How many moms out there make their own baby food?

I made all my daughter's baby food. It was healthier, better quality food than jarred/canned, it was less expensive (even buying only organic!), it tastes better and it was REALLY easy. Check out wholesomebabyfood.com It has great guidance charts for introducing various foods, cooking information and ideas and a variety of recipes and other links/resources.

Things I needed: Blender (I have a ten year old Oyster blender with two speeds.. worked perfectly fine), ice cube trays (for freezing cube-sized portions - I didn't buy special trays, just used ones I had), a steamer basket (a $7 investment), a baby food mill (The KidCo is the only one I found, it was portable but/and a pain in the butt, but it worked. I do have a "regular" food mill, but a regular sized food mill isn't practical for baby food, doesn't mill fine enough or small enough quantities well.) The KidCo baby food mill is great because if you're going to a restaurant, you can literally toss a portion of your food in the mill and done.. instant baby food. You'll want zip lock freezer bags (for labelling and dating your frozen "cubes.") Finally, I found it useful to have 12 pyrex custard cups for feeding (I didn't use "cute" baby dishes... easily washable pyrex custard cups have/had multiple uses for baby food and other food....)

I'd make food once every week or two. Bake peaches, yams, steam peas, green beans, apples, and/or peel a fresh pear, core it and toss it right in a blender. Things like yams, sweet potatoes, squash, you just bake for an hour, let it cool, scoop out the "meat" and I'd just smush it with my hands. (I would save a few days worth of food in a glass lidded container in the fridge, the rest would go into ice cube trays and freeze.) Peas/green beans, carrots, etc., I'd steam - blend into a purree - need to add a little water. Applesauce, I'd use the regular sized food mill. Peaches - I'd bake, the peels would literally melt off, and blend in the blender. Meats required the use of the handheld KidCo (and it wasn't "easy") - and I just ground up portions of meats at meal time. All of this was so easy... If I baked up five peaches it would likely last me a few weeks. A single yam would last two weeks. A butternut squash could last a month. You're going to switch up the foods for variety so you just take a hour after she goes to sleep to prepare a few things and you have food for weeks.

I have an old Wedgewood stove, so if I put a frozen "cube" of baked mushed yams in a custard cup and set it on my stove top on top of the pilot light, it was melted and warmed within about 15 minutes. I also have an egg coddler (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=porcelain... which is great for heating up baby food.

I strongly encourage you to try making your own. When I first started solids with my daughter I thought I'd "try" making them myself and maybe do a blend of jarred and homemade - keep it simple. It was SO easy, the jarred stuff never ended up passing her lips.

I have been making most of my daughter's baby food. There are a few things that she didn't care for that I made one being squash, but she will eat Gerber squash. It's very easy and cost effective. At my local grocery store I purchased sweet potatoes for $0.58 a piece I steamed and pureed them and put the puree in ice cube trays to freeze. I think I got 3 trays so I spent $1.74 on basically 2 weeks - a month of sweet potatoes. For a jar of gerber its around $0.75 per jar. So it's worth it to me. A great website that has recipes, and information on storing, etc is http://wholesomebabyfood.com/ Good luck & have fun!

I did for a while, when it came to pureed veggies. However, my son went right to soft chunks for the most part, he wasn't a big fan of purees at all. I'll probably try it again with this one (a girl).

I don't plan on using pureed food at all. just table food when he's ready

look into baby led weaning

I do. It comes out of my boobs.