Making Baby Food 101

Okay okay crazy baby food making moms! I'll give another little baby food making lesson. If someone would have asked me 2 years ago if I would ever post on my blog about making baby food I would have laughed at them! Seriously in a million years I never would have thought that anyone would ask me about making baby food. I can hardly cook for myself. But you all keep emailing me so I'll keep posting tidbits if it helps you.

This time around lets talk about fiber! Yes fiber! Fiber is our friend and fiber is your baby's friend. Why do baby's need fiber you ask. Well they need it to make the poop better. It helps keep them regular and it helps keep it soft. And trust me I never knew how important that was till I had a kid. Not soft poop causes problems. It causes screaming baby poop rock problems. But I'm off track. Babies just need fiber. So we need to give it to them! Here are some of my favorite fiber friendly baby foods.

Pears

Hello pears. Pears have lots of fiber! And pears are frequently on sale at my grocery store. So we have lots of pears around here. Pears are easy to make for babies. All you do is peel and core the pear and bake it in the oven in water for about 25 minutes. Then you mash it up and serve it to baby. Freeze the rest using the ice cube trays. A side tip for ya. Pears tend to be pretty runny so I mix the pears in with a thicker food so it is a better consistency. Sweet potatoes are thicker in consistency. So a sweet pot/pear mix is wonderful!

Pumpkin

Okay pumpkin is a very fiber friendly food. Pumpkin has 5 grams of fiber in 1/2 cup! That's great! And I can't believe I'm admitting this but I just give The Hulk the Libby's canned pure pumpkin. Do not give your baby the pumpkin pie mix! Make sure it say PURE pumpkin! I get a can and make the cubes out of that. Seriously, it's a steal at $1.18 a can. And the kid loves it! Mix in a little bit of cinnamon or ginger to spice things up.

Flax Seed

I add flax seed to all of The Hulk' food. I just have a shaker of it and for each bowl of food at every meal he gets a few shakes. Flax seed is a great source of fiber. It also does other good things but I'm mainly focused on fiber around here. So use the flax seed. It does lots of good stuff!

Just a few warnings. If your child eats very little fiber right now I would not recommend giving him a pear, pumpkin, and flax seed combo. That could case stomach pains, or a poop explosion, or constipation. Slowly add more fiber to your baby's diet. A good rule of thumb is that a child needs their age plus 5 grams of fiber a day. So if you have a one year old they need 6 grams of fiber. If you have a 3 year old they need 8 grams of fiber.

Let me know what other questions you have about baby food. If I don't know the answer I'll find it for ya!

Happy feeding!

Clickin Mama