So, you made it through those rough early weeks and figured out a good latch and breastfeeding has actually become something you don’t have to work at too hard. Your baby is thriving, sitting up, clapping hands, grabbing things and putting them in their mouth. They have even begun grabbing at your food when they see you eating. You may be wondering when is the best time to start feeding your baby ‘solid’ food. The truth is that there are several recommendations from reputable resources including The World Health Organization (WHO) and most of what you will read will say to exclusively breastfeed for at least 6 months; but from my personal experience, our child’s doctor gave us information on starting solids at 4 months. With Sweet Pea we settled somewhere between these two differing recommendations around 5 months of age we began experimenting with the excitement of first time parents anxiously moving to the next developmental leap with our little girl; with Babu we waited longer for no other reason then the fact that he is my last baby and I was in no rush to move on to the next phase, plus he seemed content. But soon after he turned 6 months he made it all too clear to all of us that he was ready for food! So, now that you know the recommended time lines and how we made the decision for our family, lets get on to the fun stuff…where to begin and what to serve!

Both of our kids’ first food was mashed avocado. It is one of our favorite foods and it seemed like the perfect fit, lots of great fat, nutrient packed and oh so smooth. Sweet Pea loved to eat from the very first bite and never looked back, so she adored (and still does) the avocado; Babu is naturally more tentative with new experiences including food (at least the first bite) but he willing ate it in order to encourage more. We did the recommended approach of introducing one food at a time in the beginning before moving on to simple combos. Because we started early with Sweet Pea we started with VERY small portions to begin with, mainly just a taste or a few bites to get them used to moving the food in their mouth. Our babies caught on very quick so within weeks we were up to a couple feedings a day without changing the amount of breast milk we fed them. That is one of the lovely things about breast milk, it adjusts its caloric and nutritional composition as the baby grows and based on their needs…it really is amazing stuff!

Because we lean toward the crunchy side of things and we live off of one income we had decided on making our own baby food pretty early on in pregnancy. We eat mostly organic, mostly vegetarian and are very aware of avoiding toxins in our daily and home lives, so it seemed logical, economical and most convenient to just separate some of the veggies we eat every week to be mashed or pureed with a blander seasoning (to begin with). It actually turned into part of our weekend meal planning/prep for the week.

Like I said we started with avocado and then moved on to the following:

• baked sweet potato, acorn squash, spaghetti squash- mash with olive oil and a pinch of salt & some black pepper for seasoning.
• steamed carrots, zucchini, summer squash, cauliflower, broccoli – pureed with olive oil and black pepper. Or you can also cut soft carrots if your baby wants to experiment feeding themselves.
• cooked peas (we just used frozen organic) – warm in some water, either in microwave or on stove top. We used a food mill to make pea mash but they are also great finger food and to add for simple combos later on.
• cooked & pureed apples, pears and soft cut up fresh cantaloupe & other melons, banana, peaches, plum, strawberries and apricot. They also enjoyed blueberries, raspberries, quartered grapes and oranges.

As far as starches, for Sweet Pea we did use some of the rice, oatmeal and other grain cerealsout there but she never seemed that excited by them unless they were mixed pretty heavily with fruit and/or veggies. I found that in the beginning you can make your own cereals with a coffee grinder but realized that if you add enough water you can make really soft rice and oatmeal that most early eaters who have shown the ability to chew can handle, especially if you add some breast milk to make it a soupy consistency. Once they have shown no reaction to simple cereals don’t be afraid to experiment by adding pureed fruit and/or veggies to the mix.

This new milestone is a fun one for every one and is an opportunity for your family to really enjoy healthy, whole foods that will set your kids up for a lifetime of healthy eating habits. To wrap this up, lets go over the tools/supplies we used. While this list is neither all-inclusive nor all necessary I do highly recommend a food processor of some sort (whether it’s one of the cute little ‘bullets’ or a full-blown Cuisinart) as this will make whipping up the purees quick and easy, plus will be a tool that will be used in the kitchen even after they have outgrown the purees. In fact we still puree and freeze veggies/fruit if they are at risk of going bad before we will get to them and then use them in soups, sauces, breads and other recipes. We registered for a few things one of which was the Kidco BabySteps Complete Natural Feeding System which included the items with * on the following list.

Useful tools for beginning your pureeing adventure:

• Food Processor/bullet*
• Food Mill*
• Soft, silicon spatula
• Food storage for freezing* (ice cube trays work well)
• Food storage for on the go* (the one that came with the Kidco feeding system was great and got lots of use)
• Food grater
• Basket steamer

Happy cooking!