Category Archives: parenting

How To Make Baby Food: 5 Easy Steps

We all hear about those super moms who make their own baby food from scratch. We all wonder where they get the time and energy, as if babies did not demand enough already. I used to wonder about that. I heard stories about so-and-so making all of her own food, feeding her baby nothing but organic foods, unlike the store bought, processed, stuff full of preservatives that I was feeding my kids. I also heard that making your own foods can help eliminated food allergies by not exposing children to chemicals early on.I finally gave it a try. The first time around I could have sworn giving birth to another child would be easier than making a batch of baby food again. However, as I did my research and repeated the processes a few times, I worked the kinks out, and found that it can be a fairly easy way of feeding my kids healthier food. Not to mention it is cheaper than baby food (especially when you get to stage 3 foods).

Here are 5 easy steps for making your own baby foods.

1. Find 4-6 ounce containers that can go from freezer to microwave.

This is a one time start up expense. Buy as many as you think you will make at a time. For example, I make baby food for 2 weeks in advance, so I need 14 containers for breakfast, 14 for lunch, and 14 for dinner. I have found one of the biggest mistakes people make is that they try to make food only a day or two in advance. This is more work.

2. Buy in Bulk

Find the store where they have fruits, vegetables, and meat on sale, and buy in bulk. You may have to go to separate stores for this. Depending on the size of the containers you bought, and the type of fruits and vegetables you will use, you will have to experiment with yield. Even though I definitely suggest making the food in bulk, the first few times you may want to start small to get a feel of how many fruits and vegetables you will need. Once you get the right ratio, you will want to make more each time to minimize the amount of time you spend cooking vegetables and cleaning the kitchen counter, utensils and appliances.

3. Boil Everything (Except Fruit)

Since you bought everything, just get a couple of large pots out and boil all of your vegetables and meat. You can boil each type of vegetable in a different pot, or you can do a vegetable mix. You can also add boiled noodles to your vegetables for a pasta primavera recipe. Make sure to boil your meat all the way through.

4. Blend Fruit

While your vegetables and meat are boiling, you can blend your fruit. If you need to peel them, do so first. Then cut them into chunks and put them in your blender with a bit of water (bananas and berries are an exception; do not use water with them). Blend until they are the consistency desired. Start out with just a few drops of water and gradually add more as needed.
Put the freshly blended fruit into the containers until all of them are full and now you have all of your breakfast foods ready. Just place them in the freezer and pull one out each day. Stick it in the microwave in increments of 30 seconds until thawed enough to eat. You do not necessarily want your fruit to be hot like lunch and dinner dishes.

5. Blend Vegetables and Meat

Essentially do the same for your vegetables and meat that you did for your fruit. Use the vegetables for lunch foods, and do a mix of vegetables and meats for dinner (unless you are a vegetarian and would like to raise your child the same, in which case skip the meat and add anything else your pediatrician may recommend).

You now have homemade baby food! Trust me, it gets easier each time.

How Does Sibling Rivalry Start?

How young does sibling rivalry start? My daughter is a little over one year old. I am seven months pregnant with my son. I was under the impression that my daughter was too young to really grasp jealousy, rivalry, or anything else with a negative connotation.
We visited our friends last weekend who just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. I scooped up the little two week old baby and moments later my darling little angelic daughter mustered a glare on par with Snow White’s step mother. I was quite taken aback. My daughter would not let me near her the rest of the day, and finally started warming up to me a day and a half later.
Is this a preview of what is to come? Will she react differently once the baby I am holding is her little brother? Will it make a difference that both her parents are now holding this new bundle of joy and including her in on it? I could not help but feeling that somehow it would have made a difference if I had let her come close up and explore the baby with me. However, this was not my baby, and it was not for me to decide who can and cannot touch her.
My husband and I talk to our daughter about the coming changes, but we do not know how much of that makes any sense to her, or how much she understands. We just hope that with love and patience it works itself out within a few months of our son’s birth.

How To Pick The Perfect Breast Pump

During my first pregnancy the idea of pumping milk from my breasts was foreign. I saw the activity as something I would be doing once or twice a week in order to have a few bottles in the freezer just in case. I pictured breast feeding my daughter every time she was hungry and not needing a large amount of stored milk.I knew I would eventually go back to work, but I was delusional about pumping for that as well. I envisioned pumping right before bed every night, and somehow that would last her all day the next day. I had no idea how tedious pumping would be. I did not realize that production slows down if you do not pump regularly.

Once my daughter was born and all of this new information began sinking in, I had yet another revelation. There are quite possibly more makes and models of breast pumps than there are automobiles. I by no means purport to know which is best for you, however, the advice I will impart is that regardless of which brand you chose, get the electrical one.

I made my breast pump decision based on budget. I didn’t see any reason to spend over a hundred, possibly two hundred dollars, for something I thought I would only occasionally use. I regretted my choice only a few weeks after my daughter was born. At this point I was only pumping a few times a week, oblivious to the fact that I would need massive stores once I returned to work (yet another regrettable decision made in blissful ignorance).

Squeezing the little manual nozzle hundreds of times in order to procure a full bottle starts to become painful and cumbersome. Imagine doing this three to four times per day. I should have heeded the advice of the retail clerk at the baby store. Stupidly I just assumed she was trying to up-sell me (which she may also have been doing, but that is beside the point). What did she know about my needs? Apparently a lot.

In the end I ended up spending more since I now had a useless manual pump along with a need for a mechanical one that was destined to make my breast feeding days much nicer.