Caroline’s First Foods

Thank you so much for all of the kind comments, e-mails, tweets and messages that I received on my first day back at work.  You all made a very difficult day much easier—I felt so loved!  Thank you.

*************************************************************

When we went to the doctor for Caroline’s 4 month check up, she said we could start solid foods.  I was so excited! We love food {obviously} and I was looking forward to the process of introducing Caroline to new flavors and textures.

I read that breastfed babies are less picky than formula fed babies because they’re exposed to the flavors of the food mama eats.  This is true even in the womb, babies can taste the flavors of food in amniotic fluid.  In any case, given that I was formula fed and kind of picky as a kid, I am interested to see if Caroline is less picky because she is a breastfed baby.

When I discussed it with Caroline’s pediatrician, she said we could introduce vegetables and fruits in any order after introducing cereal for two weeks.  And to give Caroline the same food for 3 days to be sure she is not allergic to anything.  *This was the advice given to us by our doctor.  Please consult with your doctor before beginning solids for your child.*  Of course, I still did a little research to find suggested first foods and so far we’ve been very happy with the result.

I’m committed to making Caroline’s food, it’s one of my goals for 2012.  So far, it hasn’t taken much time at all and I have 2 weeks of food in the freezer for her!  Each type of baby food does not warrant a blog post, so here is a round up of the first seven foods.

Rice Cereal
We gave Caroline rice cereal mixed with breast milk to start, 1 tablespoon of cereal to 3 or 4 tablespoons of breast milk.  We made it very thin so she could get used to taking food off of a spoon.  After a few tries, she got the hang of it!

She seemed to like the fact that she was eating but given that rice cereal doesn’t have much flavor over the breast milk, I don’t think she cared about the rice cereal one way or another.  After almost 2 weeks we noticed that she was having some constipation so we switched to oatmeal instead of rice cereal, which cleared the problem up.  Oatmeal has more nutrients and fiber than rice cereal.  For our next child, it’s likely we’ll skip rice cereal and go directly to oatmeal.

Oatmeal
We prepared the oatmeal with breast milk as we did with the rice cereal, but we gradually made it thicker so she would get used to the texture.

She was a fan of the oatmeal and ate it up as fast as we could feed it to her.

Sweet Potatoes
We decided to give Caroline sweet potatoes for her first vegetable because of all of the vitamins and nutrients in them, but also because we were at my parents’ house for Christmas and it was easy!

Preparation:

• Peel and wash one sweet potato.
• Boiled it until fork tender, but you can steam them instead.
• Puree until smooth.
• Portion the sweet potatoes into 1-2 tablespoon servings in an ice cube tray and freeze them.
• To serve, thaw one cube and added a little bit of water, formula or breast milk to thin it out.

Caroline was a big fan of the sweet potatoes—she kept grabbing the spoon and shoving it in her mouth! My kind of girl.

Bananas
We traveled over New Year’s so we only had about 12 hours between getting home from my parents’ house and turning around to go to Richmond and there just wasn’t enough time to make more food.  So I grabbed some bananas at the grocery store—perfectly portable baby food!

Preparation:

• Mash a ripe banana with a fork until smooth.

How easy is that?  I mixed the banana with some breast milk and some oatmeal just so it would fill Caroline up more than just plain banana.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of Caroline eating bananas but she enjoyed them!

Peas
I wanted to move to some green vegetables next and used a bag of organic peas that were in the freezer.

Preparation:

• Microwave the peas in water for about 2 minutes or more until tender.
• Puree the peas in a food processor.  Because of the shells, it takes a minute or two to reach a smooth consistency.
• Add water to make the peas thinner.  I inadvertently added too much water so when I served it to Caroline I added some oatmeal.
• Freeze the same as the sweet potatoes.

She’s smiling in this picture because she knows what to do in front of a camera, she did not seem to enjoy the peas.  I’m not sure if it was the consistency or if it was because it was the first food we gave her without any breast milk added.  She ate them, but she was not happy about it.  We’ll keep trying!

Avocado
When I was pregnant, I could not stop eating avocados.  In my first trimester, when I was nauseous 24/7, all I could stomach was avocado with salt.  So I had a feeling that Caroline would love avocados and I was right!

Preparation:

• Peel and dice two ripe avocados.
• Puree until smooth, scraping down the bowl of the food processor once or twice in the process.
• Add water for a smoother consistency {I added about 1.5 cups}.

By far, this was the thickest food we served to Caroline, but she took it like a champ, squealing and grabbing the spoon to get the avocado in her mouth faster.  I’d say that was a win.

Butternut Squash
The great thing about butternut squash, aside from the nutritional value, one squash will provide at least 7 servings, if not more!  About 10 minutes of effort for a week of meals? I’ll take it.

Preparation (I used this site as a guide):

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
• Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds.
• Add 1.5-2 cups of water to a baking dish and place the squash in it flesh side down.
• Bake for 40 minutes.
• Allow to cool, then puree in a food processor.
• Add water, if needed.

Caroline started squealing and kicking her feet when we gave her the butternut squash.  And then she grabbed the spoon!  I think this ties with avocado for her favorite veggie so far.

My favorite part?  Seeing just how much of a mess Caroline can make with the food.  This will only get more entertaining as she starts feeding herself.

What was your baby’s first food?

Tagged as: baby, life, recipe