Making homemade baby food for your baby is very easy, with few simple tools: a boiling pot, a blender, baby food grinder, and few minutes of your time. Same as jarred food, begin slowly, introducing only only one vegetable or fruit per new week. Make sure there are no signs of an allergic reaction. Start with less acidic fruits such as bananas, apples or pears.

Basic tips:

Vegetables and fruits

- Wash fresh fruits and vegetables to remove any chemical residue.

- Use no spice.

- Frozen or canned vegetables and fruits are the last option. Use only fresh ones.

- Mix fruits to change the variety of the food.

- Use canned vegetables with no salt.

Sugested vegetables and fruits

Sweet Potatoes
Carrots
Peas
Potatoes (mash with water)
Peaches
Pears
Apples
Bananas

Desserts

- Create “Ambrosia” by mixing fruits that the baby shown no allergic reaction before.
- Baby’s favorite juice should be frozen in ice cube trays. After mused up let the baby eat at it is recommended to be great for the teething days.

Meals

Puree dishes just like the whole familly eats for the older babies: cheese and macaroni, spaghetti well cooked, chicken, etc. When doing dishes with meat, be sure to defrost in the microwave to prevent the risk of E-coli bacteria forming. – Making Homemade Baby Food.

Use shaped plastic bibs that catch spilled food, and put a plastic sheet under the high chair.

Give your baby their own spoon and offer food that is of stiff consistency, such as mashed potatoes or other pureed vegetables, in a non-spill bowl. Never mind that they get very little at first, they’ll have a lot of fun. Have a spare spoon handy so that you can feed them, if needed.

Even if they find a spoon difficult, they’ll love feeding themselves with finger foods. Finger foods can also keep them busy if the meal isn’t quite ready.

Above all be flexible; if one food doesn’t suit, try another – no single food is essential.

Introduce trainer cup with a spout for drinks as soon as your baby can manage it. Some breastfed babies never accept a bottle and go straight to a cup for water. Others prefer a bottle for water and may take time to get used to a cup.

- Fruit and vegetables: wash them thoroughly in cold running water and peel potatoes, carrots, apples and peaches to avoid the risk of pesticide residues. Aim to give some vitamin C at each meal, whether as fruit, vegetables or juice, as it helps your bay’s body to absorb iron.

- Milk: from 7 months use full-fat cow’s milk in cooking. From one year, give as a drink.

- Meat and fish: try to offer at least one serving every day of lean meat or boneless fish.

- Protein in the form of low fibre foods such as cheese or tofu, if your baby has a vegetarian diet.

Don’t worry too much, but do take some sensible precautions.

FOODS TO AVOID

- Don’t give foods containing wheat flour or gluten before your baby is 7 months old as they may find them difficult to digest.

- Don’t add sugar or salt – sugar encourages bad habits and bad teeth; salt is too much for your young baby’s kidneys to cope with.

- Avoid giving your baby soft-boiled eggs until they are about 1 year old.

- Very high-fiber breakfast cereals have little place in your baby’s diet as they are too difficult to digest.

- Avoid unpasteurized cheese until your baby is at least 2 years old.

Your baby on its first few months of existence is exclusively a liquid diet. Don’t start weaning until at least 6 months; before that, a baby’s digestion can’t cope, the baby’s digestive system is not capable or suitable for anything other than milk or water and any temptation to feed him or her more substantial food should be resisted.The Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding (or baby formula feeding) for the first 6 months. However all babies are different and how you decide, depends very much on how you see your baby’s needs at that time.

How can I tell if my baby is ready to be weaned onto solid foods? Some rule of thumb indications are: -

• # Baby is still hungry after a good milk feed.
• # Baby demands more frequent feeds.
• # Baby wakes more often during the night needing feeding.
• # Baby looks very interested in the food you are eating.

Offer a simple, semi-liquid food, once a day. Only introduce one taste at a time. Start with a non-wheat cereal mixed with their normal milk, as it’s closest to what they are used to, then gradually offer pureed fruit or vegetables. Only introduce food at a second meal when they happily take the first. Milk is still their main food for at least the first 3 months. In the first instance it is recommended that foods be ‘gluten’ free, because some babies are allergic/sensitive to gluten and this can have adverse effects for your child. Gluten is a protein contained in Cereals, wheat, rye, oats, and barley. Gluten free foods, such as, puree of corn-meal, or rice, pureed vegetables, potatoes, carrots and parsnips. Or pureed Fruit, in the form of, banana, apple, or pear, are great as weaning food for your baby.

Start with a teaspoon a day for a week, as their digestive system needs time to adapt, then go on to two, before giving solids at another meal as well. Once your baby is used to solids, they may prefer them first, then their milk. The taste and texture, coming from a spoon is a big change from the milk the baby has relied upon in the past but it’s a development that will satisfy both you and the baby.

Whether or not a formula milk is hypoallergenic – i.e. will not cause symptoms of allergic reaction – is determined by the proteins contained in the formula, not the sugar or carbohydrate. Misconceptions are common about what is and what is not hypoallergenic. No formula is NON-allergenic; the specialty formulas just have degrees of lesser stimulation of the allergic response. According to the Food standards agency “If your baby is diagnosed with a cows’ milk allergy, your GP might prescribe hydrolysed milk formula for her. You shouldn’t give her partially hydrolysed formula or soya formula without consulting your GP, because babies with cows’ milk allergy might react to these types of formula.”

The top hypoallergenic formulas include
Nutramigen which is a hypoallergenic formula, most children with milk allergy are ok with Nutramigen but not all as this is a lactose free but cow’s milk based hypoallergenic formula. Neocate is also not likely to cause an allergic reaction.

Adverse food reactions and allergies
According to figures up to 15% of the population have reported having had adverse food reactions at some point in their lives. However many believe the true prevalence of food allergy is lower and seems to range from 1% to 4%( about 6% of the paediatric population, but reportedly occurs in as much as 25% of children with eczema or other common allergies).

What types of foods cause allergic reactions in infants?
Infants tend more commonly to develop allergies to Hen egg white, Cows milk protein, Wheat, Peanuts, Bony Fish, Citrus and even Soya protein.

Do cows milk products causes colic?
The actual cause of colic is not known. There are many theories. However there is some evidence that sensitivity to cow’s milk may sometimes play a part.

Soy formula milk
Soy formula, though, which uses soy protein in place of cow’s milk protein, is a perfectly safe alternative for full-term infants if your child is unable to digest lactose (milk sugar) or if he/she seems intolerant to cow’s milk formula and becomes colic, gassy, fussy, or vomits during feedings.

Poor appetite.
Faddy eating.
Poor mealtime behaviour.

Refusing to eat
It is possible that children refusing to eat can be caused by a psychological problem, especially if you can think of a specific event that may have triggered it, like moving home, change in daycare, or death of a close family member, change of access due to divorce/seperation etc. But you should really only consider psychological causes this possible physical causes have been eliminated by your GP. Remember – weight loss is never normal in a young child, and this should ALWAYS be investigated.

Toddler low appetite
Some children seem totally disinterested in food. They appear indifferent to eating or will take a long time to eat miniscule amounts of food. In a recent survey of parents one in five three year old children are described as having a poor appetite. Whilst many parents feel that their children do not eat enough, as long as they continue to grow, have energy and appear healthy then they are probably eating as much as they need.

Loss of appetite in toddlers
It’s important to remember that babies and toddlers have very small stomachs compared to adults, they are simply physically unable to eat the large quantities of food we take for granted. Refusal to eat what many adults may regard as a “normal meal” may just be that the portions are far too big and that the meals are spaced too far apart for a small child. Little and often is the key.

Toddlers who refuse to eat
How can I get my child to eat? We hear this from worried parents all the time about toddlers who have stopped eating. What should we do, they all ask. In most cases The answer is nothing! Most of these problems are transient and short lived and the worst thing you can do is make a big deal out of it and commence a power struggle with your child over food! Some pediatricians report that in almost all cases eating disorders in very young children are associated with parents which are overly concerned about food, in families where carers are relaxed about foods problems rarely occur.