Thrifty Thinking
As soon as our first child starting eating solids, this newbie mom went and bought about 10 jars of baby food. Four kids and sixteen years later, I haven’t bought anymore baby food (this isn’t to shame anyone for buying baby food by the way~it’s just to help think about ways to save on baby food). With our last baby, Jules, a couple of friends gifted us the last of their unused baby food jars which we totally used, but other than that, we found we didn’t need to buy baby food. As we went along, we saw how easy it was for our babies to either eat our “adult” food mashed, blended, or chopped. With a bit of forethought, I didn’t have to do a whole lot to modify the meals I was making for the family to make them baby-palatable.
Instead of starting with rice cereal like we did with the other three, we started Jules with avocados mashed up and diluted a bit with water. After that we tried plain yogurt mixed with a bit of cinnamon. She quickly was able to add more texture and we were then able to add more variety to her food selections. We also eat a ton of soups for about 9 months of the year, and those are REALLY easy to feed the baby.
Here’s a short list of ideas of great first foods.
- mashed avocados
- mashed bananas
- applesauce
- hummus
- yogurt
- fruit and vegetable smoothies
- mashed potatoes
- soups of all kinds
- refried beans
We have a huge age gap in our kids. Our first three kids were each born about 2 years apart from each other. Then after a ten year gap, we had what we call, ‘the baby of our prime,” in our early forties.:) Ten years gives a whole lot of time for new technology and gadgets to develop. My favorite new baby item that my friend Ruth bequeathed me is the Baby Brezza Reusable Food Storage Pouches. The pouches have revolutionized mealtime with a baby. You mean she can feed herself applesauce and yogurt without me having to feed her every last bite?!? I’m in! Sure I have to help her push her food up occasionally, and she might accidentally step on the pouches once in a while, but for the most part, they make feeding a baby SO MUCH EASIER!
With the food pouches, if the foods are a little too thin like some yogurts are, I’ll add something like a banana bread smashed in with yogurt. If the foods are a little too thick like some refried beans are, I just add a bit of water until the food is suckable.
Do you have any other great first-foods to add to my list? And just because I like this pic below…
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