She eats!

Let's discuss the progression of moving from all milk to some 'real' food, shall we? I've literally had this post drafted for over two months which is a new record for me. Not really sure why it's taken me this long to discuss Cecelia eating real food, but I guess I just figured it may be a boring post to many. I really liked reading back over Truman's baby food post, though, so what the heck. Here we go again.

This time around, I put off feeding Cecelia any sort of solids until she turned six months old. And then I was like, 'Um, how do I feed a baby food again?' I thought about going right to finger foods a la Baby Led Weaning but then I figured I should do purees for just a little while. Mostly because that is what I know from my first time around as a mom. ;) And I totally forgot about this website that is really fun and helpful when making combinations and little 'meals' for baby. It's where I go when I need to know how to prepare a food that I want to make into a puree and it also has great ideas for food choices I'd never think about on my own.

Making your own baby food is incredibly easy. And it saves a lot of money (though you can find store-bought purees for pretty inexpensive, too.). The first things I decided to make were squash and sweet potato. And this time around I actually had a real food processor to help with the chopping instead of trying to use a little Magic Bullet.

Basically, for a lot of the foods you puree it means: baking in some water, scooping out, adding to a food processor of sorts with extra water, and then storing/freezing it somehow. Not bad, a little messy, but kind of fun.




(forgot about the food processor with this first batch--still using the Magic Bullet here. Whoops!)


Oh, his black eye;(




I just add the purees to ice cube trays, but I know they have some really cute 'baby food' storage trays out there, too. I like having a cube to pull out of the freezer though---pretty sure that it's 1 oz per cube and pretty easy to microwave/thaw out.


I also kept some of the sweet potatoes back after baking, to use as 'chunky' foods instead of puree. She started loving chunky/finger foods around the 7 month mark and I'm pleasantly surprised at how well she handles bites of real food.


Also kept back some of the baked squash without pureeing.


And, well, the bib was the biggest hit of all.


Oh, these pictures of my little doll just kill me. This is the first 'real' time I gave her purees and also chunks of sweet potatoes and squash--right at 6 months old.




Then came some pears. Despite the facial expression, she really did like them! Keeping the peel on part of the slice helps her grab them easier.


But girlfriend has always loved a spoon something fierce.


And bananas (partially peeled)--she loves those, too.




Spoon again!


Why isn't this working?


Close!


I forgot how messy it is to feed a baby real food.


Oh, hi! 7.5 months old here and enjoying some yogurt!


MY SPOON IS A SEPTOR!


I can't.

So anyway, that's my child eating. And now that she is loving the finger foods a lot more than spoon-fed stuff, I have no problem moving away from the homemade purees and trying out some more chunky stuff. I also have no problem buying the store-bought containers because she really DOES love their smoothness a lot more than my homemade attempts. Both of my kids have preferred their purees to be silky smooth and I feel like no matter what I do, I can't get mine to be THAT perfect. So Gerber is consumed just as much if not more than mommy's version over here at 8 months. But I also feel like we  won't be doing purees that much longer anyway. Her pincer grasp is insane and her sense of independence even more so. Which is why she is holding her own spoon in many of those pictures.

Kind of like how I cloth diaper and love it....during the day, and on my days at home. But nighttime and daycare? No problem using disposables. Same with homemade baby food---I dig it, but I also like to go the more 'traditional' route and mix in the store-boughts. I suppose I'm kind of a hybrid-crunchy mommy, huh?

I wanted to make a list of things we've tried so far in the 2 months we've done food. More for my own record-keeping than anything, since it's not like I've gotten all that creative with food choices just yet.

Homemade food by 8 months: (separately and mixed together)
baked squash, pureed and pieces
baked sweet potato, pureed and pieces
baked pears with cinnamon and sugar, pureed
pumpkin puree (from a can--why am I including it in the homemade list?!)

Store bought foods we've tried by 8 months:
puffs
yogurt melts (hates the orange, gag-city. Loves the strawberry with a passion.)
Yo Baby yogurts (a fave!)
green beans pureed (surprisingly loved them. At least one child will eat greens)
mixed garden vegetables puree (peas, carrots, spinach)
mixed fruit with oatmeal puree (apples and banana)-not a fave for some reason
banana mixed berry puree (the bomb-bananas with blackberry and blueberry)
apples and cherry puree
peach pureed in a pouch
carrots puree
banana puree
applesauce

Whole foods we've tried by 8 months:
bananas
pears
shredded cheese
sliced block cheese (loves. A Wisconsin girl already)
deli turkey breast
black beans (a fave. Hate the resulting diapers, though).
watermelon
cantaloupe
avocado (another fave)

How about a few videos? Because what mother doesn't love to take an absurd amount of video documentation of her children slopping food into their mouths?

First solids (proud mommy)

Green beans----anti-climatic, for sure

Puffs!

Slamming her sippy cup with authority

Oh yeah, we are doing pretty good with a sippy cup over here. I'm only putting water in it so far but I love watching her face when she actually gets to drink a few sips instead of just chewing on the spout. I have about 10 billion different kinds of sippy cups to try with her because apparently I couldn't find the 'perfect' one for Truman? I don't even remember that ever being an issue. Perhaps Cecelia will take a cup better than she did a bottle at first. Since now we own 10 billion types of bottles (because of CC) and 10 billion types of cups (because of T). Yes, 10 billion each. It's insane.

Love sitting my big girl in her high chair, scattering some finger foods across the tray and letting her go to town. I will usually feed her with a spoon at least twice per day if not three times and I've found that (duh) it's a lot easier to feed her BEFORE I eat my own food or else it's way too much going on at once. Feeding myself, feeding a baby, picking up numerous spoons/cups/food-related items from the ground, tending to a toddler who refuses to eat 50% of the time, etc etc. It's a lot. So if I can sit with CC about 20 minutes before the rest of us actually eat, and take the time to feed her it seems to go much better. And then she can still dink around with her finger foods and cup and her FAVORITE banana toothbrush while we eat. Win-win.

Any ideas for fun baby-friendly foods that you've tried and loved? I'm not quite ready to plop down some of our pepperoni pizza in front of her on pizza night or anything, but I'm all for moving her towards big-people food.