Hi all,
We are moving to Germany in a month (military) and clearing housing a couple weeks before. I am currently making all my own food for my six and a half month old son, and while I know I can buy a banana here and there, I wouldn't want bananas for every meal, so I don't want to do that to my little man (not to mention the constipation he is bound to get! ;) So I am here looking for any recommendations for wholesome, just plain ol' food to-go for infants. Is there a trusted brand out there that tastes good and is good for baby? I won't have a kitchen for a while, so this is why I am concerned about the store bought food (if it was for a couple of days I would just suck it up and buy a few jars, he'd survive just fine haha). I've seen a couple of brands out there that looked promising (Plum Baby, Happy Baby), but I haven't tried any. So if you have, I'd love to hear from you. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Thanks all!
At 6 months he is really able to not eat much food. He should be on mostly formula or breast milk at this age. This is good because you can feed him a lot less food during this transition. Then get him back to your feeding schedule. By the time he's 8 months he could be eating a couple of meals a day after having his formula or breast milk.
I also used Earths Best & Gerber Organic because they are both organic w/o any fillers. Gerber has less options to choose from and can be a little watery at times. I was very pleased with Earths Best. They have many options to choose from. You can find them at Publix, Target and Babies R Us. Good luck with your move! I feel for you traveling that far with such a young baby.
The store bought food doesn't need to be refrigerated, so it's easy to travel with and you'll be fine for awhile without a kitchen. I mostly buy Earth's Best and Gerber Organic. They have a lot of different options and they are cheaper than Plum Baby, Happy Baby, or any of the other ones in the squeeze bottles. The food is organic and typically only contains the fruit/vegetable and water. They don't put in a lot of other additives or artificial colors/flavors, etc. Even if it's for a month, it won't hurt your baby to eat the jarred food for awhile, especially if you buy organic.
I make the majority of my 7 month son's baby food as well, but I have used jars on occasion. My son has not had any preference to a specific brand, however he absolutely hates any jar with bananas in it (it smells very different from homemade banana so I don't blame him). If you are concerned about pesticides, then I would go with an organic brand, but the non-organic is fine too. I would recommend reading the labels to make sure you aren't getting any fillers, sugar, or salt, which I'm sure you wouldn't normally add to the food. I would also recommend trying out the foods at home and not while you are traveling because when I gave my son jarred bananas we were at a restaurant and he had a complete (and unexpected) meltdown. Also, if you really wanted to continue to make his food, you can try one of those stick blenders. They are not very expensive and will not take up much room. By the way, since you most likely will not have all of your baby food supplies immediately after you move, you might want to look into some baby food brands in Germany . . . they are different.
I like both Plum Baby and Happy Baby. I used to puree all my own food too, but there are times when it doesn't make sense or isn't possible to bring that because you have to keep it refrigerated. What I love about the pouches is that my baby can hold them himself and suck the food out! I don't remember how old he was, maybe 6 1/2 months is too early for that, but at least you can squeeze it into a bowl and then save the rest for later rather than contaminating a jar with the spoon (if you have a cooler of course, but then if you did I guess you could bring your own pureed food, ha ha). You can find plenty of organic purees that are just the fruit, with maybe some lemon juice added to keep the color, but no added sugar or anything. And they taste good too!
