Our Baby Food Adventure

...Or rather, my Baby Food Making Adventure. It has come to a close. I haven't pureed baby food in over a month, and our stockpile of pureed baby food is down to just a few frozen cubes of veggies. Sam and Anna are rejecting just about every pureed form right now, so they are on 99% table food- i.e., eating what we eat. They want to eat like we do. We still heat up about 2 oz of puree every meal, just to try and to use up what we've got. Most meals, we're lucky if they are willing to take a bite off of a spoon for us. Right now, the only food they will accept being fed to by spoon is yogurt. Maybe they know that that isn't baby food, and that adults have to eat yogurt by spoon too? I don't know. Sam and Anna are each working on their third tooth (Anna's just popped through and Sam's is thisclose), but they have been eating just about every form of table food since they had just one tooth. I learned pretty quickly that it really doesn't matter if they have one tooth or 8 teeth- they can get the same job done with their gums.

I never started out thinking that homemade baby food was the path I wanted to take. I remember receiving baby food trays and cubes, cookbooks (totally not needed, fyi), and a food mill at my shower and thinking (hmmm- didn't register for that. Not going to use that.) But then my babies had reflux. We got it under control finally, and then I learned that Gerber baby cereal has hidden milk and soy products in it. We weren't sure if Sam and Anna's reflux was the result of MSPI, but I was very leery of giving them processed baby food. Okay, I was really leery of giving them any food. I had read many times that often babies with reflux will have flare ups with some foods, and the acid in most fruits scared me. I was really hesitant to start giving them something that might make reflux hell return. (Just for documentation's sake- we never had any issues with any food we tried. No constipation, diarrhea, reflux bouts, etc. I was and am so happy about that.)

We started out on Earth's Best cereal (no hidden milk/soy), and Sam and Anna were not huge fans. The thought behind starting on cereal is that you mix it with formula/BM so that the taste is familiar to babies. But my two have never been formula fans. I think months of reflux that wasn't completely controlled left a lasting impression on them. We quickly decided that because a.) they didn't love cereal and b.) cereal isn't that nutritious anyway, we'd move onto something that was more calorie laden for them to help boost their weight (something we've been consciously aware of since they were born). Avocado was a hit with them. And since avocado is pretty much something you have to buy fresh and mash yourself, it was a good foray into my baby food making journey.

I have never been much of a cook, so I was thrilled when I married a big cooking fan. My husband cooks everything, and when he's gone I force myself to make mac and cheese and frozen pizzas. What little cooking ability I had in college when I used to cook for myself every day quickly dissipated after years of mostly no cooking. I was hesitant to attempt to do more than mash avocado or banana for Sam and Anna. Five things spurred me on to homemade baby food making though 1.) knowing exactly what was going in my little ones' mouths with no hidden ingredients to trigger reflux flareups 2.) the much lower cost of baby food when you make it yourself 3.) Having more control over my babies' eating (something I felt was lacking during the months we tried so hard to bottle feed bottle-refusing babies) and 4.) the sense that because I didn't breastfeed them, this was something I could do instead to feel like I was going "above and beyond" what most parents do to meet their nutritional needs. Yes, making homemade baby food in a small way made me feel like a better parent. Go ahead and judge. (However, please realize that I don't think anyone is less of a parent for not making their own baby food. It just made me feel like I was better for doing so.) and 5.) Fresh food with no added anything for increased shelf-life + steaming for retaining the most nutrients seemed healthier.

Once I started steaming veggies and fruit, it seemed so easy. The hardest things at first was getting the skins off of pears and peaches. The hardest thing later on in my baby food making journey was cranberry puree from fresh cranberries (total PITA to press the cooked cranberries to only get the juice and not the skins or seeds for a very very little amount of actual juice). An extra bonus of homemade baby food- it all smelled and tasted so good. I always tried a little of any new food to see how it tasted and make sure it was the right temp. Often, I thought Sam and Anna's food was so yummy, I could have eaten their whole bowl. When we were traveling over the holidays, we decided to buy packaged baby food to use, just to make it easier. I tried a little of that, and yuck- it was no where near as good as the homemade stuff I made. I didn't blame Sam and Anna for wanting very little of the Gerber stuff while we were traveling!

It wasn't super time consuming to make food for two babies either. I work full time, and still had time to do it. Most often, I'd make a bunch on the weekends, but when our supply was getting low, I'd sometimes make a batch in the evenings (usually something that only took a little bit to steam, like peas or green beans).

An added bonus that I didn't realize at first was that the food that Sam and Anna got was closer to what they would be eating for the rest of their life, so transitioning them to table food was extremely easy. They had no problem with textures, because from the beginning, their baby food was not always a completely smooth puree. Steamed carrot chunks taste exactly like pureed steamed carrot; banana chunks tasted exactly like mashed banana and so on.

Seeing them eat entire meals like toddlers with their fingers is a stage in growing up. It is easier now for all of us to eat a a family at the same time. However, now I have new worries that they aren't eating as much as they need because eating involves more work for them to pick up, bring to their mouths, and chew the food before swallowing. I wish I knew how many "ounces" they were ingesting. But I know that these are just things that I have to accept as Sam and Anna grow up. Feeding them homemade baby food is one stage that I will miss. I am thankful that Sam and Anna are open to the tastes and textures of the food we eat every day, even if I am a little sad that my baby food making adventure has ended.