baby food maker" it grinds up food like what is in the baby food jars, you can get one of those and mash up anything that has been cooked. Its takes a little time, but I used it at work, we had to grind up some food and i was able to do pb and j's, bologna and cheese, and we were even able to fit the bread in it. If you could get one of those your food supply would be unlimted as long as it would be able to fit in it to grind up. So I would say if you could get one of those 1. I'm sure it would end up being cheaper, and 2. you would have a good varitey.

I hope this has helped you some. And good luck

one thing I have heard, but haven't looked into it so I am unaware how true it is, is that you should only introduce one new food a week or 2 weeks, so that you can be sure your baby doesn't have a reaction to it(*if you are doing a bunch of foods and there is a reaction you will not know what food caused it*) also it helps cement that flavor food memory without it becoming jumbled.

I'm not sure about the pasta and rice - can't remember how mine did. I think you could buy them in the baby food, so they would probably be alright, as long as they were mushy enough and small enough that he wouldn't choke.

I remember my kids loving tofu (mushed if they can't handle chunks yet, soft kind really easy for them to eat - they loved it in cubes), avacado (small pieces or mushed), and really any type of food you could cook till soft or was already soft enough to mash without teeth.

Lucy

I had a great book called, "Mommy Made." It gave good tips on preparing your own food. There were recipes, instructions and lists of when to introduce different foods. I prepared food and put it in ice cube trays for later, too. Often, we'd grind up for the baby the things we were eating (that were appropriate.) They seemed to like that much better than processed food from the store. Hope this helps some.

M.,
All you need is a decent blender. I made most of my son's veggies and fruit. Cook the veggies lightly, cool, then place in your blender with a small amount of water. Puree as smooth or as chunky as your baby is ready for. Pour into ice cube trays for single servings on demand! Butter, salt etc is only for grownups! Try adding a cube of strawberries to plain oatmeal or rice cereal. It tastes like cardboard otherwise. You can puree pasta & rice but it must be cooked mushy first. A few foods are difficult to puree well such as green beans and corn, they are good store bought. Remember meat is tougher to digest. Other good sources of protein are scrambled eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, or mashed beans.

Good luck!
S.

I like to feed my children 'fresh' foods rather than conventional baby foods, but I admit I rarely make the time! However, it's pretty easy to find wholesome foods lying around. Nectarines, peaches, applesauce, most any non-acidic fruit; Squash, zuchini, sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, asparagus, most any veggie; cooked & mashed/pureed brown rice, Lentils, beans, split peas, chicken, etc.
You can even make your own stews and soups that are good for the whole family and just blend them up for your baby (I personally prefer to leave out salt/pepper, and season with garlic, onion, etc.)
You may have tried all of these, but just some ideas off the top of my head.
Best wishes!