I’m enjoying making baby food. It’s incredibly inexpensive, pretty easy and I’m glad to know exactly what Mazen is eating. But I have no intention of feeding him only foods that I have made myself. Being that strict would drive me crazy. Here are a few foods he likes that come from a package – note that some of them came as samples from the companies below.
I love the squeeze packs!
Pros: so easy, fun flavors, great for being out of the house and branding that sucks in a modern mom. Cons: wasteful packaging compared to homemade and expensive.
That said, I keep a few on hand at all time (including one in the diaper bag). When we’re at home we always eat homemade food, but when we’re out he will often have one of these (or I’ll bring some homemade food in my Little Green Pouch reusable ones). M is on the verge of learning how to suck directly from the packet, which I see from my older baby friends is quite convenient.
Mazen has liked all of the flavors I’ve tried. I tend to gravitate toward the ones with vegetables in them, although most of the veggie ones still have a fruit too. Friends have told me that Sprout makes a few that don’t have any fruit, which I think is good to mix in for ultimate vegetable palate training.
Happy Family sent me some coupons to try their pouches and puffs.
I picked up a few of the Happy Tot pouches – green bean, pear + pea; spinach, mango + pear; and sweet potato, apple, cinnamon + carrot – fun flavors! Mazen gobbled them down – what else is new!? They have a touch of chia seed in them which made them a bit more gel-like and nutritious.
The Happy Puffs have been fun too. My general thought on puffs (along with all of the carb-tastic finger snacks and cookies) is that they should be used for learning to grasp and as a fun appetizer rather than a meal itself. I did pick up the “green” ones fortified with choline for ultimate nutrition : ) They taste quite good and aren’t too sweet, and I like how they stick to little fingers thanks to their nooks and crannies to make picking them up easier. They also melt in the mouth very quickly, so concerns over choking are minimal. Mazen likes them a lot. He can pick them up himself and tucks them into his palms and just holds them there. He doesn’t quite get to put them in his mouth!
On the pincer front, we also play around with good ole Cheerios. They sent me a box to have on hand when Mazen was ready. [Spoiler: more on Cheerios coming up on KERF soon!] I am normally a store-brand girl when it comes to things like “O’s” however, I am being completely honest when I say that after nibbling on real Cheerios for a few weeks I went to my parents’ house and had some of their store brand “O’s” and they were not nearly as good. They crumbled apart when I broke them in half for M and were just missing a layer of flavor (I guess I am now a Cheerio connoisseur ) That said, any ole O’s are great for baby munching.
I was excited when it was time to try yogurt for the first time as it’s one of my favorite foods. Stonyfield sent me a coupon for their YoBaby line. Mazen loves yogurt and generally eats half of one of these at breakfast a few days a week mixed with some fruit and the other half at lunch on another day. They do have several flavored ones, but I prefer to get plain and mix things in myself. Long term I think we’ll just use a big tub of organic plain yogurt, but these are great for on-the-go.
I also keep a big jar of store-bought organic applesauce in the fridge to use whenever I want to add extra flavor to our homemade foods and don’t have any homemade apples on hand.
Lastly, I wanted to make some berry cubes for M so he could get some anthocyanins in his diet : ) I usually use cow’s milk in my smoothies, but since that is not yet recommended I used a YoBaby yogurt and enough water to thin it out plus about 3 cups of frozen mixed berries.
Smoothies frozen for mom and cubes frozen for baby! I thaw these out and stir them into his yogurt or oatmeal (they are a little liquidy for plain eating until he can learn how to drink through a straw). [The mom versions weren’t nearly as tasty as my usual smoothies, but they weren’t bad either.]
That’s all for now folks!