My intentions were to wait until Aaryn was closer to 6 months old before introducing solids. Well those intentions went out the window when she started showing interest in my food. I decided very early in my pregnancy that I would attempt to make everything that my baby ate in my own kitchen. I bought a baby cookbook with lots of baby food recipes and researched baby food making extensively. I got some mixed reviews about it. In the end, I decided to give it a try and see if I could make it work for us.
I have two motivations for preparing my baby's food. The first is that it is a healthier choice. It doesn't have all of the additives that commercial baby foods have. The second reason is cost. I am saving us money by taking a little time to prepare her food.
So far, I've prepared butternut squash, green beans, and carrots. When preparing costs, I found that 5 ozs of Gerber squash would cost me $1.12. I bought a 3 lb butternut squash for $5.45, which after cooked and pureed made 38 ozs. What cost me $0.14 per oz and a little over an hour of my time would have cost me $0.22 per oz at the grocery store. That really adds up. I really saved big with the green beans and carrots. A 1 lb bag of frozen green beans and carrots cost $1.38 each. I was able to make 22 ozs of carrots and 20 ozs of green beans from these bags. Like the squash, Gerber green beans and carrots are $1.12 for 5 ozs. These purees took less than 20 minutes to prepare.
Along with the health benefits and cost savings, I get the satisfaction of knowing that I prepared that for her and she likes it.
We started with avocado this past Monday. It requires no special preparation aside from scraping it from the shell and mashing with a fork. We mixed it with a little rice cereal (which she doesn't seem to like plain). She LOVED it. She got the hang of eating from the spoon very quickly. She's always been a champ at eating. She never had any problem nursing and never had a problem switching from breast to bottle.
We did avocado for 3 days before moving on to butternut squash (3 days), and now green beans. She eats about 2 ozs once a day. We are both enjoying it. Her sister also likes to feed her. It makes her feel like a big girl.
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4 years ago
Thanks for breaking down the cost of storebought vs. homemade...I have been doing both just to get solids started, but making at home is so easy! The only storebought we have now were some we got really cheap on sale or with coupons...I have never made butternut squash at home...how do you do it?
ReplyDeleteBeth, cut the butternut squash in half longways. Scrape out all of the seeds and membranes. Put about a half an inch of water into a shallow baking pan. Lay the squash halves, flesh side down into the water. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour or until you can peirce the skin easily with a fork. Cool. Scrape the squash out and puree with a food processor, adding water or breastmilk/formula until you reach desired consistency. I freeze the purees in ice trays, then transfer the frozen cubes to a freezer bag.
ReplyDeleteawesome, thx! I will try this later this week...Garrett loves squash, and sweet potatoes...that's on my agenda this week, too!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information Shalonda I am hoping to make my own food too. What book did you buy and was it helpful?- Tanya
ReplyDeleteTanya, the book that I have is The Healthy Baby Meal Planner by Annabel Karmel. I really like it.
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