Homemade Baby Food - Sweet Potatoes

This morning I am making some baby food for Chloe.  Sweet Potatoes are her favorite right now, with peas a close second. 

How To Make Your Own Baby Food

Normally I will have a lot of produce ready to make and take a couple of hours and make it all at one time.  But, I've been sick and I'm just not all that organized this week.  I just realized this morning that I had some sweet potatoes that I bought Sunday and I don't want to let them sit much longer before I use them. 

Wash & Peel the sweet potatoes
(Now I would love to put those peels in my compost. But I don't have a compost. That's a project for another time.)

Cut the sweet potatoes into pieces, put in a pot, cover with water.

Boil for about 5 minutes.  You don't want to over-cook and lose all the nutrients from the vegetables, just cook them until they are soft enough to puree.

 

When the potatoes can be easily smooshed (yes, that's the technical term for it), remove pot from heat

 

Spoon the sweet potatoes into a food processor.  (If you have a really good blender, I've heard that works too. My blender was $20 at Target.  It does not work for baby food). Save the water in the pot.

 

 Add a few spoonfuls of the water that the sweet potatoes were cooked in to the food processor. 

 

Blend. Mix. Puree.  Whatever it is that your machine does, do it.  My KitchenAid Food Processor only has 3 options - on, pulse, and off.  Keep mixing until the food is smooth enough for your baby to eat.  As babies get older, you can have a little more texture in the food to get baby used to chewing.  

Ta-Daaaa!  Pure, fresh, nothing added, BABY FOOD.


To Store 
I put some of the food into ice cube trays to freeze, and pop the cubes into a Ziplock Freezer Bag when frozen.  To use, put 2 or 3 cubes in a microwave safe bowl and heat for about 30 seconds.  Stir and continue heating just until defrosted - do not feed HOT food to your baby.
  
I also fill several various to-go containers so that I can grab them on my way out the door.  I save the baby food containers that I do buy (rarely!) just for this reason.  Note: The lids on the little plastic Gerber cups do not seal, so be careful not to just throw them into a bag the way you would if you bought it from the store.  That will be messy.  Not that I've ever done that.  ;)

My favorite: (On the Left) I bought those colorful take-along cups at Babies R Us for just a few dollars, and they DO seal, and are just the right serving size for the baby right now.  I can also use these to put some dry rice cereal in and take with me, and just add water to the cereal when the baby's ready for it. 


Price Comparison
When Chloe first started eating "real" food, I had just started paying attention to the cost of every single thing that I bought.  So I decided to do the math on how much baby food costs compared to fresh fruit & veggies. 

The least expensive baby food in our Vons was Gerber. 
Gerber 1st Foods - Package of 2 - 2.5 oz  for $0.90
$0.18 per oz = $2.88 per pound

Gerber 2nd Foods - Package of 2 - 3.5 oz for $1.00
$0.14 pper oz = $2.24 per pound

Fresh produce - varies, but I always manage to find sales for around $1 per pound, up to $2 per pound.  Peas I get frozen, and I just make sure that I get the kind with "No Salt Added."  When looking at the ingredients, it should only say Peas.  (I made the mistake of buying a big bag once because it was cheaper per ounce, but got it home and realized it had added salt. I did not use that for baby food).

I have only bought one package of baby food in the last month.  I'm saving money, and even though isn't a huge amount, a few cents here & there do add up.

I'm saving a lot of little plastic containers from going to a landfill.

I know exactly where my baby's food is coming from and what is going into it. 

I'm feeding my baby fresh food.  Not processed.  Have you noticed that baby food doesn't expire for a LONG time?  Ew.

I will even eat it.  Well, not for a meal.  But I've never once tried baby food from a jar - it looks and smells disgusting to me.  But the food that I make - that's another story.  It looks yummy.  Bright colors, smells like the vegetables are actually supposed to smell.  And it tastes good.  I figure if I won't eat something that I'm trying to feed my baby, that's a problem.

What Motherhood has Taught Me

My Angels

Of course I was a perfect mother with my first 2 kids. Well, maybe not perfect, but I did the absolute best I could, and my kids are turning out alright.

Life is full of lessons, though.  I sat down to reflect on how different motherhood is for me now, almost 13 years since I had my son.  Here are the gems that I've learned along the way.

1.  Go with the Flow & Don't Worry About a Schedule.
I am so SO much more laid back now than ever before in my life.  I let the baby sleep when she needs to sleep, eat when she needs to eat, and I do what I need to do around her timing.  Yes, sometimes this means that I don't get to shower until noon.  But I'm blessed that I don't work outside the home, so this really doesn't affect anyone else.  You would think this would make it harder to leave the house or make plans that involve anyone else.  It's not harder, it just requires a little bit of planning.  I keep a few changes of clothes and diapers in the car, and since I'm still breastfeeding, I carry her meals with me.  Since she is also eating actual baby food now, I do try to keep some prepared & ready to grab if I have to rush out the door (this part was a little harder since I make my own baby food, but with a supply of plastic to-go bowls and spoons, it's really no big deal).

2.  DON'T Keep the House Quiet at Naptime
With my first son, he got used to sleeping when it was quiet, because he was the only child. And when he slept, I slept.  When our daughter was born 7 years later , I made sure that everyone knew when she was asleep, and better not make a peep, OR ELSE!  That all went out the window with baby #3.  I noticed while we were still in the hospital that as long as she was wrapped up tight, she didn't mind laying in her bassinet and would fall asleep on her own after taking a look around the room.  The noise from the constant flow of nurses and visitors didn't bother her at all.  When we got home, I realized that as long as she was fed, had a clean diaper, and wrapped up tight, she was good to go.  She'd fall asleep and the rest of the family would go about their business.  And music calmed her, too - something loud with a good strong beat.

3.  It's OK to Let Them Fuss a Little
Picking up your baby every time they make a peep will only lead to a very clingy baby.  Now, please understand, I'm not talking full on crying or screaming.  I know it's just a natural instinct to pick up a fussy baby to soothe her...but now that I have 3 kids to care for, dinner to cook, house to clean, and homework to help with, sometimes I just can't get to the baby when she thinks that I should.  So, she sits in her high chair and waits.  She complains, but she waits.  I don't see anything wrong with this.  I'm certainly not neglecting her.  Very rarely does she get to an actual cry. Of course if she does then I will drop everything to make sure that she is alright.

4.  Nevermind the Latest & Greatest
For your first child, it's really nice to get brand new stuff.  It's all pretty, and new, and before you know it your house is filled to the brim with baby swings, seats, cribs, changing tables, and a million other things that you never knew that you needed.  But new baby equipment depreciates like a brand new car.  I really could not see spending hundreds of dollars on things that I knew  I would only use for a short time.  I was lucky to have several friends whose little one's were outgrowing their infant stuff just as I was needing it.  A baby swing, a baby bouncer, a bassinet, another bassinet (handy with a 2 story house!) all came to me for next-to- nothing, and to look at it you really couldn't tell it wasn't brand new.  It was nice because we had gotten rid of everything baby-related about a year before I got pregnant for the third time.  (We thought we were done, but God laughed at our plans, and put His plan into action).

 5.  You Really Don't Need ALL That Baby Gear Anyway
Remember what I said about house being filled to the brim with baby gear?  Well, you will quickly learn what are the absolute necessities and what you can do without.  Because we were not expecting to have a third child, we didn't have an extra bedroom for her.  So, she camped out with us for a few months until we moved into a bigger house.  We managed to squeeze a crib and a co-sleeper bassinet into our room, because I wanted to get her used to sleeping in both.  We obviously had an infant car-seat for her.  We bought 2 bases, but we never installed the second one in our "little" car because it was just too crammed with 5 of us in there.  I never got a changing table, because when I did have one before, it only served to hold the laundry that I had yet to put away.  We got a swing and vibrating bouncer seat from a friend, and we only really used them a handful of times.  Instead of a big bulky stroller to lug around, I got the one that was just the frame, and the infant seat just clicked in.  So much lighter, and so much easier on my back.  I will have to do a separate blog about my baby must-have's.

6.  ENJOY IT
Oh, how very many times I have heard  "Enjoy them now, they grow up before you know it." 
And how very true that is.  I look at my son, and wonder how on Earth it's possible that he's going to be a teenager in a few short weeks...just yesterday I was teaching him to ride a tricycle and tomorrow I'll be teaching him to drive a car.  Seeing my 5-year old daughter doing her school work, having actual conversations with the child that it seems just learned how to talk last week.  I have learned to enjoy the time with each of my children.  And when I sit with my new baby, and look into her big blue eyes, I try to memorize every second with her, because next month, she'll be going off to college.

:)