Baby food...

[sangtarah]

How do you handle it?

 

Do you set a rigid schedule? (Same times every day?) What do you feed first? Do you breastfeed?

Do you make your own?

 

Over Thanksgiving, I began feeding a 1/4 of a jar of baby food every morning around 9:30am. I came down with mastitis the next week. (It was a very busy week sightseeing, which I’m sure impacted the mastitis.) The treatment for mastitis took my milk supply way down, so I’ve spent the last week trying to build it up again, and I cut out the baby food. I’d like to re-introduce it without hurting my supply or contributing to mastitis. I didn’t have these problems with my other babies - they just ate and I fed them some baby food whenever. Until they could eat table food, that is. Never a strict schedule, since I don’t breastfeed on a schedule.

 

Baby girl is 8 months.

[wendyroo]

Yes, I breastfed all of my babies until 18-24 months.

 

We've always done baby led weaning, so I just offered table food (mostly whatever the family is eating) starting around 6 months.

 

At first, I offer food sporadically at meal times, when they show interest and I am prepared for the clean up.  After a while they are pretty regularly eating most meals with the family.

 

I've never made solids into a big deal around here.  I offer a wide variety of foods, and they choose to either eat them or not.

 

Wendy

[Rachel]

I offered solids during or just before mealtime for the rest of the family. I wasn’t really counting on solids as the main nutrition until about a year. It was convenient since I didn’t do jarred baby food and was just giving the baby whatever the rest of the family was eating. Nursing/bottlefeeding was separate.

 

There isn’t really a right or wrong way, just do what works for you.

[Rachel]

As far as “making†my own baby food, I have a mini food processor. When I made green beans or whatever for the family, I threw some in the processor for baby. I was pretty low key. Some people spend a day cooking things up and freezing for baby. I did that one time with my oldest but didn’t really feel like I needed to once he had been introduced to a handful of foods.

 

When we needed to eat out and I wasn’t sure I could get sweet potato or something soft I could mash with a fork, I would throw a container of applesauce in the diaper bag.

[HomeAgain]

Yes, breastfed, and we did baby led weaning.  We started with simple foods from the list at wholesomebabyfood.com like avocado, squash, etc., things that I could mash or steam in small chunks, and moved quickly into regular table food.  I always nursed first, then offered food directly after for the first few weeks (in the morning, to check for allergies/intolerance throughout the day).  After a while I'd offer the food about halfway through his session, and then we slowly dropped a feeding and did nursing after, not before.

[nixpix5]

I used a bullet and made all of my own baby food. We introduced around 5 or 6 months and it was somewhat scheduled along with our own dinner time. We would use a high chair at the table with us. First food was avocado. We would introduce one new food every week or so. Each weekend I would steam veggies and bullet the fruits and veggies. Then I would put them in baby food jars and into our freezer for the week. We did carrots, asparagus, egg plant, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, banana, pear and so forth. After they had been successfully eating that I would make more mixed flavor foods and puree them. I slowly added texture to the foods until they were on chunks and eating what we were eating.

[rainbowmama]

I just gave table food whenever I was feeding anyone else. I didn't nurse on a schedule, so sometimes they ate food first, sometimes they nursed. It didn't affect my supply.