Should we give ready made food or home made?

[NewMom27]

Hi,

My baby is 6 months now and now we have started giving him solids.

There are many varieties solids available in the market of different brands like Gerber apple sauses.
Basically 1st food, 2nd food etc.

Do you recommend those products for the baby or we should prepare the food for the baby at home?

Thanks

[nhockaday]

I made my own. It is very easy and cheap and you know exactly what you are giving your baby.

[NewMom27]

What are the things you prepare for your baby.
How do you make them?
What should i give him?

[nhockaday]

I highly recommend you bookmark this site http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/
It has everything you need to know about making your own food.

[carpe vestri vita]

We did baby-led weaning. We started with table foods and never gave any purees. (I shared my applesauce :P but it's something that I typically eat in a mushy form.) Nothing was altered from how I would eat it other than to make it an appropriate baby-holding size. IMO it's the best choice. Seeing the kids of my friends having trouble with table foods at 8, 9, 12, 18 months and their preference for purees, I feel like I dodged a bullet on this one.

[kizudo]

I agree - it's easy, cheap and you know what it is that they're eating.  There are PLENTY of sites and cookbooks out there, but it's basically pureeing.  Buy yourself a mini hand held puree machine - I had one that you manually rotated the lever which rotated the blade.  It was SO simple, small and light to cart around with me - Grandma's, a restaurant, anywhere.  That said, I had several organic jarred foods on hand for days when my sanity required even less ease!

However, I only had to do this for a little while because, as it turned out, he really did not like purees.  He basically went straight from "Mama Juice" to "Crunchies" (baby meatballs with crushed flaked cereal on the outside) and other solid foods.  I actually freaked about him not wanting purees as I thought he had an eating issue - turns out he was totally fine and eventually liked purees but by that time he was so used to big people food I didn't make them too often.

I think if you do a search in the general parenting forum you'll find a few threads on "baby food" and several of our members have contributed recipes there, too.

[Ezhik]

I pretty much make all of Nikki's food myself, though have been known to cheat on occasion   

I have found that certain babyfood jars (especially ones with cheesy/tomato sauces) tend to make him sick - I don't know if this is just him or the fact he is used to home-made cheese/tomato sauces but it is a consistant problem so I only buy pre-prepared jars of food that are 100% fruit/veg puree. Then again, his cousin has almost all ready-made babyfood and doesn't have any similar reactions.

Always check the labels on baby foods - you never know what sugar or other unnecessary things they are slipping in. Personally it is always much more cost-effective to cook yourself (freezing lots means you can have homemade-ready meals!) and then you always know what your baby is eating. I also found that since I take portions out of my dinner for Nicholas, I have had to stop cooking with salt, which has drastically reduced my salt-intake to what I suspect are much healthier levels 

Remember that there is about a five million percent mark-up on any specifically-baby food product  Is it really justifiable for 12 baby-biscuits to cost the same as 3 or 4 large packets of similar 'normal' biscuits? Or 20 3-inch baby-breadsticks costing twice that of about 50 12-inch breadsticks? That's a couple of the differences I noticed in my local shop. 

[NewMom27]

I highly recommend you bookmark this site http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/
It has everything you need to know about making your own food.

Thanks a lot for the wonderful website.

You Rock....

Thanks

[TracyR4]

I say homemade. That was the big mistake that I made with my oldest having her eat the ready made baby food. She is my WORST eater by far.
When she was a baby she ate all of the fruits and veggies , and now she is 13 and hates everything,
My younger three I made their baby food. I only got the ready made food when we were  going to be out and about, and I had no access to a  microwave to heat up their  food. They are by far my best eaters in the house They eat their vegetables and my 4yr old will sit and eat peppers like they are candy.

So do your child a favor and feed them real food.

[Skylark]

WE do our own, and our older girl is great eater, loves her broccoli, veggies, etc. If you do buy some baby food, you would want to at least make sure they are 100% fruits or vegetables, non GMO and organic. Definitely stir away from Gerber, there are other smaller companies that produce organics and have better practices. But actually it is NOT DIFFICULT TO MAKE YOUR OWN, and you will not regret it!

[NewMom27]

I pretty much make all of Nikki's food myself, though have been known to cheat on occasion   

I have found that certain babyfood jars (especially ones with cheesy/tomato sauces) tend to make him sick - I don't know if this is just him or the fact he is used to home-made cheese/tomato sauces but it is a consistant problem so I only buy pre-prepared jars of food that are 100% fruit/veg puree. Then again, his cousin has almost all ready-made babyfood and doesn't have any similar reactions.

Always check the labels on baby foods - you never know what sugar or other unnecessary things they are slipping in. Personally it is always much more cost-effective to cook yourself (freezing lots means you can have homemade-ready meals!) and then you always know what your baby is eating. I also found that since I take portions out of my dinner for Nicholas, I have had to stop cooking with salt, which has drastically reduced my salt-intake to what I suspect are much healthier levels 

Remember that there is about a five million percent mark-up on any specifically-baby food product  Is it really justifiable for 12 baby-biscuits to cost the same as 3 or 4 large packets of similar 'normal' biscuits? Or 20 3-inch baby-breadsticks costing twice that of about 50 12-inch breadsticks? That's a couple of the differences I noticed in my local shop. 

Till now i havent notice any allergy to any food...
t

[Gilma]

Hi,

I found this webpage with some homemade baby food recipes and I think that you could be interested to visit it.

Link: http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/index.html

[PY]

I've always made baby food for my baby..I have never bought a single one at the store!Some baby food have preservatives and other ingredients are not good.
It is cheaper,easy and you are the best nutricionist for your baby!

[NewMom27]

Thanks a lot...

The views here gave me lot information.

Thanks everybody

[lelask]

I have been using steamer ever since we started solid food. We only used ready made food to bring more variety as some meat to cook at home was just waste of time and money. Two days ago I offered her ready made food and she really liked it. We/I prefer fresh food every day for her but I think it's ok to use it . Some say it's better to use these than home made.

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