Making baby food wasn’t on my radar when I was feeding babies under my care as their nanny, but when I had my own children, it was all I could think about. Now, I love being in the kitchen and I love to cook, so that may be a huge factor in my interest level here, but I would venture to guess that there are more mama’s out there making baby food than ever before.

When my first daughter was born, I took a few books out from the library on making baby food and eventually purchased one. I have to say I laughed at myself, though, because I don’t know if we really need "cookbooks" for baby food so much as we need a few guiding principles.

Reasons for making baby food might include economics, nutrition, transportation, and/or allergies. Mine were from a nutrition standpoint and the bonus was that it saved us a ton of money. Some important points to remember when making your own baby food:

1-Your baby food will not have preservatives, so you should either use or freeze within 2-3 days.

2-I didn’t so much check with my doctor as I did with the Wise Women in my life as to when I thought my girls were ready for solids. I looked at the following developmental milestones: was she sitting on her own, was she reaching for my food, could she hold a cup by herself, could she pick up a spoon, how was her pincer grasp, and could she bring something to her mouth? It didn’t matter as much to me whether she had teeth because everything was pureed, but my babies did have a couple teeth when they started eating.

3-I would suggest starting with vegetables and leave fruits and grains for later. Reason being, fruits are sweet and I wanted to train my babies toward savory first and sweet, later. Grains I left for later because of their high allergen probability. If I did serve grains, I soaked them before grinding and cooking for ease in absorption and digestion.

4-Do not add spices to your baby’s food…the new pure food in and of itself is all the flavor a baby needs.

5-If you need to thin out your baby’s food, a little water or breast milk is best.

6-Traveling? Make and freeze baby’s food in ice cube trays and pop out what you need for the day into two containers and they’ll be room temp when you need them. If you need to keep the food frozen during transport, pack the food cubes in small containers between ice packs.

Follow these tips for understanding how to make your own baby food and you will see and enjoy success!