DIY Baby Food

I feel like I've talked about Kenley's eating quite a bit, but I think it's because it's the one thing in regards to parenting that kind of stresses me out. I mean - what you feed your baby from Day 1 sets the tone for their health and eating habits for the rest of their lives. If you ask me, that's a lot of responsibility. Then you've got breastfeeding, bottle feeding, weaning, solids, allergies, store bought baby food, homemade baby food etc. etc. etc. PLUS, everyone has a different method or different idea of what and when and how to feed your baby!

Is your head spinning yet?

If you've been following for a while you know that Kenley was exclusively breastfed with some small formula supplementation for the first 6 months {or pretty much until I completely dried up - wah!} We started to introduce solids at 6 months with homemade fruit and veggie purees and added a new food every three days to allow us to pinpoint allergies {which so far, hasn't been an issue!} You may remember this handy dandy chart I created to plan out which foods to introduce when:

When it came time for me to start thinking about solid foods I did some research on making my own. I never really considered it and thought it seemed like a TON of unnecessary work. The more I looked in to it the more I realized it was something I really wanted to do. I love to cook as it is, so making Kenley's food has been something I've really enjoyed, not stressed over. Plus, the cost savings is amazing! A 4oz jar of store bought baby food runs somewhere around $0.50 - $1.05 depending on the brand and the store. If I buy one bag of baby carrots for $1.49 I can get 24oz of pureed carrots. That's $0.24 for 4oz or at least HALF the cost! Plus, I really love knowing EXACTLY what I'm feeding Kenley without any weirdo preservatives.

Once committing to making my own baby food, I invested in some supplies to help the process:

• Whole Grain & Organic Oatmeal Cereal & Rice Cereal 
• All Natural / Organic store bought baby food for in a pinch or if the whole making-my-own went terribly wrong. 
• Super cute Bee lunchbox to pack Kenley's food for day care at grandma & grandpa's
• OXO Tot Baby Food Freezer Trays for freezing the purees
• Fresh N Freeze 2oz Containers for thawing and packing the puree cubes
• Munchkin BPA Free Bowls
• Gerber Soft Bite Spoons
• Tommee Tippee Sippy Cup {to start sippy cup training}
• Not pictured is the food processor that we already had. It worked great so I didn't see a need for any of the fancy baby food gadgets {though I've heard they're amazing}.

The actual process for making your own baby food is pretty simple. I just peel, steam or bake whatever I'm cooking and then throw it in our food processor. I usually add some water to the puree to get the right consistency. Then I scoop the puree into the freezer trays, cover and let freeze for 24 hours. Then I pop them out and put them in a ziploc bag labeled with the food and the date. Then I either pull and microwave the cubes to defrost or put one in the Fresh N Freeze container to thaw in the fridge overnight {which is what I do for Kenley's meals at day care}.

The cubes are good in the freezer for 3 months, so now that we're mixing up combos and introducing more foods I just make the purees on an as needed basis. The only things I don't freeze are bananas and avocados because they brown so easily. Those I'll just throw in our mini chopper before serving. 

 Of course now that Kenley is eating more grown up foods and is learning to feed herself, a lot of this is changing. No doubt I'll be doing another food post before too long but I was long overdue to share my experience with making my own baby food. Hopefully those of you considering making your own find it helpful!

Despite the confused and somewhat terrified look on her face,
Kenley gives mama's baby food two teeny thumbs up!

You can check out my other posts on baby eating by clicking these fancy links:
Boob Chat
Accepting the Drought
Starting Solids
What to Feed My Baby...When?

Link up every Tuesday!