How to save hundreds on baby food and make a month’s worth of food in under an hour

 

Before you get started making homemade baby food

Before I started making my son homemade baby food I was pretty intimidated. I didn’t know where to start, what combinations of foods he would like, what sort of foods wouldn’t agree with him (he has a pretty sensitive stomach), how much time and money would it take and so on. Seriously I had so many questions. Once I got started I found out it really wasn’t hard, didn’t take very long at all and it saved us so much money!

So before we started making our own baby food we were feeding our son BeechNut organic baby food which we love. And, if I’m being honest, we still give him this sometimes, especially when we are traveling or when we want to introduce a brand new food to him. But, it gets so expensive which was just not sustainable for our family. I kept asking myself how can I make homemade baby food, save money, and make it quickly. It was overwhelming but so worth it in the end.

When you start transitioning your baby from all breastmilk/formula to some “solid” foods by adding in fruits and vegetables there are a couple of rules that you should follow. These helped us make an easy transition with the least about of tummy aches as possible.

Rule number 1:

Start with one food at a time. Until you know what foods don’t upset your baby’s stomach/aren’t allergic to, keep the baby food to a single ingredient. Eventually, you can start feeding your baby mixed purees like apples & pumpkin but to start stick with just apples or pumpkin until your baby has tried a lot of different foods.

Rule number 2:

The 3-day rule. Give your baby 3 days after introducing a new food before introducing another. This way if your baby does get an upset stomach or have an allergic reaction you know exactly which food caused it and which food to avoid.

Rule number 3:

Until your baby turns one food is for fun. When your baby is first starting to try different foods it is just for fun, to experiment with different tastes and textures. Most of your baby’s nutrients should still be coming from breastmilk/formula.

Get started making your own baby food

To get started making your own baby food you should decide what you think is best for your baby. Organic? Fresh vs. frozen?  Each family has their own circumstances to consider when they decide what is best for their child and family. Not every family has the same budget. Some people may live in a food desert. Maybe you only want organic. After talking with my son’s pediatrician and discussing what was best for our son my husband and I decided we wanted to use organic fruits and vegetables put we would use frozen vs fresh based on price. So more often than not we ended up buying frozen in bulk from Costco.

Before you get started you need a few supplies.

First: A food processor

There are lots of food processors on the market geared towards making baby food. But, I found them to be too small to make bulk amounts of baby food. I would make weeks of baby food in one sitting and freeze them so I needed a larger food processor. But, when we first starting making my son’s food the baby food processor we had was awesome because it steamed the vegetables and blended them in the same bowl. It is also small enough where we could bring it with us on vacation if we wanted to (check out my post on how we survived a 20-hour car ride with our teething 6-month old). Also, if you plan to prepare your baby’s food while you prepare your own at each meal the smaller processor would be perfect. But, once my son started needed large amounts of pureed foods we switched to my Kitchen Aid food processor and love it! It holds large amounts of food so I can make lots of jars of baby food at once.

 

 

Second: Storage

You can use any sort of storage that you want that can be frozen. I use 4oz glass jars with screw-top lids. My son would never eat 4 oz of food in one sitting when we first started but we would use the 4oz throughout the entire day. Eventually, we upgraded to 8oz bottles but to start we used about 30 4oz jars. (This would make an entire month of baby food in less than an hour).

Third: Labeling materials

You’ll need a pen and labels. I just used scotch tape and folded over on edge for easy removal. They do sell labels specific for labeling food but I found scotch tape to work just as well and was much cheaper.

Fourth: Space in your freezer

Now, this probably seems like duh! Of course, I will need to freeze these jars but I completely underestimated just how much space I needed.  Cleaning out your freezer at 11:00 pm is not so much fun.

What foods to start with

I wasn’t sure what foods to start with so I did a lot of searching for suggestions on Pinterest and other mom’s blogs/pages. Here is the order of foods we tried for his first three months. (We started pretty slow because my son’s stomach is very sensitive so we would only add a new food every 7 days for the first two months then every 5ish days for the third month.)

Month 1

1. Bartlett Pears
2. Bananas
3. Peas

Month 2 (month 1 foods + the following)

1. Apples
2. Avocado
3. Sweet potatoes
4. Carrots

Month 3 (month 1 & 2 foods + the following)

1. Peaches
2. Blueberries
3. Butternut Squash
4. Green beans

My son’s favorite food by far, in the beginning, was sweet potatoes he couldn’t get enough of them. But, carrots, on the other hand, you would literally have thought I gave him rotten garbage to eat with how dramatically he gagged. It took him a couple of tries over a couple weeks but he loves them now!

How I prepared each fruit or vegetable for pureeing

This step definitely takes the longest. Usually to steam/boil/bake the fruit takes about 30 mins to a month’s worth done (Usually I would try to do multiple at the same time. So have a couple pots boiling while the others baked.  That saved me a lot of time. Wash everything thoroughly using a fruit/veggie wash.

Pears: I started with fresh pears and would peel them and bake them before pureeing them to make sure they were cooked enough to not upset his stomach. I would cook them on 350* until they were completely soft and puree.

Bananas I started with fresh organic bananas and I would just puree straight out of the peel.

Peas: I bought frozen organic peas and would boil them until they were completely soft then puree.

Apples: Organic fresh apples peel and core them then bake them until they were softened.

Avocado: Fresh organic avocados. Remove skins and pit and puree.

Sweet potatoes: Poke holes in the potato using a fork and bake at 425* for 40-50 minutes or microwave (wrapped in a paper towel) on high for 5 minutes. Peel and puree.

Carrots: Organic fresh carrots boil until soft (Or steam if you have a steamer) and puree

Peaches: Organic frozen peaches, boil until soft and puree.

Blueberries: Organic frozen boil until soft and puree.

Butternut squash: Organic frozen pre-peeled and chopped up, steam in bag and puree.

How much it costs us

Making our own baby food saved us sooo… soooo… sooo… ok you get the picture, much money! 5 lbs of frozen organic butternut squash is $10.39 at Costco vs 20 jars of organic baby food is over $26.00. We saved hundreds of dollars by making our own baby food. In the end usually, it cost about $35-50 for the month depending on our ratio of frozen vs fresh. Baby food was costing us closer to $100.00 a month.

On top of saving money, it saved me a lot of anxiety because I knew exactly what my baby was eating. There wasn’t anything processed or additives it was just fruits and veggies. No chemicals or extra ingredients or anything. I also didn’t have to worry about contamination. I have hears many horror stories about someone opening a baby food pouch and not realizing it was rotten or moldy or just disgusting until their baby had already tried some!

It took me less than an hour from prep to clean up to make a month’s worth of baby food! It is definitely easy and worth it.