Author Topic: baby food  (Read 2247 times)

ericbonabike

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baby food
« on: December 07, 2018, 08:15:40 AM »
My wife and I both work part time and have a 6 month old son.  Our son goes to daycare while we're at work.  He's breastfed, but is now starting to transition to baby food.

We scoped out baby food prices and were shocked that a little gerber jar of peas cost $1.50.   When we can buy a frozen 1 lbs bag of peas for less than a dollar.   

So, what we started doing was:
1) cook peas
2) puree peas
3) pour puree into ice tray cubes and freeze
4) It made ~38 cubes and he eats 3 cubes at a time.

So a bag of peas costing $0.89 yielded about 12 servings, at a serving cost of 7.5 cents per serving.  This is a factor 20x cheaper than prepared baby food.

We plan to do the same with carrots, squash, sweat potato, apples, pears. 

I don't know why, but this 20x factor makes me profoundly happy.

Blueberries

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Re: baby food
« Reply #1 on: December 07, 2018, 08:57:28 AM »
If you haven't heard of it, you may want to look into baby led weaning.  It may not work with daycare, but if it resonates, you may want to incorporate it at home.  I did it with my children; it saved time and was economical.

YttriumNitrate

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Re: baby food
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2018, 09:43:52 AM »
This past weekend I did the exact same thing for my 6 month old daughter...only we used bananas instead. As an added bonus, her 3 year old brother helped peel, cut, and blend the bananas which kept him entertained for an hour or so.

We might be going back to Aldi this weekend for carrots and possibly another crate of bananas.

ericbonabike

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Re: baby food
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2018, 10:37:18 AM »
If you haven't heard of it, you may want to look into baby led weaning.  It may not work with daycare, but if it resonates, you may want to incorporate it at home.  I did it with my children; it saved time and was economical.

thanks.  I haven't seen that before.  We've been feeding him saltines and graham crackers while we eat supper, but I like this idea better.   Although I personally hate cooked carrots. 

ericbonabike

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Re: baby food
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2018, 10:38:25 AM »
This past weekend I did the exact same thing for my 6 month old daughter...only we used bananas instead. As an added bonus, her 3 year old brother helped peel, cut, and blend the bananas which kept him entertained for an hour or so.

We might be going back to Aldi this weekend for carrots and possibly another crate of bananas.

Banana's we've just been smashing up with a fork on the fly.  We also feed our son avocado in this same way.  We were struggling with veggies because we had to pre-cook things. 

Mrs. Fire Lane

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Re: baby food
« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2018, 12:33:09 PM »
We made most of our own baby food but we also bought some pouches so our LO could try puréed beef, chicken, etc. That seemed like a lot more work than preparing fruits and veggies.

kimmarg

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Re: baby food
« Reply #6 on: December 07, 2018, 08:07:37 PM »
For daycare you might try getting some of the refillable pouches. (e.g.https://www.amazon.com/WeeSprout-Double-Zipper-Reusable-Pouch/dp/B00TXBSHBQ)  I found it worked well to fill up a whole bunch and put them in the freezer. I'd then throw them frozen in the lunch box and they would be thawed by lunch.  The commercial pouches are completely worth the money if you're traveling and I used to keep one in the car and diaper bag for emergencies but the refillable ones let you go much cheaper for everyday use.

Morning Glory

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Re: baby food
« Reply #7 on: December 07, 2018, 09:17:10 PM »
I used silicone muffin cups for freezing. Much easier than ice trays for getting the food out, and they hold more.

chemistk

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Re: baby food
« Reply #8 on: December 10, 2018, 06:35:17 AM »
Baby food is an insane ripoff.

We did buy about 30 small jars with our first kid - then we washed them out and refilled them with our homemade stuff. There's also definitely an argument for keeping a couple packs of the pouch style food, to bring with you in case you find yourself with a hungry kid and nothing to feed them.

Funny thing about kids though - our first just refused to eat baby food after a month. He had maybe 2 teeth and would only eat our food. Intact (cut up). Our second just flat out refused baby food to begin with. Hated the texture (except for applesauce, for whatever reason). Again, would only eat cut up 'normal' food. We have stubborn kids.

Mongoose

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Re: baby food
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2018, 07:51:43 AM »
Neither of my kids would eat baby food either. We ended up just feeding them our food in mashed/pureed/cut up form. We didn't have day care though so it was pretty easy.

Revelry

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Re: baby food
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2018, 09:15:17 AM »
If you haven't heard of it, you may want to look into baby led weaning.  It may not work with daycare, but if it resonates, you may want to incorporate it at home.  I did it with my children; it saved time and was economical.
+1 to baby-led weaning.  We started #2 and #3 with things they could grab and nom on it like soldiers of bell pepper, avocado with skin on, etc.  Gradually introduced new foods off our own plates.  So much easier than the baby oatmeal and homemade puree pouches we tried to do ("the right way") with #1.

Kerowyn

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Re: baby food
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2018, 09:43:01 AM »
Wow! I never looked at the prices for prepared baby food. That's huge. We're doing the same thing. (Tried baby-led weaning for a bit, but this is easier for us, though he also gets finger food.)

I used silicone muffin cups for freezing. Much easier than ice trays for getting the food out, and they hold more.

I have a couple of silicone ice cube trays that are perfect--one of them makes extra-large ice cubes that I believe are half a cup in size. I've used our actual plastic ice cube trays a couple of times... that's a mistake.

cats

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Re: baby food
« Reply #12 on: December 17, 2018, 10:35:35 AM »
I really hate those pouches (so expensive and so much packaging waste!), so we did the same thing.  I also mashed/pureed things we were eating (lentil curry, black bean soup, etc) to give some more variety in flavor and nutrients.  And we started introducing soft whole foods (stuff like scrambled eggs or beans) pretty early on also.  In addition to saving money in the baby food stage, it saves us money now (almost age 3) as our kid has never gotten accustomed to sucking food out of a pouch.  I see so many kids of a similar age to ours STILL eating food on the go from pouches, and have heard a few parents say that applesauce in a pouch is one of the only fruits/vegetables their kid will eat.  Meanwhile our son will eat stuff like cucumber slices, frozen peas, nuts, hard-boiled eggs, and whole fruit for snacks.

starbuck

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Re: baby food
« Reply #13 on: December 17, 2018, 11:59:52 AM »
In addition to saving money in the baby food stage, it saves us money now (almost age 3) as our kid has never gotten accustomed to sucking food out of a pouch.  I see so many kids of a similar age to ours STILL eating food on the go from pouches, and have heard a few parents say that applesauce in a pouch is one of the only fruits/vegetables their kid will eat.  Meanwhile our son will eat stuff like cucumber slices, frozen peas, nuts, hard-boiled eggs, and whole fruit for snacks.

This is SO TRUE. I also have a three year old and so happy we skipped all the pouch junk. My kid would suck down a few of those in minutes and still be hungry. Most moms I know do some version of baby-led weaning with their 2nd kids. To hell with spoon-feeding!

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!