Baby's First Solids and My Foray into Homemade Baby Food

At Parker's four month appointment, our pediatrician gave us the green light to start Parker on solids beginning at five and a half months. The official stance of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to start solids at six months, so we really weren't in a hurry. We thought we'd wait until Parker's six month birthday. Starting at around five months, however, Parker became really interested in our food. Really interested. And daddy started sneaking little man food to "taste" (like a green bean to suck on). By five and a half months we decided little man was ready. When we finally decided that we were going to officially start, we were so excited about his first feeding. Like, giddy excited. There was just something about introducing our child to something new that was so special and amazing. 

We decided to start little man on purées, which meant it was time for mamma to cook! (Kind of - we chose avocado for his first food so there was no actual cooking but I did get to blend the avocado with a little bit of water until it was nice and whipped, kind of like whipped avocado air!)

We set up our tri-pod to record the event. Yes, we are those parents ; ) We started by showing Parker how we eat off a spoon, and then Max held the spoon in front of Parker. Little man took a taste, made a face, then totally wanted more. He gobbled up a ton of avocado for it being his first feeding. This confirmed in our heads that he really was ready for the transition. 

Number one eater! 

Parker even started grabbing for the spoon to feed himself! Feeding him for the first time will rank up there as one of the most amazing things Max and I have been able to do. It was all we could chat about the rest of the night! 

Parker let us know he was done by blowing with his cheeks puffed out, and by this point there was avocado everywhere, so into the bath went precious P. 

After avocado, we tried sweet potato! 

 Little man couldn't get enough. It's hands down his favorite. 

Since then we've also done zucchini, baby oatmeal and banana. He has yet to meet a food he doesn't like. 

I was lucky to have been given both a Baby Bullet blender (from my mom) and Beaba Baby Cook (from my aunt) which have made preparing Parker's food so easy and so much fun. 

The Beaba is awesome in that it's self contained - I can steam and blend in the same container and the steaming is on a timer (which is so nice, especially if you have a five and a half month old and might not be able to keep an eye on the steaming process the entire time).   

The Baby Bullet has been great for blending things I don't need to cook (avocado, banana), plus it came with nifty accessories like these single serving containers to store the food in the refrigerator (the twisty part on top locks on a date so you can check back later to see when you made it), and these silicone containers for freezing food. 

After they freeze, I simply pop them out and store them in ziplock freezer bags. Voilà! Single servings at the ready! 

Right now we are doing one purée a night around dinnertime. As a bonus, little man has been consistently sleeping through the night since he started, wahoo! 

I highly recommend the silicone Beaba spoons we are using. Parker loves to grab them and chew on them, plus I think they're super cute. 

Not as cute as Parker, of course!