transitioning baby to solids...

Starting Mason on solid foods (with pediatrician approval of course) was a daunting task for me.  Milk was so easy and manageable.  Solid foods added a whole new layer of utensils, bowls, food options, food storage, and labels.  I read a lot of Blogs and went through a lot of trial and error during this time to try to figure out the right foods for Mason...that I am now sharing with you...

We started out with the food pouches.  Vegetables first as recommended by the pediatrician then fruits as well as Oatmeal (we skipped Rice Cereal completely).  I started out with the Plum Organics single food pouches for a few days for each food to rule out any food allergies then moved on to the Ella's organic pouches which combine fruits and veggies in each pouch.  After about 3 weeks of buying pureed food in pouches I realized I was spending WAY more at Target each trip then I wanted to and started making his food at home.

Let me start this off by saying that I am a pretty terrible cook...and luckily you don't need to know how to cook to make baby food...

For breakfast: I pureed (in the Nutribullet) Strawberries, Mango, Blueberries, and Whole Milk Yogurt. 

For lunch:  I bought the pre sliced butternut squash cubes at trader joes or costco - boiled or microwaved until soft then pureed in the Nutribullet with some cinnamon.  Sometime I threw in some cooked carrots as well.  

I made this all on Sunday for the whole week in under an hour and loved knowing exactly where Mason's food was coming from.  At this point he wasn't eating dinner (we started that at 8 months).

This went so well until he was about 8 months old and was doing great at feeding himself puffs as a snack so we got the green light to go with chunkier, pea-sized and mash-able foods just as I mastered the art of pureeing. Slowly as more and more food made it into his mouth with his hands..I took away the pureed foods...

For breakfast (chopped up):

  • 1-2 bananas
  • scrambled egg (without milk - just egg)
  • oatmeal or a piece of whole wheat toast  

For Lunch (chopped up):

  • peas& carrots (LOVE the frozen peas and diced carrots in the steam bag -makes things so much easier)
  • rice or chopped up whole wheat rotini pasta
  • cheeses - mozzarella and mild cheddar 

For Dinner (chopped up)

  • chopped up cooked chicken (I found precooked chicken skewers at Costco that I microwave for 30 seconds - so easy!) 
  • peas/carrot/pasta mixture
  • mozzarella cheese
  • yogurt 

Snacks:

This is where we are now and I can't even begin to figure out where to go from here.  The next step is to have Mason just eat whatever we eat...so now we have started to chop up our food for him to try and have even ordered from the kid's menu at restaurants...here's hoping we can somehow find a way to put well balanced meals on the table after a long day at work...

Some of my must-have tools for starting solids: