Making your baby's food - the easy, healthy way

If your baby is about to start solids, you may fancy making your own baby food?

But we're Busy, so surely making your own baby food is going to be a real pain?

Well Busy Girls, we're here to save you time & where possible, money, so we wouldn't recommend this unless we had proof that it really is one of the cheapest, easiest & most nutritious ways to feed your growing bundle of love.

Not only will you reduce time & waste, but by choosing fresh foods, you can even purchase organic ingredients & avoid the unwholesome ingredients that show up in commercial baby food.

Follow these quick, simple steps to earth-mother smugness & do let us know how you get on!

Home cooked baby food top tips!

1 Don't bother buying a baby food grinder - they're hard to clean & too much hassle.

2 If you wait until your baby is 6 months old to start solids, you can almost always just mash with a fork to the desired consistency.

3 If you're breastfeeding, you can even wait until baby's "pincer grasp" is developed & offer him small finger foods like peas & bits of grated apple (the pincer grasp is developed when baby can pinch small objects in between his thumb & first finger).

4 If you have a family tendency towards food allergy, waiting longer to start solids may be preferable. No matter what baby's age, always offer one food at a time & wait several days to watch for signs of allergy before offering another. Take it slowly!

5 Start with fresh single ingredient foods like:

Fresh banana
Steamed carrot, turnip & potato
Avocado
Ripe pear, peach, melon, plum
Grated apple- raw or steamed
Peas
Hard cooked egg yolks (avoid the whites until 1 year old)

Top Tip: Some of these foods could be served raw. Others are lightly steamed (as steaming retains more nutrients than canning) to make them softer for your baby's mouth.

6 Don't spend a great deal of preparing baby's food - if you want to take a lot of time blending food & freezing them in ice cube trays, you could certainly do that. But we're all for the easy approach... Although you do want to avoid giving baby salt & sugar, you can usually just take an ingredient from your own menu & "make" baby's dinner. For instance, if you're steaming some veg for dinner, take a tablespoon out of the pan before you add butter & salt. Put this in baby's plate & mash away. Voila! Instant baby food with no extra work. Or take a bit of beef from your roast & mash until it's very soft.

7 When at a restaurant, either bring a grated apple with you, or a banana or bit of cooked carrot. Or give baby a bit of your baked potato (before you add the butter & salt on top!).


Most of all, simply experiment slowly. Don't make loads of work for yourself trying to get your baby a separate menu. Simply take from your meal & mash well. You'll find feeding home cooked food really does wonders for your baby's health.

Who said organic had to be hard?

Have funny Busy Mum & do let us know how you get on!

Best wishes, The Busy Girls Mums x