Baby Food Ideas - 4-18 months
By WryLilt
Having a baby involves making a lot of changes in your life - and food is one area that requires a lot of experimentation at first.
When you first experiment with baby food, you'll find your baby isn't very interested in the whole concept - in fact baby is too busy staring in awe at the food or trying to grab it with their hands to pay much attention. And often baby is so surprised at the taste that is so different to the milk they're used to, that they just flat out refuse to eat it. If you need advice on helping your baby eat solids, check out this guide.
It can be difficult deciding what to feed your baby. As they grow their diet changes - from simple purees all the way up to solid foods. They learn to enjoy different tastes. Keep reading to find out more about foods for your baby as well as tips for easy home cooking for baby and storage of baby food.
Home Made or Shop Bought Food
Of course, when you are pregnant you make yourself all the promises that you'll cook everything for your baby from scratch, use cloth nappies and never let them in your bed at night. But chances are, after a few months with a baby, a lot of your resolutions will fall by the wayside.
Completely Home Made - If you have the time and the energy, this is a great way to go. You know exactly what goes into the food and can make exactly what you need. However if you can't do this, don't stress.
Home Made & Store Bought - A great midway option to make sure your baby gets variety as well as freshly home made food. I personally chose this option as it allows leeway based on your schedule.
Store Bought - If you don't have the time or inclination, this is fine too. If you're worried about ingredients, there are plenty of speciality brands that have carefully chosen pure organic ingredients.
Food Ideas ~ 4-6 Months
Some medical professionals recommend babies begin their introduction to solid foods at 4 months while others recommend that parents hold off until baby is 6 months of age. In my opinion it really depends on the baby. Some babies just need a more filling diet while others are fine with just milk up to six months and in some cases even beyond.
At this age, everything needs to be pureed or finely mashed. This is because babies are used to a liquid diet at this stage and are unaware of how to chew. It's rare for a baby in this age range to have teeth, also.
Purées:
- Green Beans
- Pumpkin
- Banana
- Cooked apple
- Cooked pear
Cereal:
- Baby rice cereal (such as farax)
Food Ideas ~ 6-10 months
By six months nearly all babies should be on solid food. The most important reason for solid food is so baby gets their daily iron requirements which can no longer be met at the breast or bottle. Baby is ready to start experimenting with chewing, but not quite ready to grind large pieces.
For this stage it's best to stick to large chewy foods that baby can chew on but not bite off, as well as continue with purées. You can start introducing some finely mashed food into baby's diet as well.
Purées (as listed above.)
Mashed foods:
- Banana
- Avocado
Chewy foods:
- Celery Sticks
- Zwieback Toast
- Hard Rusks
Other food ideas:
- Custard (test only small amounts of dairy on baby at first.)
- Egg yolk (The white is allergenic and shouldn't be fed to baby till 12 months of age.)
Food ideas ~ 10 months +
From ten months your baby will be getting closer and closer to eating adult foods. By this stage you can give some regular family recipes either a very quick wizz in the blender or simply a quick cut with a blunt knife to break the food into smaller, chewable pieces. Some great ideas for this age range include:
- Tuna Bake
- Pasta
- Sandwiches, cut into bite sized triangles
- Sliced fruit, cut to easy to hold slices
Food Storage Ideas
Making a large batch of baby food and freezing it in small blocks is a great way to keep baby food ready at hand without having to cook for each meal.
I'd personally recommend Qubies, a simple tray that allows you to insert the divider into the tray after the food is in it, conveniently freezing food in 30ml blocks (also suitable for breastmilk.)
Some great foods to cook and freeze include:
- Pumpkin
- Potato
- Apple
- Pear
Attributions
Stewed apples by jules:stonesoup
Avocado by BluEyedA73
Zwieback by heffer
Qubies photo thanks to Qubies Website
Comments
Great ideas! My baby loves pumpkin mixed with a little oatmeal. We're not quite there yet with avocado, lol...
So helpful!
Yes Caroline, an 18 month old can have raisins. My daughter had them as young as 12 months. The only thing I would caution you about is maybe chopping them up first. When swallowed whole they swell up in the digestive system and can cause a bit of pain coming out the other end.
can 18 month olds have raisins
Great and wonderful information for parents and aspiring parents who really want to have healthy and attractive kids.I really enjoyed going through this article.
Hi Wrylilt - I agree, this is a useful hub. My 8 month old has 5 teeth now and she loves her solid food! I find that she prefers food with a little substance now, as opposed to the rice cereal that she started with. We have a couple of Nuby Nibblers for her and they are fantastic little things - a rubber handle with a tiny cloth netting "nest" attached that we can fill with apple slices, cantaloupe, or peach slices. She can eat without choking.....
This is a very useful hub for all the mothers who have babies. Thanks for the baby food ideas and tips.
This is a nice little baby food guide, WryLilt. Also some nice, extra tips in the comments. I think a lot of new mothers will find this hub very useful.
Useful tips! Thank you :)
BLWF - You'll find that from six months if baby's aren't eating at least something, they often have more trouble sleeping at night since milk just isn't enough for them.
Also, it's important that baby gets enough iron - which is easiest obtained in baby cereals which can be mixed with purees for easy consumption.
As recommended in my guide, it's a good idea to start baby on chewy foods from six months but since they cannot bite off and swallow chewy foods till generally 8-10 months, it's a good idea to give them some food they don't have to work too hard for.
Of course, if your baby loves chewing and hates purees, move onto the chewy foods but remember that a baby who doesn't chew properly can choke on large pieces.
I'm sure some babies are fine eating chewy and chunky foods from a young age but you'll find the majority are better with at least mashed food.
have you read this new book, Baby-Led Weaning? I am reading it now, it is fantastic, it blows a lot of the "traditional myths" out of the water. There does not really need for there to be a pureed, spoon-fed stage at all! Wheeeeee!
This is great information for parents whose babies are making their transitions from milk to solid foods.
We always took our cues from the baby. At 4-6 months we offered cereals and pureed foods, and if she wanted them, she had them. If not, we stepped back.
When she was old enough to sit in a highchair and watch the goings-on at the table and also expressed an interest in what everybody else was eating, we let her try our table food which we had pureed or blended, along with the finger foods that are appropriate at that age.
We didn't have the Qubies; we made do with old-fashioned freezer ice cube trays. I can still remember the baggies of frozen cubes of homemade applesauce, pureed peaches and nectarines, and even moussaka, ready for warming and eating.
Jarred baby foods are absolutely necessary for some families, and we used those, too, but there's nothing like doing it yourself. After all, home-prepped foods are the foods we older folks eat at the table; baby likes to try them too.
Enjoyed reading your great ideas for feeding baby and they will come in handy when my wife and I have our first child. I don't why but these days I seem to be thinking about birth and life - maybe it's all the hubs I'm writing about (life and love and time)! Just yesterday I wrote a poem about new entries coming into the world. Must be something to do with all this hubbing! Anyway thanks for enduring my ramblings - and very useful hub too!
Oh WOW these are great and useful baby food ideas and tips. I especially like how healthy and fresh these baby food ideas are. Good for baby!
Sarah 13 days ago
I have done baby led weaning from 6 months and thought it was the best thing!! I was dreading weaning with all the purees etc until I discovered this. It is a little slower than the 'traditional' method but my little girl is now nine months an will pretty much tackle any food that I put in front of her no matter how big (or small). The risk of chOking is no more than another baby being fed purée food, in fact my little girl can deal with food much better than babies who are much older than her because we have taught her independence and how to trust the signals that her body sends her.
It is the most natural way of weaning.......what would humans have done before food processors and supermarkets??!