tip: give baby a spoon.

Sometimes when you're first starting to experiment with solids it's hard to get food into baby's mouth. They want to play with the spoon, they want to play with your hands, they want to make spitting noises. This play is all good for baby's development.

Sometimes, however, you need to get that food in there. We personally want our own babes to both get at least a taste of each food we've prepared at every solid food meal because sometimes it can take ten or twelve tries before baby decides they like or dislike a certain food. If they don't want to eat it after that first taste we don't push it; it's never a good idea to force food on a baby. If baby knows that you're coming at them with a certain offender, though, sometimes you need a trick to get that first bite in there.

An easy fix: give baby a spoon of their own to play with. They have fun, they go to put it in their mouth and you slip in a bite of food along with it. It's minimally invasive and baby will tell you right away if they respond well to it or not. An added plus is the hand-eye coordination it works on, and pretty soon they'll start trying to feed themselves. And it's darn cute to boot!

(This is one of those things, like being in a high chair, that should always be supervised. It's amazing how far a baby can jam one of those tiny spoons in their mouth when you're not looking. We don't want any choking!)

Happy Spooning!

first foods.

There are quite a few fairly easy first foods that babies tend to love and that only take seconds to prepare.

Baby Rice

If you really like the idea of giving baby rice cereal for their first food, making your own is not hard. Boil 1 cup water. Add 1/3 cup rice and bring it back to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes, until all the water has been absorbed and the rice is very tender. Blend or mash up with a fork, adding breast milk or formula as needed to make a nice, creamy mush.

This should make about 8-10 servings. Freeze in tablespoon-sized chunks (ice trays are great for this) or keep it in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 48 hours, provided no saliva touches it. (When you go to serve more, use a clean spoon. Anything saliva touches should be used up or discarded.)

Banana

Banana is a pretty fail-safe first food. It doesn't need to be cooked and babies tend to love its sweet taste.

Choose a ripe banana, peel it, mash it up with a fork and add breast milk or formula to obtain the desired consistency. Store as directed above.

Avocado

Avocado is a favorite for babies and parents alike! This is one you want to prepare just before serving to avoid discoloration. I've found one average-sized avocado is good for about four to six portions.

Cut off 1/3 of the avocado, peel it, mash it up with a fork and add breast milk or formula to obtain the desired consistency. Keep the rest of the avocado with the pit not yet removed in a plastic bag in the fridge. Keeping the pit in tact keeps the avocado from turning brown. It's possible to store a portion for same-day use, but after about 12 hours it becomes discolored and might not appeal to baby.

introducing solids.

Making your own baby food is incredibly easy. When I used to hear people talk about making their own a decade ago, I used to roll my naive lil' not-a-mama eyes and mutter, "Granola!!!" Baby food from a jar is not the devil. These days it is completely possible to find baby food made with simple, organic ingredients and no or very little preservatives and it's true that you can't get much quicker than opening a jar.

However, homemade baby food takes only a few seconds more to prepare, you know exactly what's in it and where it came from, you can control yourself how it was prepared - meaning you can choose cooking methods that retain more nutrients, you know the food is incredibly fresh and you can control the texture to suit your baby. In the beginning you might be making special little meals for baby, but this is equally fun for you and for them! They are discovering foods for the first time and that exploration is awesome and hilarious!

Later on when their palate is more developed, all you have to do is reserve a little of whatever you're cooking for the rest of the family and mash it up. In that case it might be easier than opening a whole bunch of little jars.

You don't need fancy baby food makers or special food processors. Most of your preparation can be done with a fork. Contrary to popular belief, babies don't need their food to be the purest puree ever. There shouldn't be any lumps big enough that baby can choke, but texture is good. It teaches baby not to become one of those annoying kids who will refuse to eat a yogurt with the tiniest chunk of fruit in it. Steamed, simmered or baked foods require such little attention you will hardly notice the extra effort.

Baby's first food doesn't need to be rice cereal, either. This has become the custom for a few reasons. Firstly, it's very bland and nondescript taste-wise. It's easy to introduce something that doesn't have much of a taste; nothing to complain about or refuse. Secondly, all rice cereal in the States is required to have iron added.

When your baby was in your belly they got all of the iron they needed directly from you through the umbilical cord. Baby was born with huge stores of iron to keep them functioning, but was not making iron on their own yet. Around six months is when baby starts producing iron by themselves, but it is also the the time where they have the lowest level of iron they will probably have in their entire life as the iron store gift from you has almost been used up. Adding iron to rice cereal was a convenient way to make sure baby got a kick start. It was promoted as the perfect first food to ensure baby didn't become too anemic.

As long as you start introducing solid foods around six months and as long as you are getting enough iron in your diet, baby will get all the iron they need from solids and your breastmilk or formula until they start producing it on their own.

Pretty much anything can be a first food for baby, though whole dairy products, foods with gluten (like wheat and barley), berries, citrus fruit and nuts are typically avoided for about the first year to reduce the likelihood of developing allergies. This is because your baby's digestive system isn't fully developed yet. Your intestines are like a giant sieve, and when you are a baby those tiny holes are much bigger, allowing larger pieces through. If certain foods pass through the bigger holes less digested, they can cause the body to react to them later on, causing a food allergy for life. Berries and citrus fruits are avoided because the acidity can upset baby's stomach.

The only things to completely avoid are salt and honey. Absolutely no salt should be added to any of baby's foods. Their kidneys are not developed enough to handle salt, and giving them even a little can cause permanent damage. Honey should be avoided because of the risk of botulism, although if boiled for five minutes it should be sterile enough for consumption (though in my personal opinion no baby under two needs any added sugar).

It is a myth that introducing vegetables before fruits will ensure they like them before getting trapped in a diet of all sweet. Babies like the taste of vegetables; when they are tiny they do have an affinity for sweet foods because breastmilk is sweet, but this does not mean they will never eat veggies, I promise! As their palate grows they will learn to love a variety of flavors. If baby refuses something one day they might love it the next, and vice versa. Keep offering! You might be surprised!

Last but certainly not least, make sure you introduce new foods one at a time, introducing only one new food every three or so days to make sure they don't have any reactions to it. If they do, such as diarrhea, rashes, vomiting, bloating or gas, remove the suspect food from their diet. In a few weeks, introduce it again and see if they react again. Be sure to let your pediatrician know.

It's very helpful to keep a little journal to jot down when you introduced the foods, how you prepared it, any reaction they might have had, and whether they loved or hated it. You only get to introduce a new food to baby once - have fun with it! It is an amazing learning process for everyone!

tip: easy solid food clean-up.

We just recently started introducing solids for our babes and it's quite a learning experience for all of us. The babes have learned how tasty white rice and bananas and avocado can be while Papa and I have learned that one meager tablespoon of mush can somehow cover the entire living room by the end of a feeding!

We haven't quite figured out how to avoid rice dreadlocks or banana earwax, but we did come up with a way to avoid dealing with stains and to make clean-up a breeze.

It's quite simple, really.

Eat naked!

Owen getting ready for avocado time!

Well, okay, eat with just a diaper and a bib. This may sound intuitive and way too easy of an idea and maybe some of you already use this method, but after our first time just unvelcroing the bib and dunking them in the bath instead of trying to take off a completely saturated onesie without recoloring the whole bedroom avocado green I couldn't help thinking, "You are a genius!!!"

When they are a little older and able to really sit up on their own and as the weather gets warmer and warmer, we might even take eating solids outside once a day to get some vitamin D along with their yummy mush (and to make clean-up just that much easier)!

Bon appetit!