Baby Food Experiments

Baby food is a big business. Since I had my first daughter, I have been under the impression that I had to feed my kids packaged infant cereal as a first food, and then continue to offer it throughout the stages of development. With my older girl, this was never a problem. She was a very big baby, and was ready for solids quite early. She adapted well to anything I gave her, and ate a lot. She never had problems with digestion, weight gain or her overall health. Now with my littlest one, I have followed the same process, but with very different results.

My little one is just about 9 months old. When she was born she weighed 9 pounds 6 ounces! She was a big, sturdy baby. She was however, born with a defect in her esophagus called Laryngomalacia. This defect makes it so that her little vocal cords are not tight like everyone else's, and when she breathes they sort of flap around making it sound like she needs to cough. It doesn't do any harm and it's never bothered her at all. You can just hear her coming! She is starting to grow out if it, and most babies who have the condition grow out of it by age 2. At her 6 month checkup, my doctor informed me she had dropped to the lower growth line on the baby growth chart, and became a little concerned. For having been born such a large baby, she has turned out to be quite petite. My thinking is that if she was born with one thing not as formed as it should be, maybe there are other things too, like her digestive system.

One of the main reasons babies don't gain enough weight is malabsorbtion of nutrients. This can be caused by many things, and my doctor sent us for a plethora of tests to find out. Baby still wasn't gaining an adequate amount of weight after 3 monthly checkups. This was 2 weeks ago and I still haven't received any results (I think no news is usually good news). Since then, I have been doing my own research into the best diet for infants. My little one has been having difficult and irregular bowel movements since starting on solids, and my thought was that something I was feeding her might be the culprit. First, I took her off all stage two cereals and went back to stage one. This didn't help. Then I googled "first foods" and found out from a few websites that often infant cereal isn't necessarily the best first food. Rice cereal, which we are told to give as a first food, contains few nutrients that aren't already present in the rice, and tends to sit like a rock in baby's stomach. Other cereals tend not to be necessary either. The information suggested giving baby fruits, veggies, egg yolks, chicken, turkey and whole grain oats. I decided to nix the cereals and give it a go on my own.

I have always made my own veggies, fruit and meats for my baby for the most part. Now I just make her cereal too. I have started giving her whole grain oatmeal once a day as her only grain, and giving her lots of good fatty foods such as egg yolks and avocado. I've also stopped cheating and giving her the occasional jarred baby food or juice. In addition, I have been breastfeeding more often throughout the day to help her feel more full. I have seen a tremendous difference in her digestion! She has regular, easy bowel movements, and really seems to be thriving. I am excited to take her to her next checkup to see how much weight she has gained.

I have been researching recipes for homemade finger foods and yummy recipes for the foods I give her. One recipe that has been very successful is little banana oat cookies. Here it is:

1) Grind whole grain oats in a food processor or blender until fine (there's no measurement...you just mix it together until the consistency is like a dough) .
2) Mash a whole, ripe banana
3) Mix together enough oats and banana to resemble cookie dough and spoon onto lightly greased cookie sheet.
4) Bake for 10-15 minutes at 325, until lightly browned but still soft.

It's awesome because there are only TWO ingredients! It is easy to gum and chew for baby, and is actually really tasty. My little one loves them! Today I made a new batch and added some fresh blueberries. If anyone is interested, here is her typical daily diet.

Breakfast:
- whole grain oatmeal (either blended before or after cooking) with a dash of cinnamon and some banana chunks or apple sauce
OR
- one or two banana oat cookies

Lunch: (mostly finger foods)
- scrambled or hard boiled egg yolk, cut into pieces
- 1/4 to 1/3 of a ripe avocado cut into little chunks
- some kind of fruit like banana chunks or peeled and cut grapes

Dinner:
- mashed sweet potato or white potato
- chicken or turkey puree
- a veggie puree (this week it's broccoli and carrots, last week green and yellow beans)

Snacks:
- mostly consist of fruits or banana oat cookies (my kid squeals as soon as she sees the bananas, so she eats a lot of them...she loves them)

I would love to hear other natural baby food recipes for delicious meals and snacks so I can broaden my horizons even more!