Thursday, February 5, 2009



Mmm. Yams. Avery loves them. My only experience with yams before trying to figure out what to feed a baby involved marshmallows and brown sugar, which I thought was disgusting as a child (now I wouldn't turn down anything with either marshmallows or brown sugar ever...but that's a different post). But Yams straight up are delicious! And baby girl can pick up little chunks of them and feed them to herself. I just slice and boil them.

Other favorites of ours include home made mac and cheese (not that I am above Kraft, but the noodles are too small for Avery to pick I really love the kind with sharp cheddar and cream), no salt added green beans from the can, avocado, and basically anything that we are eating...including Salt and Vinegar potato chips. I'm not kidding. I make it a rule to let Avery taste anything she is interested in eating (as long as its safe for her obviously) in hopes of encouraging a non-picky eater later in life. So she wanted a chip and I let her lick it thinking she would hate it....but she sure didn't. I might have to rethink that strategy. I don't really want her getting used to high salt foods.

Anyway, it's hard to think of things that are nutritious and safe to feed a baby. I often make a big batch of mac and cheese with some sort of steamed veggie mixed in and then freeze it in little portions. But I feel like we lack variety.

So what do you feed your baby/toddler? Please share. If you have time.

ps. Thanks for all of your nice comments about my room. Geez blogging is good for my self-esteem. In case you are interested, the table is from Ikea as is the picture frame. Picture from Etsy (dutchdoor of my Christmas gifts from Trav), and the headboard I did not make... I got it for a steal of a deal at a Down East Home sale. The bed-skirt I got at the Sundance Outlet Store, not able to turn it down since it was hot pink and $5, and thinking I would cut it up into a little girl's skirt or something. But alas it ended up on our bed. That's how most things in my house are. Random. That's me.


  1. I have a hard time coming up with ideas too. A great snack is popcorn, probably safe around a year and a half. Crackers and cheese is my toddler's favorite. Bananas, pealed apples, corn, and black beans are also loved.

  2. We still can't really get Asher to eat solids. I've given up this week and am going to try again next week.

    Did you see the photo I posted today of Asher per your request?

  3. You could try tater tots, or mashed potatoes with peas mixed in with them. Hope that helps.

  4. 1) Nice photography
    2) Avery has beautiful eyes.
    3) Your post below reminds me of the "12 Days of Christmas" only with more poo and swollen gums. :)

  5. I got a book a couple of years ago at a second hand bookstore called Super Baby Food. She's pretty extreme, but there are so many good ideas for whole baby food in it. You might want to check it out from library and see if you like it!

    I have been making wheat thins and graham crackers lately. And we love whole wheat blender pancakes and waffles.

  6. We do a lot of yams, too. Also, same thing with boiled carrots. Blaine used to do cooked and pureed spinach pretty well. Rog's favorite of all--pinto beans. I just pop open a can of vegetarian rosaritas and his so happy. bananas and pears also great at this stage--nice and soft. k like to make stuff and freeze it for home use and then have a few bottles of stuff for on-the-go. i mainly do fruity stuff in the bottles because a lot of that stuff is so nasty smelling i can't bear to feed it to my child.

  7. Ooh, baby foods! My kids mostly eat what my husband calls "rabbit food"--lots of raw fruits and veggies. Juliet's favorites around Avery's age: sweet potatoes, cooked chopped carrots, peas, cooked chopped green beans, cooked lima beans, corn, chopped tomatoes, diced pears, bananas, peaches, plums, and apricots, quartered grapes, cheese cubes, chopped noodles, applesauce (I like to mix applesauce with mashed sweet potatoes to give the applesauce more heft = less mess), and her ultimate favorite: rinsed canned black beans. She would gobble those things down like there was no tomorrow. She also really liked little bread, tortilla, or pita cubes, although she would only eat them if they had been made that day--she'd never touch them the second day. After she got pretty good at chewing all of those up, we started with teeny little chunks of chicken and fish--sometimes I would also roll up deli meat into little tubes and then chop up the tubes into bite-sized pieces. She also really liked fried or scrambled eggs (I'd just take out the white before I cooked them).

    Basically once my kids were past the pureed food stage, they ate whatever we were eating, just in little diced portions with no added salt or other seasonings/jams/etc.

  8. Oh, and for snacks, the only crackers I let my kids eat are Goldfish, because they don't have any high-fructose corn syrup or partially hydrogenated oils. They also come in those teeny Baby Goldfish sizes, so they're perfect for tiny fingers. And I would do multigrain Cheerios at this age too.

    Snacks for us are usually Goldfish, chopped fresh or dried fruit (raisins, craisins, pineapple, papaya), cheese cubes, celery, or carrot sticks. I learned very quickly to serve snacks that didn't require a bib or lots of hand-cleaning afterwards, because otherwise it was impossible to eat anything unless little people were buckled into highchairs, which doesn't work when you're out and about.

  9. Although I'm baby-less I spend lots of time with my best friend who has a 10-month-old. She said she gives her baby a grain, a protein, and a veggie at every meal. Usually the grain is some sort of oatmeal/flax combo, the protein is some sort of bean/pea mush or cheese, and the veggies vary (steamed pureed broccoli, acorn squash, steamed carrots, yams, green beans, etc). For in-between snacks she uses cheerios and fruits (blueberries, mangos, etc). I have helped her do the weekend food prep (steaming, chopping, blending, and freezing) for the week a few times and it's fun, but seems like quite a bit of work to do all the time!

  10. My baby just turned one. She likes many of the same foods you listed for Avery (yams, advocado, green beans). Other favorites are black beans (rinsed and warmed), small pieces of cheese quesadilla, small bits of sliced deli turkey breast, grapes (her favorite, I cut each grape into 12 pieces, so it is a bit tedious), banana chunks, yogurt (yobaby), baby goldfish crackers, and cooked tortellini pasta (cut in small pieces, of course). Hope this helps!

  11. Love the photo--I'm always drawn to taking pictures of sweet potatoes because of their great color, but I especially love them with your colander/tablecloth.

    Anyway, I was interested to read comments because Zoe just this week has gotten really interested in food. In addition to steamed carrots, she loves normal (white) potatoes too. Also, we were at an Indian restaurant the other day and gave her rice, which she loved. But then I wondered if rice is one of those choking foods?

    Also, my pediatrician has told us to wait on any dairy products (cheese, yogurt, etc.) and wheat products until 1 year in case of allergies, but that's seeming pretty restrictive and--at least from the comments here--not very common advice. I'll have to look into it further.

    Oh, and last night we gave her some beets out of a salad, which she liked too.

  12. What the heck is wrong with me? Why can I not get your part time model reference? FOTC? I am wracking my brain!

  13. Whoa, after reading all these comments, I feel like a bad mom! As a rule I try not to give Charlie food with HFCS or hydrogenated oils (I'm not perfect but I do try). I didn't give Charlie nearly the variety of foods some of these moms do. But now he pretty much eats what we eat. And it just seems to be day to day for us. One day he'll love something and the next he'll just throw it on the floor, so then I have to start from scratch! And things he used to like, he's starting to not like anymore. I wouldn't call him a picky eater, but maybe he's getting that way. But I hear around 18 mo, they start to become a little finicky and eat less. I do saltine's for crackers and fishes. He could never eat bananas (they wreck his system). Loves string cheese (well any kind of cheese. pretty sure he'd eat only cheese if I let him!) The beans sounded like a good idea. Think I'll try that. Now I'm rambling, and Charlie just woke up for the day.

    I say, you're a great mom, give her what you think is best for her.


Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...