Baby/Toddler Food

With John’s birthday coming up I find myself in amazement of how fast it has gone by. We were giving him some food last night and I thought to myself, “I can’t believe he’s eating table food already. Wasn’t I just pureeing and freezing ice cubes of squash & green beans yesterday?”

Five months ago isn’t yesterday, but it isn’t that long either. I didn’t realize how quickly they go from Momma-waiting-for-an-open-mouth-to-put-plain-puree-in-so-they-can-spit-it-out to self-feeding-finger-food-loving-happy-almost-toddler-with-a-very-messy-high-chair.

Honestly, I’m kinda glad it went by quickly because I really like where we are now. Purees are a lot of work and feeding John now is simple & a lot quicker. With our next baby I may lean more toward the Baby Led Weaning method mentioned by Mackenzie. I’m not sure yet, but I like the idea of semi-skipping the puree stage.

So where are we now?

Steamed Vegetables, Some Fruits, Rice Patties, Pasta Creations, Pancakes/Breads and lightly sweetened cookies.

Seems like a lot of work, but I promise it’s not...

Steamed Veggies:
John is a great veggie eater… and I’m thankful! As long as the pieces are big enough he will try it (He has a hard time picking up peas & black beans and ends up smearing them all over his tray). I’m not sure if the good-veggie-eating-trend will continue as he grows into toddler-hood, but I’m planning on continuing to offer a wide variety of food. As of last month I started adding seasoning to his steamed veggies… simple stuff like dried herbs, garlic powder and cinnamon and a little olive oil to help it stick on and give him some healthy fat. I like to take the help from the frozen food aisle here and I pick up frozen broccoli & green beans for John all the time. However, raw cubed squash, sweet potatoes and carrots freeze nicely so I stock up when they go on sale in the produce aisle.

Some Fruit:
Fruit is actually a little bit of a struggle for us. I’m not too worried about it because I don’t know many people that hate fruit. From the beginning John hasn’t been that big on bananas, but he does love apple/pear type things. I used to feed him applesauce as a treat, but he doesn’t let me feed it to him anymore so now he eats really ripe pears. He loves pears! I tried strawberries & watermelon recently but I don’t think he understood that it was food… I was even showing him that I was eating it too. Honestly, I think fruit is too slippery for him. He very independent when it comes to solids and I think if he has to fight it, he just doesn’t. Maybe when he figures out how to use a spoon he will discover a world of fruit.

Rice Patties:
These are fun. Two of my friends make these for their toddlers and I had to try it. I tweaked the recipe a bit (no cheese or meat) because John can’t have dairy till he is one and he really doesn’t need meat… he’s growing at a great rate (although we do give him cubed chicken occasionally). I substituted cooked black beans in for a protein source. I was a little nervous about the egg, but we are so close to being a year old and John hasn’t shown any signs of any allergies so I decided it was okay. Mine turn out pretty green because of the spinach/broccoli puree, but John loves them. They freeze well too. I always taste them as a rule of thumb… I don’t want to feed him something super disgusting. This is a little extra work and not something I normally cook for us, but making a large batch that last us a couple of weeks isn’t that hard.

Pasta Creation:
This kid is his Dad’s son. He loves it when pasta hits his tray. I like to use the whole wheat rigatoni. It’s easy for him to grab and the little swirls hold extra sauce. For sauce I started using tomato, but with John’s yeast problems he couldn’t handle much of that. Recently I tried carrot puree… I just seasoned it like it was tomato puree (Italian herbs, garlic powder, onion powder, etc) and John liked it. I need to add in some veggies (like zucchini or broccoli), but I forgot to that this last time. He gets extra messy when eating this, but if we are at home and don’t have much on the agenda I don’t mind.

Pancakes/Breads:
I first started John with pancakes for breakfast but I haven’t made those in a while… however, they are still a hit (all around… we like those too). And when we have bread at dinner, John loves to sample. And he gets really excited if he sees a tortilla. I gave him some for dinner once with a rice patty and he ate the tortilla and absolutely rejected the rice patty… now we give him his veggie first and then his carbs.

Lightly Sweetened Cookies:
When I was running low on baby friendly options at the house I gave John some of his Dad’s Animals Crackers. Of course he loved them like every other baby out there, so they became a semi-staple in his diet. Animal Crackers, Buddy Grahams, Cheerios, Puffs, etc. They are great if we are out and John is having a particularly crabby day… but I try not to rely on them for that. And they are also wonderful if I need a quick meal for John that doesn’t require the much clean up.



I’m not the strictest parent when it comes to sugar/salt, but I did want a better option for all the animal-cracker-type things he eats. I found this recipe on Wholesomebabyfood.com and decided to try it. It made like 3 dozen teething cookie size sticks…. but I think John at five of them in one sitting. I also used carrot puree because I didn’t have any bananas on hand. They are softer than teething cookies but a good alternate to cookies/cracker type things. They are a bit messy so I may still use cheerios/animal crackers when we are out… but there are a lot of recipes on the wholesome baby food website so I’m sure with more experimenting I’ll find a cleaner alternative.

Here is our (wheat, dairy & egg free) cookie recipe.

Ingredients
1 c quick oats
1 c ground oats (grind oats and make a coarse oat flour)
1/4 t salt
1/4 t cinnamon or ginger or cardamom
1/4 t nutmeg
1 t baking powder
1 c (~2) overripe bananas, mashed
1 t vanilla extract
3 T oil of choice

Directions:
Mix all ingredients and put into a pastry bag (I used a large zip lock bag). Cut opening and pipe mixture onto parchment paper or a greased cookie sheet. Bake 12-15 min at 350.


I really wish I would have tried this sooner. I was hesitant to try it because I thought it would be a choking hazard, but they turned out quite soft and I would be comfortable giving this to a 6 or 7 month old… and it’s great because it doesn’t have wheat, dairy or egg in it.

Anyway, that is a pretty good summary of where we are when it comes to baby food now. I hope I gave you some good ideas. And hopefully I can find this post again when our next baby is 6 months old! :)