Mama's homecooked dinners are always best!! (Baby Food Hints/Tips)

Member Name: KELLY170980

Product:	Baby Food Hints/Tips
Date:	30/10/08 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You know exactly what you are putting into your childrens tummies.

Disadvantages: Making sure you schedule the time, but other than that there is none.

I am extremely lucky and have had two easy weaning processes and I also enjoyed it immensely.

My son I weaned at 5 months and my daughter was 7 1/2 months, I think as a mummy you know when your baby is ready or not.

I am very paranoid about doing everything I can possibly do in order to try and help my children not get eczema, as its haunted me for my whole life, and I have suffered not only pain but some bullying too, and even if I could help decrease the chances slightly then I would do and touch wood I think I was right as they never have had any signs of eczema.

So I breastfed both of my children and decided early on that I was always going to make all their food and try and give them a variety and also keep it as healthy as I possibly could.

Now a lot of my friends said to me, " how do you get the time?" or " its easier to buy tins"...... and I always politely told them that they were very very wrong, I think making your own baby food is the easiest and the cheapest option.

Every Sunday while making Sunday dinner which is a tradition in our family, I would put extra vegetables in the steamer, extra potatoes, extra meat.....basically anything that I needed for the next week.

I found this the best time to do it and also it was less stressful as I knew every meal was ready then for the week.

I used ice cube trays to store my baby food at the beginning and would just pop out a couple of chicken cubes, a pea cube, a carrot cube etc....whatever my princess or prince fancied. Plus the ice cube trays were so cheap; I got a pack of four from the pound shop.

As they got older I used more Tupperware pots that I brought from Tesco, all in their Tesco value range.
I would make up pasta dishes, casseroles etc at this stage, and lots of nice desserts.

I also used finger foods such as bread sticks, carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, raisins, apricots etc for snacks and when we were going out for the day.

I did use fromage frais though after a while instead of making the desserts, 1. Because they are relatively cheap and dependant on which brand you buy they are good for them, but mainly because my children like most children were addicted to them and still are!!!

I found when I first started the weaning process, I found stewed apple and stewed pear were the best and also carrot puree worked really well for me also.

For any mum reading them contemplating on whether to make the food or buy tins..... I would highly recommend you to try and make the food firstly, as if it fits into your schedule, then I promise you, you will not regret it......

It's healthier
It's cheaper
It makes you baby less full of additives
Its peace of mind for the mummy and daddy to know they have the control of what is inside their child.

I would also recommend getting a food blender or hand blender, they are quite cheap nowadays and its much easily at the beginning to use these as you do not want a lot of lumps, as the baby gets older you can make the consistency less runny and more lumpy.

I used to find also to add a bit of milk into the mixture while blending, it would help it go runnier (I used breast milk, that I had expressed, but my friend used her formula milk)

Summary: I think everyone should try to begin with and if you decide its not for you then atleast you tried