on eloise’s six month birthday we introduced her to solids. honestly, I was a bit hesitant & we didn’t see a need to rush solid foods, but we got the go-ahead from eloise’s pediatrician & decided it was time.
I made two different purees to start with & plan on making more as we continue to introduce food. we also plan to integrate baby-led weaning in along with purees which is just when you introduce small chunks of food to babies that they feed themselves (rather than just sticking with purees). there are lots of different schools of thought on feeding babies, but using both purees and baby-led weaning is what makes the most sense for us.
instead of starting eloise on the “traditional track” of baby rice cereal, we gave her sweet potatoes as her first solid. there are a lot of reasons why doctors and parents choose rice cereal first (including iron), but we really want eloise to have a good base of whole foods in her diet & decided to start with that. I plan to introduce rice cereal in the coming week or weeks.
last week I made apple sauce & sweet potato puree using recipes from the Baby Foode website. I have done quite a bit of reading on making purees & I really like the recipes on this site.
{sweet potato + cinnamon puree – I subbed cinnamon for curry}
both recipes call for water/stock/breastmilk for thinning out the purees when blending. with both of these purees I used breastmilk to thin at that stage, but won’t do that again in the future. it isn’t that there is anything wrong with it, but I feel like {in hindsight} it wasn’t necessary since I add breastmilk to the purees after warming it up to thin in out a bit before feeding eloise.
we started with the sweet potato for a couple of days & then added apples. eloise LOVES the sweet potato! she seems to like the apples too, they are just a bit tart {& she makes the cutest face!}.
as you can see below, eloise is all about holding the spoon. if we put puree on the spoon & give it to her, she can put it in her mouth – pretty amazing! she is still learning about swallowing & so much of the puree is everywhere but her mouth, but she is learning & enjoying!
we are using the bumbo seat & tray for now at feeding time, & sit it right in the middle of our dining room table. at some point soon we are going to move her to her highchair {with a tray} so that she can really be part of the dinner table. we will probably still feed her before we eat since her bedtime is so early, but I like the idea of having her sit at the table with aaron & me. we also learned from another mama friend to strip babies down to just a diaper before eating time – best advice ever! eloise is pretty much covered from head to toe after she eats.
eloise’s bib is from a company I found on instagram called Snap Bibs. after knowing what spit-up & drool can do to fabric, I knew we needed {& wanted} a heavier duty bib. Snap Bibs are vinyl {with a snap!} & not only hold food, but clean up so easily! eloise has the Clementine one in small which just so happened to match her sweet potatoes! I am planning on ordering a few more in both the small & large sizes. I may also try some other types of bibs for eating, but so far I really like these ones & I love the idea of supporting small, women-owned businesses.
a lot of people think that I am crazy for thinking that I can make all of eloise’s food, but honestly it is a lot less work than I thought it would be. if I was working full-time outside of the house it would be a different story, but for now I plan on making all of her purees. I like being able to pick out the {organic} produce & then add spices & flavor. at some point I will probably start feeding eloise a version of what we are eating for lunch or dinner, but for now I am happy to make different fruit & veggie purees for her to sample!
next up:
-avocado (mashed)
-bananas (mashed)
–apricot + pear + coconut oil puree (minus the apricots since they aren’t in season, so probably subbing bananas?)
-baby rice cereal
have you made purees for your little one?
M
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