A tip for feeding picky babies

Here's a tip that might make your life a little easier..and give your
baby a happier time when it comes to meals. I found my 10 month old
became less interested in eating the boxed "infant" cereals and turned
his nose up to jarred baby foods. So I had to make mealtime a little
more interesting for him. I found that he liked what we were eating and
so I tried to come up with ways of giving him more "adult" food, but in
a way that he could eat it given his limited toothal abilities. An easy
way to provide more variety for him was to use a mini food processor I
had purchased years ago to grind up otherwise normal foods. It's sortof
like a small blender with about a one cup capacity and a blade as found
in a blender. Really easy to use, doesn't take up a lot of space and
was very inexpensive. Heck a blender would probably even work fine if
you have one of those on your counter. I found things like Cheerios
worked particularily well but any dried food product seemed to work
great. Once I had the crumbs it was a simple matter of adding milk or
breastmilk or even water if you're trying to cut out calories and
warming for just a bit to get the liquid absorbed. You can adjust how
much liquid and how runny the food is but he really liked the more
mature texture and flavors and the varieties are endless. Among many
other things I've had great success with Nilla wafers, shortbread
cookies, any preboxed cereal (be prepared for the volume to go away as
these are mostly air), and even a day old donut worked great! Frozen
veges of almost any sort work great (although you may want to cook them
before serving given the e.coli outbreak of recent weeks). Flavor
accordingly and you'll have a toothy grin that seems to say thanks..
and at a fraction of the price of prepared baby foods. Happy feeding!

I cooked dinners for myself with things like potatoes
or sweet potatoes. I put some on baby's plate, and
mashed it with a fork while I was sitting at the dinner table.

For a toddler, I took corn on the cob and slit the rows of
kernels, then scraped it. The soft insides came out, and the
outsides of the seeds stayed on the cob. I fed the soft part
to the child.

I've also made baby food by using a blender on
cooked carrots or pears, and storing it in ice-cube
trays in the freezer.

Regular applesauce from a jar is good, too. (Sugarless.)
Or some bananna, mashed with a fork. If you add a
small amount of vitamin C powder it does wonders in
preventing it from turning brown. (Same goes for apples
and pears. Lemon juice works too.)

) writes:
Here's a tip that might make your life a little easier..and give your
baby a happier time when it comes to meals. I found my 10 month old
became less interested in eating the boxed "infant" cereals and turned
his nose up to jarred baby foods. So I had to make mealtime a little
more interesting for him. I found that he liked what we were eating and
so I tried to come up with ways of giving him more "adult" food, but in
a way that he could eat it given his limited toothal abilities. An easy
way to provide more variety for him was to use a mini food processor I
had purchased years ago to grind up otherwise normal foods. It's sortof
like a small blender with about a one cup capacity and a blade as found
in a blender. Really easy to use, doesn't take up a lot of space and
was very inexpensive. Heck a blender would probably even work fine if
you have one of those on your counter. I found things like Cheerios
worked particularily well but any dried food product seemed to work
great. Once I had the crumbs it was a simple matter of adding milk or
breastmilk or even water if you're trying to cut out calories and
warming for just a bit to get the liquid absorbed. You can adjust how
much liquid and how runny the food is but he really liked the more
mature texture and flavors and the varieties are endless. Among many
other things I've had great success with Nilla wafers, shortbread
cookies, any preboxed cereal (be prepared for the volume to go away as
these are mostly air), and even a day old donut worked great! Frozen
veges of almost any sort work great (although you may want to cook them
before serving given the e.coli outbreak of recent weeks). Flavor
accordingly and you'll have a toothy grin that seems to say thanks..
and at a fraction of the price of prepared baby foods. Happy feeding!

Catherine Woodgold wrote:
I cooked dinners for myself with things like potatoes
or sweet potatoes. I put some on baby's plate, and
mashed it with a fork while I was sitting at the dinner table.

DS never ate jarred food. He didn't even like cereal, so he went to
mashed table food right away.


For a toddler, I took corn on the cob and slit the rows of
kernels, then scraped it. The soft insides came out, and the
outsides of the seeds stayed on the cob. I fed the soft part
to the child.

DS is 2 3/4 and eats the kernels (cut from the cob) whole. He loves
them! Another good alternative is frozen mixed veggies that are cooked
soft.

I've also made baby food by using a blender on
cooked carrots or pears, and storing it in ice-cube
trays in the freezer.

Yep - did this too with all sorts of stuff. One of my favorites was
chicken vegetable soup - he loved it and ate it like a champ!



Regular applesauce from a jar is good, too. (Sugarless.)
Or some bananna, mashed with a fork. If you add a
small amount of vitamin C powder it does wonders in
preventing it from turning brown. (Same goes for apples
and pears. Lemon juice works too.)

DS ate everything we ate, practically. You really don't need to buy
special food for babies.

-L.

"-L." wrote in message
oups.com...


DS ate everything we ate, practically. You really don't need to buy
special food for babies.

That's what I was thinking. I don't know why the OP thought she had such a
new and clever trick. I gave my daughter the occasional jarred baby foods,
but most of her food was pretty much whatever we were eating but mashed up,
gradually getting lumpier and firmer as she grew older.

Jen

"Jen" wrote in message
...
That's what I was thinking. I don't know why the OP thought she had such
a new and clever trick. I gave my daughter the occasional jarred baby
foods, but most of her food was pretty much whatever we were eating but
mashed up, gradually getting lumpier and firmer as she grew older.

There are still people who think that jarred food is healthier for babies
than regular food.
Marie

"Marie" wrote in message
...
"Jen" wrote in message
...
That's what I was thinking. I don't know why the OP thought she had such
a new and clever trick. I gave my daughter the occasional jarred baby
foods, but most of her food was pretty much whatever we were eating but
mashed up, gradually getting lumpier and firmer as she grew older.

There are still people who think that jarred food is healthier for babies
than regular food.
Marie

No I think the Jarred food is better for the babies then MY table food. :PIf
I cleaned up our diets a bit I wouldnt think that.

Tori

"Tori M" wrote in message
.. .

"Marie" wrote in message
...
"Jen" wrote in message
...
That's what I was thinking. I don't know why the OP thought she had
such a new and clever trick. I gave my daughter the occasional jarred
baby foods, but most of her food was pretty much whatever we were eating
but mashed up, gradually getting lumpier and firmer as she grew older.

There are still people who think that jarred food is healthier for babies
than regular food.
Marie

No I think the Jarred food is better for the babies then MY table food.
:PIf I cleaned up our diets a bit I wouldnt think that.

True. Jarred food is better than my food, too.

"Tori M" wrote in message
.. .

"Marie" wrote in message
...
"Jen" wrote in message
...
That's what I was thinking. I don't know why the OP thought she had
such a new and clever trick. I gave my daughter the occasional jarred
baby foods, but most of her food was pretty much whatever we were eating
but mashed up, gradually getting lumpier and firmer as she grew older.

There are still people who think that jarred food is healthier for babies
than regular food.
Marie

No I think the Jarred food is better for the babies then MY table food.
:PIf I cleaned up our diets a bit I wouldnt think that.


You just give them the healthier parts of it, and replace other bits with
mashed veges.

Jen

wrote and I snipped:
I found my 10 month old
became less interested in eating the boxed "infant" cereals and turned
his nose up to jarred baby foods. So I had to make mealtime a little
more interesting for him. I found that he liked what we were eating and
so I tried to come up with ways of giving him more "adult" food, but in
a way that he could eat it given his limited toothal abilities. An easy
way to provide more variety for him was to use a mini food processor I
had purchased years ago to grind up otherwise normal foods. It's sortof
like a small blender with about a one cup capacity and a blade as found
in a blender. Really easy to use, doesn't take up a lot of space and
was very inexpensive. Heck a blender would probably even work fine if
you have one of those on your counter. I found things like Cheerios
worked particularily well but any dried food product seemed to work
great. Once I had the crumbs it was a simple matter of adding milk or
breastmilk or even water if you're trying to cut out calories and
warming for just a bit to get the liquid absorbed. You can adjust how
much liquid and how runny the food is but he really liked the more
mature texture and flavors and the varieties are endless. Among many
other things I've had great success with Nilla wafers, shortbread
cookies, any preboxed cereal (be prepared for the volume to go away as
these are mostly air), and even a day old donut worked great!

Does anyone else think this sounds disgusting? Mashed up Cheerios
reconstituted with liquid? Why not give the poor child the Cheerios
straight out of the box. A 10-month-old does not need purees!!! Yuck!

My kids never ate infant cereal, and they graduated very quickly from jarred
baby food to mashed table food. A baby does not need teeth to be able to
eat soft-cooked vegetables or Cheerios.

-Patty, mom of 1+2


-Patty, mom of 1+2

"Tori M" wrote in message
.. .
No I think the Jarred food is better for the babies then MY table food.
:PIf I cleaned up our diets a bit I wouldnt think that.

I chose to be a good example for my children. They all 3 love veggies now. I
even somehow managed to eat brussells sprouts (oh gross, ugh) everytime I
cooked them, so that they would see me eating them and now they eat them.
Many veggies were done this way (ugh I'm not a veggie person but I AM a
parent!)
I did not want to have fat, unhealthy, overweight children so I made sure so
feed them properly and that meant I had to set the example.
Marie