What do you feed your baby for the first time? Baby’s first foods in stage 1 are listed below, as well as my experience with feeding my baby solids for the first time.
After our failed attempts at rice cereal, we took a break from giving Annabelle any real food. In my opinion, she was getting everything a four month old needed for nutrition from my breastmilk. I didn’t want to scar her for life by shoving nutrion-less rice cereal in her face! We tried also tried oatmeal, but that was another f-a-i-l.
Baby’s First Foods Stage 1
After a few weeks, and consulting various people and literature about how to approach feeding baby her first foods, we were ready to try again. One of my favorite websites to consult for anything and everything is KellyMom. You can read what she has to say about first foods here.
1. First foods should be smooth in texture. Whether it is store-bought or made at home, baby food shouldn’t be chunk, but rather strained, pureed, finely mashed, or thinned with liquid.
2. All foods can be served room temperature, which most babies prefer.
3. Stage 1 foods have a single ingredient and are pureed. Read more: http://www.justmommies.com/babies/babys-first-foods-chart#ixzz37dLiG6s6
4. Babies usually start with less than half a teaspoon and then work their way up to two to three tablespoons.
5. Recommended first foods:
Annabelle is a lover of homemade applesauce and sweet potatoes – both cooked, pureed in the food processor, and sprinkled with a little bit of cinnamon. I store the food in ice cube trays in the freezer. When it is time for a little something to eat, I allow the cube to soften to room temperature. OR, I stick the frozen cube in a mesh food ring and let her feed herself. She likes it both ways.
We tried avocado and bananas mashed by hand. She didn’t go too crazy for either one, but every time one is available for us to eat, I offer it to her. She usually turns her little head away. So we stuck to applesauce and sweet potato.
During Stage 1, always offer one new food at a time and wait about 3 days before trying another new food. This allows time for any allergies to appear. We offered her food in the evenings while we were eating dinner ourselves. Some nights she wanted to eat and others she would kindly pass.
Now that Annabelle is 7 months old, we’ve actually moved on to Stage 2 foods. I’ll discuss that tomorrow!
What was your baby’s favorite first foods?
Your little one is so adorable! π Our little girl also hated the rice cereal and oatmeal so we went straight to veggies and fruits. She loves avocado, bananas, sweet potatoes, apple, and acorn and butternut squash. Surprisingly she prefers the veggies over the fruits.
Not sure if you are still making sweet little Annabelle’s food but if you haven’t checked out wholesomebabyfood.com it is a wonderful resource for tips and recipes! I have been making majority of her Stage 2 foods using their recipes. Plus it is free! π
Thank you so much for that website. I am definitely going to check it out!
We did oatmeal first and she was so not a fan that we waited a while to try again. She now likes oatmeal OK but prefers rice cereal. She’s had carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, butternut squash, and we’re moving on to zucchini today. We’re doing a combo of homemade (when we’re at home) and store bought when we are traveling. So far her favs are the green beans!
Our dr. actually suggested we hold off on fruit b/c babies love the sweet stuff! She said we should try as many veggies first as we could before fruit. It makes sense but I want to give it to her now b/c I think she’ll love them! She’s been so-so on most foods we’ve given her so far.
I never did think that they would probably love the sweet fruits over everything! I am going to talk about the stuff she has been eating in the past week tomorrow – combinations of fruits and veggies (it’s been a success!).
Yeah! Isn’t that a smart idea? Unfortunately it’s kinda limiting but I just figure we’ll work through all the veggies first and then start on fruit. I’m excited to hear how your combos are going! I was thinking about doing mixes of the veggies she’s already had.
My boy went absolutely nuts over oatmeal as his first food. He was so eager that I actually felt a little bad that I waited exactly six months to start solids.
I know baby led weaning is a big thing these days, but Vic seriously not a fan of chunks/chunky texture. He just doesn’t know what to do with it. So we’re sticking with purees until we feels he’s ready.
I have looked into baby led weaning – and actually handed her a few pieces of food to see what she would do with it. She definitely tried to eat the banana and started gagging herself because she couldn’t quite figure out how to mash it and swallow it. She likes to suck on foods – like carrot sticks – but I am too scared to give her the whole thing herself! We are doing purees and using the mesh food ring!
We just started rice cereal last week. I can’t say it was a hit, but he didn’t hate it. He still gets most of it all over himself. I’m thinking we’ll keep up with cereal until he gets the hang of eating in general. But we didn’t notice him sleeping any more either. :-/
What kind of “mesh food feeder” are you using? I’m thinking that might be a smart option for Kamden. He wants to hold and chew on the baby spoon, but isn’t too interested when there is puree on it. Maybe if he has something to hold he might be more willing to try eating purees. Really, all he wants is Mommy’s Milk. HA!!!!!
Since we did baby led weaning from the start, he’s never even tried oatmeal! Or cereal. But he does like blueberries, strawberries, apples, Cheerios, spinach quiche, and …. a lot of stuff. His first food, actually, was a grape. I mean, the first time he swallowed real food. He’d been gnawing and gagging and sloshing stuff around for 3 months! Haha. Anyway it’s fun starting out. Have fun with it! She’s precious. π