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Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Homemade Baby Food

So as I'm learning new ways to try and stretch our money and stick to our budget, I decided that buying baby food for Lincoln was starting to add up REALLY fast!  And he doesn't even eat that much yet!  That combined with the expensive formula made me really motivated to start making my own baby food.  I've also read that it's a lot more nutritional so......plus, plus!

Starting Lincoln on solids has been quite the struggle for us.  So much of a struggle that he saw a Speech Therapist to see if it was because he is tongue-tied or if he just isn't ready to eat or doesn't want to etc.  Well she concluded that it was probably because he is tongue-tied and he has a high palate which makes pushing the food to the back of his mouth in order to swallow very difficult.  I've noticed that if I can get him to smile then I can get the food farther back in his mouth (not far enough back there to choke him of course) to help him out with getting it back there and that seemed to help.  Up until this past week I had only tried sweet potatoes and cereal with him.  Well I decided to try a new veggie, so we got out the squash.  It was like NIGHT and DAY!!!!  Lincoln LOVED the squash and has since become a FANTASTIC eater!  I've been so impressed.  He is actually opening his mouth waiting for me so spoon more food into it which makes it great for me to get the food farther into his mouth so he can swallow it without any problems!  Yay!  So really it was a combination of the fact that he hated sweet potatoes and he couldn't push it to the back of his mouth. 


I bought my first ever squash and really had no idea which kind I was supposed to get, I had no idea that there were so many different kinds of squash!  I ended up with the winter squash since it looked the most like what I thought a squash was supposed to look like :)

I first had to cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds:
Then place halves face down in a pan and cover with an inch of water
 Next you bake in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes to 1 hour - be sure the “shell/skin” puckers and halves feel soft then scoop squash “meat” out of the shell

Place squash "meat" into food processor or blender and begin pureeing. 
And......Voila!  It made two trays full of homemade squash baby food!  I feel so domestic! :)  hehe
Recipe/Instructions from:
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/squashbabyfoodrecipes.htm

This site also has some fun baby recipes!
http://www.nurturebaby.com/

From what I've calculated making my own baby food is 1/2 the price of buying it already made!  Totally worth it!

After all of this work I would REALLY like one of these.  :)

4 comments:

  1. I made my own baby food with Braden and really enjoyed doing it. It's really quite simple and so healthy! And it does feel SO good to not be spending that money on baby food! If you're looking for a book for more ideas, I really enjoyed "Super Baby Foods." It tells you all about how to pick food and then how to prepare it. I still reference it for some things! Have fun!

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  2. I'm so doing this for future baby Friesen! ;)

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  3. I'm so doing this for future baby Friesen ;_

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  4. sorry, marie! i shouldn't have shown you that magical baeba babycook. it's sooo tempting!

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