Ever since Ian started eating baby food, I’ve learned some things that are handy to know.

  • Don’t buy 1st foods – I know the doctor says to start off with the first foods (i.e. squash, carrots, applesauce, etc), but the only difference between the 1st foods and the 2nd foods is the consistency and you’re suppose to thicken it up with cereal anyway. Why waste the money on the smaller containers when you’re just turning it into the next stage?
  • Rice cereal can be troublesome – It’s the first type of cereal we’re suppose to start out on, but next time, as soon as I can migrate to oatmeal cereal, I’m going to. Rice had a tendency to bind Ian up so much, that it affected his sleep. At 4 months old, I wanted to get more sleep at night, not less. He was sleeping so well until we tried the rice cereal.
  • Gerber Graduates – The fruit and veggie puffs are awesome; the dried fruit is better than what you can find in the produce section; and they have these little meals that Ian can pick up with his fingers. Everything fits perfectly into his little hands and he can feed himself. He’s extremely messy when he tries to feed himself, but he can do it. These are perfect to teach and learn on, but I wouldn’t depend on them for everyday meals and snacks. For one, once Ian started eating more and more, they get to the point where you need more to keep him happy and that is just too expensive. By the time Ian mastered the fruit puffs, he was already eating animal crackers and pretzels.
  • Just in case 3rd foods – The stage 3 foods from Gerber are nice to have on hand. Once Ian started wanting table food, I stopped using them as meals for him. However, there have been times they’ve come in handy. For instance, when I make something he can’t have or I’ll stash a couple jars in his diaper bag in case we’re out and about and he’s hungry for more than dried fruit. They are good for snacks during the day and when you’re traveling and you can’t share your meal. Plus, they only have six different types, so he gets bored with them fast.
  • Juice – Start juice when you start the baby food. I didn’t start giving Ian juice until he was six months old and he wouldn’t take it at all. At the time, he was still getting breastmilk, so I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but he would not take the juice. I’ve also found that he’ll take the mix fruit juice better than apple juice or any other single type juices. Once I started mixing up the foods and giving him meals (aka chicken noodle or beef vegetable), he started taking juice a lot more.
  • Water / Hot & Cold – It took us awhile to get Ian to drink water. Mainly because it always ended up being warm. He does not like anything cold. He’s getting better at it now, but that first bite still gets an ugly face. It wasn’t until we could get him to take cold water that he started taking other things that are cold. I’m not talking about going cold turkey and going from hot to cold within moments, but definitely start cooling down water until the baby could handle it.

I feel like there is more than I haven’t mentioned yet, so I’m going to continually update this. I can’t think of anything else right this minute, but I know something will come to me.