Arlo Eats

Now that Arlo is well into eating solid foods, I thought I would share a little more detail about what he eats and how I prepare his meals.  I always knew I would be making his baby food at home, but had no idea how fun it would be to come up with new recipes and allow him to try new things.  It's no secret that food and nutrition are very important to me, so it shouldn't surprise you that I am pretty excited to be introducing our little guy to the wonderful world of fruits, veggies, grains, and beans.  I have loosely been following the advice of the "baby food bible" Super Baby Food, and have taken the bits and pieces I feel are appropriate for us and also added in a few of my own ideas.  The most helpful information I took from the book is the schedule of which foods are appropriate for baby at their current age.  Since I am no expert on the development of an infant's gastrointestinal tract, and I didn't want to upset his little tummy or increase his risk of a food reaction, I tried to not to introduce foods until the book said it was okay to do so.  So far he has not had any signs of allergy or sensitivity to anything he has tried, and fortunately eats pretty much everything I offer him.  Let's hope that this adventurous sense of eating continues into toddlerhood.  Toddlers like kale and quinoa, right?  ;)

Making the meals:

Each week I choose a new food or two to buy at the store, and if it requires cooking and freezing I try and do so as soon as I can to preserve the nutrients.  99% of what Arlo has eaten has been organic, and while I will surely relax this rule as time goes on, I feel at his young age it is absolutely essential for him to avoid unnecessary pesticides whenever possible.  In terms of how I make his meals each day, the food prep depends on what it is, and if he can eat it raw or if it needs to be cooked.  Breakfast typically consists of a mashed raw fruit mixed with oatmeal cereal, and lunch and dinners are usually cooked veggies mixed with rice cereal or other grains.

Example breakfasts:

• fork mashed bananas + oatmeal
• peaches + oatmeal
• pears + applesauce + oatmeal
• pureed blueberries + fork mashed bananas + oatmeal
• banana pieces (finger foods)
• kiwi pieces (too slippery for him to pick up, I feed him with a spoon)

 

Example lunch and dinners:

• sweet potato + rice
• peas + quinoa
• squash + tahini+ rice
• carrots + spinach + rice or quinoa
• green beans + carrots + rice
• kale + apples + mixed grain cereal (oats, barley, and spelt) 

Raw foods:  This process is super simple and just requires having the right foods on hand!  This is how I typically make his breakfast, and involves either taking the fruit and fork mashing or blending lightly in the baby bullet, and then mixing in some store-bought or made at home baby cereal (we are doing mostly store-bought at this time because it is super convenient and fortified with DHA, choline, and probiotics.)  I mix in a little bit of hot water from the electric kettle to warm the meal a bit, and then stir it all together, adding more cereal or water until the right consistency is reached.  Arlo is doing well with thick foods that have small chunks now, but back when he started solids preferred a much smoother consistency.  Examples of some raw foods that Arlo is eating include: banana, pears, peaches, blueberries, spinach (although that requires blending), and avocado.

Cooked foods:  This method takes a bit longer to prepare initially but can be done in large batches, saving you time when making future meals.  As I mentioned before, I usually pick a new food or two each week and prep it that day if possible to preserve nutrients.  I will either bake, boil, or steam the veggie, and then process it in the vitamix.  I then freeze it in a 2 ounce cube that can easily be mixed with 2 ounces of cereal (or beans or cooked grains) or 2 ounces of another veggie for a complete 4 ounce meal.  The baby bullet I bought (new for $15 at a yard sale - score!) also came with three silicone freezer trays so I can make 18 cubes at a time.  Once the cubes are frozen I put them in a labeled freezer ziploc bag and store in my dedicated baby food freezer drawer.  I always save 2-3 meals worth of the veggie I just cooked and store it in glass jars in the fridge so Arlo can have several days in a row of the new food to monitor for a reaction.  

When I am planning his meals for the next day, I will take out 2 or so frozen cubes of baby food and let them defrost overnight in glass jars, and by the time he is ready to eat they will be thawed and ready for cereal to be mixed in.  As it turns out, the cute tapered jars that Beech Nut baby foods come in fit the frozen cubes like they were meant for each other, and those small jars fit into our bottle warmer perfectly, allowing us to avoid the microwave or inconvenience of heating each meal in a pan on the stove.  So while the process might sound complicated, the time I spend to prepare each of his meals is perhaps 1-2 minutes at most.  I have several empty de-labeled jars (that I ate the contents of because Beech Nut doesn't make organics, whomp whomp) so I can store, heat, and serve his meals in glass.

1.)  fork mashed bananas + blended blueberries, ready for some oatmeal to be mixed in  2.) breakfast ready to eat  3.)  happy baby with full tummy  4.)  all gone!

A fun thing I have been doing lately is making two or three foods at one time, and freezing them layered together in the silicone molds.  This allows Arlo to have several foods at once, without having to preplan to defrost several foods at the same time, and try to figure out what things I have on hand that might mix well together.  

green beans + carrots on the left and butternut squash on the right.  once defrosted just mix in some cereal/grains, heat, and serve!

Finger Foods:

 

this kid loves his puffs!

While we are still doing mostly mashed/blended foods for Arlo, he is also starting to get into finger foods as well.  He has been enjoying teething biscuits and puffs for a while now, but recently we also started to give him his first tastes of table food.  When we went out for my birthday two weeks ago, we tried an Ethiopian restaurant for the first time, and have Arlo a few pieces of the bread that comes with the meals, called Injera, and he absolutely loved it.  He also had a few bites of the non-spicy lentil dish and chickpea salad and liked those as well, although I did spoon feed him that as they are not really "finger foods."  This past week at dinner I let him feed himself some roasted sweet potato pieces I made, as well as some plain pasta noodles.  He did really well until he either got full or bored, as he decided to turn the potatoes into finger paints and smear them around his high chair tray.  It is pretty fun to sit down together at the table and eat the same foods, watching Arlo feed (and happily entertain) himself during dinner!

The plan (if there can be one with anything baby related) is to continue to introduce appropriate finger foods, but also keep on feeding him blended (and eventually more whole form) baby foods for as long as he will let me.  Many of the things he takes in "baby food" form wouldn't be easy (or safe) for him to feed himself right now, such as blueberries, kale, quinoa, and other small grains.  So I obviously want him to continue to eat those for nutritional reasons, but also so he develops a taste for these foods while he is young and will hopefully want to eat them as he grows up.

Going out to eat:

As mentioned before, I love making Arlo's meals at home, and this is what he is eating the vast majority of the time.  But when meeting friends at the local co-op, traveling, or just going out to dinner, the convenience of those store bought baby food pouches can't be beat.  Plus, they come in such amazing combinations of fruits, grains, and veggies that I have a hard time not eating them myself!  My biggest complaint about these pouches is the packaging.  Not only does it seem wasteful, but it's made of plastic, one of my least favorite materials.  So we try and limit the pouches to when we are out and about, and stick with the homemade stuff when at home.

"Sprout" brand - made just for Arlo aka Sprout?  ;)

Up until recently we have been feeding him by either squeezing the pouches onto a spoon bite by bite or using one of those screw-on style baby spoons that attach directly to the pouch.  However we recently decided to try and squirt it directly into Arlo's mouth right from the pouch.  Once he got a little taste of the food he closed his lips around the spout and sucked it down like it was a bottle!  We actually had to slow him down at one point because he had taken in around 1/3 of the pouch without even stopping.  He even held it himself for a bit and ate, although since we were out at a restaurant and didn't want baby food to squirt everywhere we helped him with most of it.

And an update on the sippy cup:

I started to let Arlo play with the sippy cup many months ago, probably when he was around 4 or 5 months old.  I thought that would help him learn to use one early, but in fact I think I might have taught him that it is not, in fact, a vessel from which to drink fluids, but a fun toy that makes lots of noise when you bang it against the high chair tray.  Oops.  We introduced a straw cup a few weeks ago and while he will sometimes drink from it without issue, he usually spits most of the water out and thinks its a fun game.  He is getting enough fluids between his bottles and solids though, so I am not too worried that he isn't a big fan of water yet.  I have no plans for diluted juice anytime soon, and I plan to hold off on any milks until he is around a year.  I am still researching our best options, but right now I am leaning towards giving him a combination of oat, almond, hemp, and rice milks.  We will choose options fortified with calcium so he will be getting at least as much as he would if we had him on a dairy-based milk.

Right now I think we are off to a great nutritional start and hope that our little man continues to be a good eater.  I am really excited about introducing him to more of the foods that we like to eat, and watching him grow into a more independent eater.  His favorite things right now are sweet potatoes, bananas (and all other sweet fruits), and surprisingly - kale!  

Leaving you with one last picture, quite possibly my favorite one to date of him eating.  This is what it looks like when your baby can't decide between taking a nap and eating a teething biscuit....