Baby

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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Making Toddler Food

Once Cailin turned one, and also decided she was too much of a big girl to be spoon fed, I had a hard time figuring out what to feed this kid. Also because we weren't doing formula anymore, and aparently giving whole milk as much as she was taking formula is not ideal.

Now I think I got this feeding a toddler thing down. First of all, she is a FANTASTIC eater. I am so lucky. She eats pretty much whatever we're eating. She is just now starting to show a distaste in some things, and I definitely know what her favorites are. Her favorite foods are: avacado, mac n' cheese, cucumber, and sweet potatoes. She's not a huge fan of meat. She loves her vegis. If I only put meat on her plate, she'll eat it. But if I put meat, and vegis on her plate, she'll eat all the vegis and spit the meat out. Or feed it to the dogs.

Speaking of the bottle, we finally got her off of that. Well, sort of. We're using the Nuk Active Cup, So technically it's not a bottle, but it's sort of still shaped like one. The other tranistion cups with the nipple like spout she doesn't like. I think this is better because the nipple is smaller. She's also down to just 2-3 cups of milk a day. Morning, sometimes mid day, and before bed. I'm not exactly sure if she's taking her "bottle" during the day at my SIL's anymore, but I know on the weekends she's not really wanting it.


Anyway, I miss some of the convenience of making a load of baby food and freezing it. I mean, cutting up some fresh fruits and vegis isn't hard, but what about the cooked ones? So I took some ideas from Gerber.

You know those Gerber Pick Ups? Great idea. But what's not so great is food that sits on a shelf, AKA preservitives. I'm not a big fan of feeding her those things. Not that she doesn't eat anything with preservatives. She gets Cheerios, and Goldfish, and Puffs for snacks, but when it comes to fruits and vegis and such, I don't really trust carrots or yogurt that can sit on a shelf unrefridgerated. So, I made them myself. I cut up some carrots, sweet potato and/or squash into bite sized peices, steamed them and froze them. I put the chopped, cooked vegis in an ice cube tray just like before, froze. Then once frozen I put them in a bag. They stay stuck together in the cube.  Just like making baby food. Except I skipped the pureeing part. I also made a bunch of little baby sized whole grain pancakes and froze those too. Like homemade Eggos! I also added what I had left of my purees to those. So we had sweet potato and beet pancakes, yum! And one other time I added banana. Mmmm banana pancakes.  Aren't I smart?! ;p



Um... I swear I know how to spell pancakes. Derrrr.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

M is the same way about meat, I like it :) Other good toddler ideas are:

beans, cottge chz (m loves cottage cheese!) salads (cobb, spinich, etc.) shaped sammies (use cookie cutters), steamed veggies with whole grain shaped pasta, mini vegan corn dogs, mickey mouse chic nuggets (costco), french toast sticks and antyhing else dippable!