Created by anndouglas (contact me)
I am the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting, including The Mother of All Pregnancy Books, The Mother of All Baby Books, The Mother... (more...)
Why make your own baby food?
Making your own baby food not only allows you to make great-tasting food from the freshest and most wholesome foods available: it also allows you to create foods of different textures. This is important because learning to handle foods of increasingly complex textures is every bit as important for your child as developing a taste for a variety of different foods.
Start introducing thin purées at age six months (or whenever you and your healthcare provider think your baby is ready) and continue to introduce increasingly complex textures on an ongoing basis, as your baby proves she is capable of handling them.
Note: You can find some basic instructions for making your own baby food at Wholesomebabyfoods.com.
You might also enjoy these recipes recommended by the parents who served on the advisory panel for my book Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler. (Click on the "recipe" category.)
Babies eating
Adjusting the Texture of Homemade Baby Food
Adapted from Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler by Ann Douglas (Wiley, 2006).
As your baby makes the transition to solid foods and her chewing and swallowing skills improve, she'll be able to handle foods with increasingly sophisticated textures.Here's a quick overview of what's on the baby food texture menu -- and how to adjust the texture of your baby's (and young toddler's) foods as her eating skills continue to evolve.
Thin purées
How to create foods with this texture: Dilute infant cereals or purées foods to create baby food with a very watery texture.
Thicker purées
How to create foods with this texture: Thicken the purées by adding less water to infant cereals or homemade baby food. If you serve your baby commercial baby foods, continue to buy pure foods (e.g., blends without any fillers). You can thicken them up yourself by adding infant cereal or other cereals and grains that your baby has demonstrated she can tolerate.
Ground, grated foods, and mashed foods
How to create foods with this texture: Use a food mill, small food chopper, hand masher and/or hand grater to grate, chop, or mash some of her foods (e.g., mashed potatoes or other fruits and vegetables, grated cheese, small-curd cottage cheese).
Chopped foods ("finger foods")
How to create foods with this texture: Chop your baby's food into small, fine pieces that are easy to chew. Depending on her age and the extent of her finger dexterity, she will either scoop these pieces up using all the fingers of one hand (creating a balled fist which she will then direct towards her mouth) or she use a pincher grip (thumb and index finger-a much more complex move).
Table foods
How to create foods with this texture: Begin to introduce other tastes and textures, including crunchy and chewy foods. Monitor your child closely and ensure that you offer appropriately sized morsels of these foods. Other than watching out for the foods that are known hazards to young children (see Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler for age-specific lists), you can offer your child most of the foods that you dine on, while adjusting for the fact your baby or toddler's taste buds are much more sensitive than your own.
When to Introduce New Baby Food Textures
Every baby is unique, but this will give you some rough guidelines to work with in assessing your baby's readiness for solid food.
As a parent, you may wonder when and how to introduce new baby food textures to your baby. You may worry that if you introduce complex textures too soon, your baby may gag or choke; and if you wait too long, your baby may become hooked on purées and less willing to experiment with solids that require more effort to eat.
Most babies and parents manage to navigate the path from purées to table foods without too much difficulty, despite all the anxiety that tends to accompany the transition to solid foods.
You can gauge which textures of baby food your baby is capable of handling by judging
Baby Food Texture Guide
Is baby ready for more complex baby food textures? Here's how to decide.
Here's are some more tips that will help you to know what to look for as your baby moves from food texture stage to food texture stage.Mealtime Solutions Blog
The official blog for Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byBaby Food Gear -- Plus a Book by Your Lensmaster
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