Frugal Friday: Baby food
Do you buy baby food for your daughter or do you make it? When I see pictures of your shopping trips I do not see any foods that you could use to make baby food. I have two boys 8 and 3 and a baby girl 8 months. I was just curious. It seems like I am spending a lot on baby food these last couple of months. -MandyGreat question, Mandy! Having only had two little children so far, I'm no expert when it comes to parenting, so I'll just share what we've done with our girls. Each child and family is different so please do what works best for your family. Here's what has worked for us:
1. I nurse exclusively for the first six months. For me, nursing is easy, simple, a great post-pregnancy weight-loss program, the best nourishment for my child, and it's free. (Well, it is unless you count all the extra food I consume while nursing!)
2. We start introducing a few foods here and there at around six months. This is normally in the form of just giving the child a couple of tastes of banana or vegetables a few times per week. I usually mash up something that I'm already eating and offer a few bites. Nursing continues like usual.
Kathrynne wasn't really interested in food until around a year so she didn't do much besides nurse and taste things here and there for the first year. Kaitlynn, on the other hand, is quite interested in food. However, she is still mostly nursing, while eating small amounts of table food a few times each day.
3. We start encouraging our children to eat small meals three times per day at around a year old. We stick with fruits, vegetables, and whole grains first and then gradually add in other foods. By this time, a child can easily eat soft table foods (or fruits/veggies mashed in the baby food grinder) so we'll just offer the child whatever fruit or veggies we're eating at a meal plus some homemade bread or other wholegrain finger foods.
As our child catches on to eating more, nursing is, in turn, gradually reduced to only 3-4 times per day (usually once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once before bed) and will continue to be replaced more and more by table food over the next six to twelve months. (I weaned Kathrynne at 18 months, I plan to nurse Kaitlynn at least that long unless she weans herself sooner.)
I personally see store-bought baby food as one of the most overpriced items ever, so I don't buy it except on the rare occasion when I can get it for free. I've made baby food up ahead of time and frozen it in ice cubes before, but I found that didn't work very well for us. Now we pretty much just offer whatever foods we are already eating. Since I normally make homemade bread every few days and we eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, it's quite simple to have something for the baby to eat from what we're already eating.
I do recommend you invest in a simple baby food grinder (they are about $10) and then just make sure you plan fruits and vegetables into your menus that your baby can eat. If it's something which can't just be easily mashed with a fork, stick a small bit in the grinder when you sit down at the table, grind it up for them, and you're good to go!So that's how we keep our babies nutritiously fed without spending a lot of extra money. I'd love to hear what works for others. Tell us about it in your Frugal Friday post this week or leave a comment!
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Labels: In the Kitchen, Mothering
posted by Crystal Paine at 6:27 PM
39 Comments:
For my first one, I pureed and froze ice cube trays full of whatever fruits/veggies or blends I wanted to feed, and then pop the cubes out to store and defrost one per meal. BUT I like your way better because it is fresh, and that is sort of how we fed the second babe.
We do very similar to you. I do start finger foods earlier. I just chop up whatever steamed veggie we're having or soft fruits like banana. Both my kiddos were much more into food once they could feed themselves! I also don't limit nursing after a year, but at least with my first he cut down a lot on his own anyways around then and continued until he weaned himself. It's way cheaper to nurse to 2 than to buy whole milk for your child to drink (and more nutritious) to get the extra fats in.
We've done basically what you have, Crystal -- just used table food, and waited long enough so the baby was ready for that. :)
We borrowed a baby food grinder when our first child was born, but I ended up not even using it a single time, since we waited until 10-11 months to start solids and our babies could eat cooked veggies that were mashed with a fork. :) I agree that a baby food grinder is better/healthier/cheaper than buying pre-made baby food (unless you get the high quality top-dollar ones that don't have icky fillers!) but I'm also happy that we haven't even needed a grinder... yet (who knows about future babies, right?). :)
I never cut down on the nursing at 12 months, because I have actually heard that nursing is really really beneficial for at least the first 13 months, not 12. Who knows? Oh well, I just kinda let my babies decide when they wanted to nurse, but, mine ended up weaning at a younger age than Kathrynne did. :P
Hi Crystal!
This is SUCH a helpful post!!! Thank you! :) So many people have made it seem like I had to feed my child starting at 4 months! My little guy didn't want food till about 10 months and even then not very much food at all. I would stress and lament, thinking he would be malnourished, despite the fact he was getting plenty of breastmilk. :) The poor little guy was just fine and here i was freezing all these foods that he never wanted. :)
Sure enough, when he was a little over a year, he started eating great! Just whatever we have, and I never have to freeze or make special food for him. And he despised that expensive baby cereal i thought i had to buy.
I am expecting my second baby now, and i plan to totally take it easy about food and just him/her enjoy her milk till she's ready for food. :)
Thanks for the recommendation of the grinder. I found using a blender called for so much clean up and didn't always work well anyways.
I think bananas are a great thing to start out with too! And my son LOVED blueberries grinded up a bit.
Christy :)
I never bought baby food. I usually pureed whatever canned fruit or vegetables we had and froze them in ice cube trays. When frozen, I transferred them to a zip-top freezer bag for later use. I used one or two cubes per meal depending on the age and hunger level of the baby, adding more as they grew.
There is also an ancient practice which I used only when in dire need: the mother takes a tiny bite of something and chews it until well dissolved, then transfers it to a spoon and feeds it to the infant. I know it sounds gross, but this is still in practice in many developing countries where there is no baby foods or ways to process food palatable for infants without teeth. Do a Google search for "pre-chewed food" if you don't believe me. :)
You would, of course, need to be reasonably sure you didn't have a contagious disease before attempting such a thing.
I used this very same grinder. I never bought one jar of baby food. I like that you can take the grinder with you, but for firmer fruits, like apples, it took a little muscle! Store bought baby food has additives that babies should not eat. Avoid it at all costs!
I hope this comment doesn't show up twice...
I used this same grinder for our last baby, and loved it's portability. I never bought any jars of baby food, it has additives that babies should not eat.
I had my now 22 month old on your exact schedule. She is now a great, adventurous and healthy eater. She never liked baby food or cereal and I didn't force her. I am so glad I didn't. My son, on the other hand, was fed cereal and baby food from the time he was 4 months old. Around 7 months I began table food and he was fine. But I think waiting is far better for everyone.
We made all our own baby food (the ice cube tray method) and only kept a few store-bought jars of baby food on hand for emergencies or if we wouldn't be home and couldn't be sure there'd be something the baby could eat.
I wonder if anyone here has actually tasted jarred, store-bought baby food (other than plain fruits and vegetables)? First, smell it. Yuck! I actually tasted some name brand meat/vegetable mush and it was awful. Just awful. Fresh is best! :-)
Crystal,
Is a baby food grinder better than a food processor?
I started around 3 months w/my baby. She didn't take to the breast for too long. And I ended up going to formula. We buy it by the case at Costco, so it saves us money that way.
I have fed six babies. These were ones from foster care that we later adopted so nursing wasn't an option. Thankfully they qualified for WIC (Women Infants and Children - a government program) that supplied most of their formula for free. I used baby food for the first few, then as more children came the budget got tighter so I ended up just raising them on mashed up food that we ate. It worked great. I wished I had done it with all of them.
Michelle
I too started my son on 'baby food' before I thought we were really ready. (5 months) just because people were giving me grief about him being older than 4 months. If we ever have another one, I'm gonna wait at least 6 months!
That aside, some things, like apples, I bought in bulk, cooked, and froze for ease of use. Otherwise I fed him whatever fresh fruits we had on hand as well as buying organic babyfood. (fyi - most babyfood doesn't have additives other than vitamin C -asorbic acid- for freshness. for me I stayed away from conventional foods just because of the pesticides used on fruits and veggies)I really only bought it for the first couple months until I started realizing how easy it was to mash up our own! Once he started eating finger foods around 9 or 10 months I never mashed again. Next time I have planned on doing exactly what your schedule is.
Ummmm, I just feed my babies right off my plate. I do nurse them almost exclusively through most of their first year, so they are not needing nutrition from solid foods. For us, it's just a matter of introduction.
I bought some really cheap babyfood a few months ago, and Biruk enjoyed it while it lasted but it's not necessary.
I do try to set aside some food that is unsalted/non-sweetened for the babies to eat, but that is the extent of my doing anything special for them.
They are eating curried lentils and jambalaya (hot!) rice well before their first birthdays, along with basic smooshed fruits and veggies.
We did the same thing. Baby food didn't work for us, so we just offered whatever we were eating. She much preferred to feed herself. And at 7 months we never touched a baby spoon again. She is now 12 months and we go through lots of bananas and bread. Other fruits too but bananas are so much cheaper, and she can eat three a day. ;)
I do pretty much the same thing you do, only I don't have a baby food grinder. Instead, I use my immersion blender. No unitaskers in this kitchen. It's just too small to hold that much stuff. I don't go to the trouble of freezing things unless I found a great price on squash or carrots or something and it was going bad unless I did it. It's much easier to just give baby whatever we're having. We eat pretty well, so there's almost always something on the table that the little ones can handle. I can't stress enough that breastfeeding until 2 is the best possible way to get baby enough nutrition! Until he's able to eat fully balanced meals (between 12-18 months), I see food as just a supplement.
We used some jarred food, it was easier when we were not going to be at home.
I would normally take one day and cook up a bunch of veggies and even fruits, then grind them all. For some things I used my food processor, but most things I used my grinder which my grandmother gave me- that's how old it is!
A really good website I found while making the baby food was
"http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com">wholesome baby food it has a lot of recipes and ideas on it.
I'm lazy ;) I waited until she could mouth soft chunks (some people call this 'baby led weaning') on her own and gave her cubes of carrot, peas, cooked dried beans, diced meat, etc. We limited grains until she was 18 months because I'd been told they don't digest them well until 18 months or 2 years. I plan to nurse her til she's 2, but we're down to 4ish times a day at 18 months.
I fed my first baby similair to you with two exceptions. I traveled internationally with my son on one of hubby's business trips and took jarred baby food for the convenience and because I didn't know the availability of baby friendly foods. Obviously that was not a frugal choice, but one of convience. He really liked them, so after that I continued to give him some now & then.
Also I did give baby cereal, because my doctor said that babies need the iron in it. He said that breastmilk is the perfect food, except that it lacks iron. He said that the iron from pregnancy lasts about 6 months. After that he said not offering iron-fortified food could lead to problems. This never made much sense to me, but I went with it. Obviously I am not asking anyone to try to trump my doc, but have you or has anyone else ever been told this? Did you make any efforts to include iron-rich foods, and if so what?
My five month old has been really interested in food, so while I planned to wait to six months for her as well, I have begun offering her some cereal mixed with breastmilk and she LOVES it.
Thanks for the tip on the food grinder! I just ordered mine! I am so excited about being able to use it. I am having a baby in July and plan on breastfeeding, but I am always looking for healthy frugal ways to feed baby food!
Wow, I don't have children yet, but thanks for the ideas. Your babies look so healthy too!
I've always worked when we had a baby, but wanted to make my own food to save on expense -- and because I'd read it was tastier (no trying that stuff for me to find out for sure). Anyway, because I was working, I'd cook a bunch of stuff in batches over the weekend, puree it in the food processor (to different textures depending on the age of the baby) and freeze it in ice cubes. I did that less with my second child because I was working from home and it was easier to just mash what we were giving her.
When we traveled, I always used canned food because it was too much of a hassle to carry homemade stuff. Also, with new TSA regulations, I don't think you can carry homemade baby food. (You are allowed unlimited jarred baby food when traveling with an infant.)
I have a baby food grinder, but preferred the food processor myself. It could handle bigger loads faster and was easier to clean.
I had heard that babies need iron in their diets after six months, so we always offered our kids the baby cereal. It's not too expensive and lasts a long time (especially at first when it's mostly milk/water). I've also had pediatricians chastise me for waiting until six months to start solids and then going so slowly (I used to forget to try them), but I just changed pediatricians. (We have hundreds of pediatricians in our area.) The new guy was a lot more relaxed and trusted me to do what was right for us.
The first guy self-weaned at 14 months and I weaned the second at 13 months because of a lot of business travel. I'm pregnant with my third and have no intention of weaning ever (ok, maybe at 2 or 3...). It's just so much easier!
I hadn't heard you could nurse instead of giving whole milk. That would be a great money-saver!
Crystal, we do very similar things to you, and have been able to feed our babies very frugally and nutritiously. I wrote a post with my own ideas and links to some previous posts I wrote on feeding babies.
The only thing we don't have is the grinder that you have, although I have considered getting one. So far, making my own fresh/frozen foods and just mashing up others with a fork has worked well for me, but hearing that so many people love their grinder makes me more interested in getting one and trying it out.
QUESTION FOR ANYONE OUT THERE:
My son is weaned now at 14 months...does he really need whole milk now? He seems to just like water and juice.
I thought i remembered crystal saying that kathrynne doesn't drink much milk? Maybe i am wrong...i thought you said that.
Thanks! I am a little overwhelmed and not sure what to do about milk! :)
We have done the same with solids, although we waited until around 8 months to start. We also don't cut back on the nursing so drastically. I still nurse my 14 month old 7-8 times a day. As a result, my children have been extremely healthy. Neither the baby nor my five year old has ever had a stomach bug and both are rarely ill. Breastmilk continues to provide excellent nutrition and immunities even as a child gets older. (Some erroneously state that breastmilk loses its nutritional value after a year.) My son was weaned at about 3 years of age.
Anonymous - milk is not necessary, as long as your child is getting the missing nutrition from other sources. (ex. yogurt for calcium, meat for protein, etc.)
I nursed all three of mine for the first year, but all three started solids around the third month, too.
With my first, I did a combination of baby cereals and some baby food. She was a good eater, but preferred nursing.
With my second (my first son), I had to radically change my approach. He's a big guy, like Dad (who is 6'4") and by the time he was a year old, weighed just over 30 lbs! And was as tall as an average 2 year old!
Once I started him on baby food, I saw our grocery budget SOAR! So, rather than buy 40 little jars (!) of Gerber (and still need to go back to the store at the end of the week), I dragged out our Cuisinart. Whatever I made for us for dinner, some went in there for him to be pureed with a little water. He LOVED it - his favorites were porkchops, applesauce, and sweet potatoes mixed together and spaghetti and meatballs. I'd save whatever was left of the puree in a little Rubbemaid container or freeze it if need be.
If you're very concerned about organics, or about preservatives, or spices in food, this may not work for you. It worked for us and he's a hale and hearty boy today.
It was refreshing to hear your approach to baby food. For my first baby I bought some baby food. For my second I bought less, and for my third and fourth I bought virtually none ant all; I did what you are doing.
I did, however, feed them baby oatmeal with applesauce (normal applesauce, sometimes homemade, never baby applesauce) at about six months. This was "second breakfast" (nursing being the first breakfast). To this day, and they are now 18, 16, 15 and 12, they won't eat oatmeal without applesauce in it. We graduated to normal oatmeal sometime between age 1 and 2.
I think the approach you and I take to feeding really helps kids learn to accept a variety of textures, to have a mentality of eating what is served instead of expecting special food prepared exclusively according to their tastes, and to be overall less fussy and more healthy eaters in the long run. Of course, if you go this route, you do have to be parents who are committed to healthy personal eating habits to begin with!
I was scared I'd get fat when I quit nursing after approximately eight years of doing it solid. But instead, my appitite plunged, and I no longer get very hungry. The problem with that is I sometimes forget to make supper. They start asking for it and I say, "Oh, I wasn't hungry..." and the stock phrase I get back is, "Just because you aren't hungry doesn't mean we aren't hungry!"
My son started with cereal at six months. He loved any kind of fruits, but homemade veggies or other foods didn't stand a chance. I think it was the texture that made him balk. So we used purchased veggies and meats until he was just over a year old. (Yes, I did taste them all. The taste isn't that bad if you can get past the texture.)
As he gradually moved to table foods, he loved small pasta like those little stars and he still loves canned green beans. Del Monte makes a no salt added variety.
I really love this post! We are expecting our second baby in August and I really struggled with this issue with our first. Thanks so much for the helpful timeline!
Caroline in NC
We do it a lot like this, too! It saves so much money and helps avoid allergy issues and bowel troubles for the baby.
I've started pureeing lots of veges and adding them to my own recipes as well. It's a great way to get more veges into all our diets! Pureed fruit and veges can replace part of the fat/oil in most recipes.
Unlike most of you gals I live in a place where produce shipped in is both bad quality AND expensive (Alaska) and I made out babyfood from scratch initially, but it was too expensive for our budget and around twice as much as normal babyfood. We mostly feed her off our plates but we do supplement in with the jars, for convenience and because getting her fruits and veggies that way is less expensive that how I would have to make them at home.
I DEFINITELY second breastfeeding as long as possible. Nutritious and inexpensive, it can't be beat!
I hope that the cost of fruits and veggies up here does go down but as long as oil prices keep going up the cost to transport these goods so far will stay high and keep them cost prohibitive. I MISS California and my little farm stand produce :( It makes sense to make it fresh down there and if our budget is less tight with our other children we WILL resume making it that way, but right now we're stuck with Gerber.
My son was not interested in food until he was nearly a year old. He nursed quite a few times a day and munched on things like crackers or had bites of table food when he showed interest. My daughter, on the other hand, showed an interest in food at six months. I think because she saw her big brother eating things! I did buy the boxes of baby cereal and then got regular unsweetened applesauce in the big jars or pureed fruits and veggies myself rather than buying the expensive premade stuff. Now she is over a year old, still nursing four times a day and eating meals with us three times a day. I really think baby food is way over priced and if you are holding off until baby shows an interest (at least not till six months) by that time they can have soft, mashed table foods and don't need their own special foods.
Well,my youngest is 4,but we did the store baught baby food thing.Now,being a Christian I think I would definatly make my own.I started off by first introducing baby cereal at 4 months,then fruit at five and veggies at 6 months,then protein at 9 months.
I used the baby food grinder too! I am though a late baby food feeder and was strict about it as I did to avoid allergies and so nursed more often.
I found though if we were having roast chicken and potatoes, I put that in the grinder and there we had food. I thought about pureeing food, but they did not like the texture and preferred real food mashed up in the baby food grinder. My sons liked cooked carrot squares, applesauce, rice, chicken etc. I would give them soup too, mashed up with a fork. Cooked egg (after one year old) etc.
I've heard from some mothers, who feed their babies table food, like you do, that starting babies on sweet stuff (even naturally sweet stuff, like bananas), will develop a sweet tooth early. So they feed only mashed veggies and such until 2 years or so. What do you think? Do your girls seem to be extra eager for the sweet fruits - more than for other foods?
Hi Amber,
I've always introduced banana and applesauce (real unsweetended, not the baby stuff) early with my kids. They're 4 and 1 now and eat all their veggies (especially green beans, peas and broccoli). I know it's just anecdotal, but I really think it doesn't matter when you introduce the fruits.
Now, I wouldn't go straight to honey, soda or candy. But I think fruit is ok. And banana is such a perfect easy breakfast for little ones, I don't see any reason to delay it!
I have not read all comments, but I will probably be one of the few that says I hate breastfeeding. I do it until 6 months or teeth- whatever comes first. I have started with rice (they say don't start with a gluten base grain before 6 months- we have a celiac in the house, so I'm all for waiting on that) at nearly 6 months and then progress very slowly introducing new foods. I do make my own baby food because it is cheaper and it tastes better. I also think it helps children eat a wider variety of foods and textures (my last baby LOVED broccoli and zuchinni). I do not find it time consuming because you can steam a variety of vegetables at the same time or bake a sweet potato along with the rest of the family's meal. Hommade applesauce is quicker and simpler than one might imagine, too, and can be frozen. I have found the blender works just fine or a food processor. One Step Ahead has some wonderful little cubes for storage (can freeze or microwave) and after rinsing, I put them in a dishwasher basket and they're cleaned easily. I also purchased Annabelle Karmel's baby food cookbook from that same company and she has wonderful information and instructions on nutrition and preparation of foods into early childhood.
With all that said, it's an individual decision and although professionals (and other well-meaning advice givers) might recommend something, you are the parent and know your child best- there are plenty of options out there that will work and none of them are "wrong" so just prayerfully and knowledgably make a choice that will work for your family.
for anon at 10:38. I think that you will find most doctors and dentists will tell you that juice has little to no nutritional value for any aged person unless you're doing pomegranate or something like that. Children certainly need calcium and iron, so you may want to ask a doctor or nutritionist about other options if you don't want to go the milk route.
I agree that the baby food you can buy at the store is ridiculously overpriced. I also nursed for the first six months for both my babies and then started them on limited solids at six months. Both ate rice cereal for a long time, so I did buy that. However, everything else I made myself and froze in ice cube trays. I bought a baby food blender, but then realized that my regular blender what much better. I don't know how the food mills compare, but I may end up getting one for the next baby (someday). The baby food cubes worked great for us. Both my girls love vegetables and fruits and have never been very picky eaters. I think it is because we took it slow and just kept offering them foods that they may have rejected earlier. Eventually they liked just about everything. I weaned both at 13-14 months, but I think whatever works best for a mother and her child is wonderful.
I think bananas and avocados were designed for babies. I just cut the banana in half and scoop out soft bites with a spoon--cleanup is a snap and it's so much more portable than mashing with a fork!
Avocado is the same way: just cut off the end and scoop out ripe bites with the baby spoon. If there's only a small opening, the avocado doesn't turn so brown.
I don't think it's a coincidence that these are two of the most fortified fruits out there and also the softest!
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