First Foods for Weening

If you're thinking of weening a baby, here are some first food tips on how and what to prepare for them for an easy transition. Baby's very first food must be easy to digest and made with ingredients that will help baby ease into new tastes and textures. All babies are different. You may find that your baby may like very strong flavors such as carrots, peas, or broccoli. You may also find that your baby likes flavors that have more of a milky taste such as a bland potato purée or even infant rice. When giving your baby their first purée meal it should be completely smooth textured. It should remind you of a real runny apple sauce.

The first food I prepared for my son was the infant rice. Specifically Gerber Organic Brown Rice cereal. Now right away I noticed he didn't care much for it because it had such a bland taste. He likes flavors and lots of them. This is easy to prepare. You mix some expressed breast milk with the rice and it makes a smooth oatmeal. The more milk you put in, the smoother and more watery it gets. This can also be prepared with formula. I used formula until my son graduated to cows milk. (He was tongue tied and had a latching problem and I was a tired new mommy with patience that was so slim you could thread a needle with it.) So I would just prepare the formula and then mix it with the infant cereal. When baby is older and can digest cows milk, you can prepare it like regular oatmeal. It is a food that grows with your baby.

Infant Rice Cereal

The next food that my son tried was sweet potato purée. Now many moms do regular potatoes because of the milky taste that they provide their infants. Like I said though, my son wanted flavors and he wanted them, like, yesterday. When making potato purée for baby, scrub 10oz of sweet potatoes (or regular potatoes). This gives you enough to make eight servings. Pat dry and prick with a fork. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes to one hour. Scoop out the flesh and mash together with 1-2 tablespoons of formula or expressed breast milk.

*Do not use a food processor: it breaks down the starches in the potatoes and produces a very sticky and clumpy pulp-like texture. If you want your potatoes to be smoother, use more milk!*

Sweet Potatoes

Bananas are a personal favorite in my family. From banana bread to pudding, it is the family favorite fruit. My son is no exception. A fully ripe banana makes an almost instant purée. Because of the banana's naturally sticky consistency, prepared formula or expressed breast milk can be added to it to give it a smooth texture.

*Microwaving the banana for a few seconds can make it easy to mash/purée.*

Bananas

Another excellent food to purée for your growing infant are pears. Take a sweet, ripe pear and cook it in a little water until soft (fork easily pierces it). Next put it in the blender for a couple of seconds until it has the consistency you are comfortable with. Pears make for a good first fruit purée for your baby as it is very sweet.

*Once baby is five months old, there is no need to cook pears before puréeing as long as you make sure the fruit is perfectly ripe!*

Pears

If you get the sweet kind, apples make a great and smooth applesauce. Cook two medium-sized apples until tender (two apples make about six servings depending on how much baby eats). After they are tender you can put them in the blender and add some of the water you just cooked them in to make for a smoother, more liquid product. When your baby has become accustomed to the apple flavor, you can add more fruits to them to introduce a variety of flavors. Some fruits my son likes with apples are pears, pineapple, bananas, and strawberries.

*All fruits except for bananas, papayas, and avocados need to be cooked before puréeing. Once baby is five months old, however, you can purée fruits such as peaches, mangoes, plums, and melons without cooking, provided they are ripe and juicy!*

Apple

Broccoli is a good purée vegetable when introducing baby to new and strong flavors. It is full of essential vitamins that baby needs. However, some babies (and even adults) hate the taste of broccoli. This makes blending the broccoli with a more bland tasting vegetable, such as potatoes, a good idea. Take about a 1/2 pound of broccoli and steam it, whether in the microwave or on the stove. Cook until tender (about ten minutes). If prepared on the stove, drain the water and blend to a purée. Prepare your potatoes as explained earlier and mix together. If the potatoes make it a little too clumpy for your liking, then mix with some prepared formula or expressed breast milk.

*Broccoli can be replaced with cauliflower in this recipe. However, adding potatoes or even infant rice cereal is a good idea as cauliflower has a strong taste also!*

Broccoli

Last but not least in my son's book, carrots! Carrots blend beautifully and have a natural sweet taste that tends to appeal to babies. Carrots should always be steamed or boiled before blending to soften them up. After steaming/boiling the carrots make sure to add in some of the water they were steamed/boiled in or even some prepared formula or expressed breast milk in the blender with them. This will give them a smooth, more watery texture that can be easier for baby to swallow.

Carrots

These were some of the fruits and vegetables I tried with my son. They all went over very well with him. All of these fruits and vegetables are regularly in my house and are inexpensive. There are lots and lots of fruits and vegetables that you can try for your baby from butternut squash to galia melon. The options are virtually endless. These are just some that were in my house and made the perfect starter food for my little guy. If you do use different fruits and vegetable be sure to steam and boil to soften when it is appropriate. The last thing we want is for baby to choke or be turned off to a food because of the texture.

Happy Momming!