Tuesday, April 15, 2014

First Solid Foods

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     I was so excited, today Bennett and I went to see a great friend and her new 3 month old baby. It feels like forever ago Bennett was that small and like yesterday at the same time! I was telling her all about my new adventure of making the whole family homemade. She asked me a question I can a lot,
"when did you stop exclusively breastfeeding?". My answer is always the same. Your baby will tell you when they are ready. I finally gave in to feeding Bennett solids when he was about 6 months old, he had been giving me signals for about 2 weeks.

    I think as a nursing mom it made me a little sad to add anything extra to his diet. Breast milk has more than enough nutrients to nourish your baby for at least the first year. I just remind people of the saying "eating before 1 is just for fun". So don't worry there is no need to hurry!

    My wonderful brother even got me a baby cookbook for Christmas the year I was pregnant. (The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet by Karin Knight. http://www.amazon.com/Best-Homemade-Baby-Food-Planet/dp/1592334237) I found it be a very good place to start, since it could also be called baby food for dummies.
I felt like this was a great place to start! We always use organic when it's an option. We also mixed all foods with breast milk for the first 2 months to make digestion easier. If you are using formula then go ahead and mix that in.  


Our first recipes: 

Baked Sweet potato
what you need
*2 sweet potatoes
*1 cup  breast milk,  or formula (after 6 months you can do water)  
*blender 
*ice cube trays for freezing the leftovers
*preheat oven to 400
wash your potatoes, and stab them a few times with a fork. bake on 400 for 40 min or until very soft. I place them directly on the rack and put a baking sheet on the rack under that one. Allow to cool once they are baked, peels should just slip off and insides of the potato go into the blender. Add breast milk and blend well. This will keep well and the rest should be frozen into portion sizes of your choice. 
Peas
*1 16oz package frozen or fresh peas
*1/2 cup breast milk or formula
*2 tablespoons of  water

put peas and water in a glass bowl and place a CLEAN dishrag or paper towel over bowl. Microwave on high or 3-5 min until peas are very soft. Allow to cool for a few min with cover still on. Put entire contents of the bowl into your blender then add breastmilk or formula. Blend for 2-3 min until totally smooth.

*this is my recipe for batch cooking, if you are not going to freeze this I would 1/2 or even 1/4 it.

Fun Fact About These Peas 
(quoted from the book Best Homemade Baby Food on The Planet)
Peas cooked in the microwave contain TWICE as much vitamin C as commercially prepared baby foods 



I would love to hear everyone's experience with trying solids for the first time. As you can tell from the picture above we were stripped down and ready for a mess!!

~Brooke








   

















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