Baby Food

One of the reasons I wanted to start a blog, aside from sharing photos of my lovely and intelligent infant, was to share my experiences in baby food making. I hadn't given much thought to what I would feed the baby, but when she was 5 1/2 months old, it was really cold and snowy out, so I decided to start feeding her "solids."

I say "solids" because what I fed her was so thinned out, it was more like liquid. She had rice cereal for 3 days, and mostly it just drooled out of her mouth like the soup it was. She didn't really know how to swallow, so that was fine. She ate enough to become very gassy, so I moved on to squash. Mostly because that's what I had in the house. I had a squash, so I baked it. 375 degrees, for an hour, with a little bit of water in the squash cavity. When it was done, I scooped it out of the shell with a spoon, mashed it with a fork, and froze little plops of it on a cookie tin in the freezer. When frozen, I transferred it to a ziplock baggie. Once a day, I'd take out a little ball of squash, thin it down to the consistency of water with breast milk, and trickle it into Baby's mouth. She seemed to like it. Sort of.

Then I moved on to avocado and banana. To this day those two foods are a staple of the baby's diet. They're simple to prepare, and good for her. I'm low tech when it comes to avocado and banana. So much so, it almost seems like more effort to write about than to do.

Avocado
- Buy avocados. Usually they're hard. Store in cool, dry location until soft but not mushy.
- Cut wedge of avocado, about the size you think your baby will eat. Gumball usually eats about 1/4 to 1/6 of an avocado (but I usually mix it with banana).
- Peel avocado
- Here's the hard part. Mush the avocado through a strainer. I use the back of a spoon. It takes 20 seconds.
- Thin with breast milk or formula or water.

I wrap the remaining avocado (with pit in place) in a sheet of saran wrap. Sometimes the outer portions turn brown. So I cut them off and eat them, and give the baby the green parts.

Banana
- Buy bananas
- Cut the size you think your baby will eat. Gumball usually eats about 2 or 3 inches, but then again, I usually mix it with avocado.
- Mush the banana through a strainer.
- Thin with breast milk, formula, or water.

As I mentioned, I usually combine avocado and banana for Baby's breakfast. I add in some organic multigrain baby cereal, and I use breast milk. She loves it.