My 7 month old daughter just started eating baby food a month ago. I have made all her baby foods up to this point and am getting my recipes from the "So Easy Baby Food" cook book. She has "mastered" all the first foods in the recipe book already: acorn squash, apples, bananas, green peas, pears, & sweet potatoes.
I'm on to the 6-8 month section of the book (which is supposed to be equivilant to 2nd foods, I assume) and am finding that none of the fruits are in season! The fruits are apricots, nectarines, peaches, and plums. I made the peaches recipe using frozen peaches, but I can't find fresh or frozen apricots, nectarines, or plums anywhere. I don't feel that she's ready to start the 8-12 month recipes either.
Now, I know I'm not the first mom that has ever encountered this problem before, so please let me know what you have done in this situation! I am thinking of just purchasing organic baby food just for the fruit that I can't make, but would love to avoid that if possible. It's SO much more expensive and I enjoy making her food. I won't feed her commercial baby food with preservatives (a personal choice - I'm not knocking anyone that uses it), so that's not an option for me.
Thanks in advance for your help!
My son was the same age at this time last year, so we just continued with the bananas, pears, sweet potatoes, etc, until other fruit came in season. We also did avocado, which was and still is one of his favorites!
Have you tried using dried fruits? At a co op you can find all of these fruits dried without sugar or sulfur added. You can reconstitute them by letting them sit in a bowl of very hot water.
Simondelivers.com has Nectarines and plums right now. You could also try Valley Natural Foods in Burnsville or Byerlys. I find that the more upscale stores have a better produce variety in the winter. Good luck and good for you for making the commitment to make your daughters food!
We've run into this, too. We've a couple of things:
-organic jarred babyfood mixed with rice cereal so that it's a lumpier texture (I mean just pouring the rice cereal right into a bowl of babyfood, not mixing it with a liquid first) I agree it's expensive but by mixing it you can get two meals out of one jar
-Trader Joes tends to have produce that other places don't--the other day they had organic corn on the cob still...not even frozen! You might want to check there for the stuff not in season elsewhere.
-Put some harder fruits in a mesh feeder (like mango, etc.)
Have you tried a Whole Foods market? That is where we found plums and apricots last winter when I was making food for my daughter.
Here are some nearby Stores:
Minneapolis
Whole Foods Market
3060 Excelsior Blvd
Minneapolis, MN 55416
Phone: ###-###-####
St Paul
Whole Foods Market
30 South Fairview Ave
St Paul, MN 55105
Phone: ###-###-####
Good luck!
Just keep looking. I made my son's baby food last winter (he was about the same age) and I found that sometimes I could find peaches/nectarines, sometimes I couldn't. You could even ask at the store to find out when they expect more of the fruit you're looking for.
You could also check out some other books to see if they have other suggestions. I used Super Baby Food and loved it. The author is a bit "crunchy" but you can use what she says and adapt it to your own ideas. Good luck!
Well, the book's not a manual you know? :) Sometimes it's so easy to forget that before we had parenting books we just figured it out. I especially fell into that habit the first year of my son's life. But I think closing the books and using mommy sense is great for building our confidence, and I'd encourage you to try to go a little more freeform. She's 7 months and growing like a weed. I'm sure she's doing and learning new things every hour. You've got to be doing a great job!
People have all sorts of different approaches to introducing foods, and 7 months is certainly young enough where her nutrition should be coming from breastmilk, or artificial breastmilk if you've gone that route. It's not a race! That said, some people start with pureed meat. Some people start with grains (which IMO is asking for food allergies). Some people nurse exclusively until 12 months or beyond and then go straight to table foods. Lots of different approaches out there. I saw it mentioned already, but check out Super Baby Foods. There's a great recipe section for ideas, just to get you going. But close the book too!
Good luck! :)
If you can't find the fruit fresh, you can check your grocery store's natural food section or go to a specialty store like Whole Foods for jarred baby food. It's much healthier than the regular ones (ie. Gerber)
I made my own baby food for both my children (now 3 and 5), and froze things in batches so I wasn't cooking, straining, and pureeing every day. I also gave my babies in addition to rice cereal added to pureed veges, boiled rice in water to make a mushy porridge (basically congee) for more texture. I also opted to not give them fruits that were not in season as they ended up being not great tasting. I pretty much stuck to the available fruits until they were fresh and readily available. I am not familiar with the book you mentioned, but also fed my kids steamed carrots, mangoes and green beans at that age.
I am having the same problem with my 6 month old and am totally kicking myself for not freezing cubes when those fruits/veggies were in season (especially since this is my second child so I should have learned with the first one). My only plan at this point is to do what is in season + papaya and mango and whatever else I can get my hands on and just add the others when they come in. I also bought some jars for some additional flavors - but really hate the way those taste. If you come up with any ideas, please let me know!
T.
I ran into this with my own son and ended up buying canned fruit which I get from the coop so it's packed in fruit juice and the best tasting canned peaches I've ever eaten. This relieved some of my concern about eating in season and the food was minimally processed so I felt it had more nutrition than...say fruit cocktail or something. Just my two cents.
