So, after 5 and a bit months of exclusive breastfeeding irishbaby is about to start solid foods. Today I made and froze some purees- nothing fancy-apple, pear, sweet potato, parsnip and carrot. I also have some bananas ripening in the fruitbowl and a box of baby rice.
We’re good to go for the first few days any way, but I’m wondering if anyone has nice recipes for first food, or some combinations of flavours their kids went nuts for. I am prepared for weirdness-my sister, for example, refused to eat anything that didn’t contain liver, parsnip or banana for several weeks.
Nah, she’s Irish. Best start her gnawing on a crust of stale soda bread softened slightly in milk and, were she to cry, suck on a rag soaked in whiskey and nitroglycerin.
Or is Irishgirl Protestant? Because then the rag should be soaked in, well, whiskey and nitro, but Protestant brands.
(signed)
dropzone, cramming in too many offensive cliches when he should be telling of a commentary he heard a few years back in which the writer was brought nearly to tears by a scandal in all the papers over graft in Belfast’s water department. “We are finally a real, boring, country!” Brought a tear to my eye, too.
Yay for solid foods! Here are some of the meals/combos the Gothlet loved when she was just starting out.
Apple + butternut squash - I read about this combo somewhere and tried it. She loved the two separately and enjoyed them together as well. You could sub the squash for the sweet potato if you wanted.
Banana mush + rice cereal - She only like mushed bananas for a minute and a half ( I think they were too slimy for her) but she tolerated them the longest with some cereal mixed in.
Carrots + peas - A classic, looks disgusting but she liked it.
Carrots + apples - I thought it was weird, but she seemed to enjoy it.
Check with your pedio but she loved baby yogurt, too. Comes in 6 packs, in different fruit flavors. Her favorite was the mixed berry. Got off it for a while during her “no mushy foods!” phase but we’re slowly introducing it again.
I just read the book Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater, and highly recommend it. His basic approach was to mince some of whatever the adults were eating and feed that. It’s a very entertaining book with some great recipes, whether you take that advice or not.
Huh. That’s pretty much what we’re doing with our girl–and now at nearly a year old, she eats almost everything, and in great quantity and with great gusto.
We started by following a chart our pediatrician gave us, showing what was appropriate at what age. Sweet potatoes were and still are a favorite, along with bananas. Sweet potatoes are nice because they’re so little work: just bake the potatoes, skin 'em, and mash 'em with a fork.
The weird thing she liked? Dill pickles. We’d slice a little spear off of one, and she’d hold it in her fat little hand and gum it to death for what felt like hours.
Her latest favorite is the egg noodles from a batch of chicken noodle soup I made. She’s not crazy about the chicken itself, but she can’t get enough of those broth-soaked noodles.
If you start her on flavorful adult (read: “hot”) food at six months, that means she will be ready for habanero salsa at six years, upsetting the balance of nature by twenty years. :eek:
I think the important thing to think about is herbs and spices. They make for an adventurous palate and reduce the amount of salt necessary in the more bland foods. Roasting rather than boiling or steaming the veg you’re going to puree/mash is also a nice variation.
Oh, also, I know this sounds weird, but when she gets to crunchy-food-ages, be careful with celery. My brother is allergic to it and it makes him throw up, but when he was little people just thought he was being a picky eater and made him eat it anyway. No fun there.
This is getting off topic, but be careful forcing kids to eat any food they don’t want to eat. The clearest memory I have of my (now dead) grandfather is of him making my sister and I eat asparagus. My sister, who was maybe 5, was under the table bawling her eyes out and he was screaming at her about it. I think the stand-off lasted about an hour, and neither of us touched asparagus (now one of my favorite vegetables) for 15 years after that. I know that’s not how I want my grand-kids to remember me, and it hardly instilled in either of us a love of vegetables.
Buy a $14 Kidco manual baby food mill, and grind the meals that you and your partner are having for dinner. Little need for special foods. They learn to eat and enjoy table foods this way.