#2. Top 10 things you don’t need for your baby.

There are lots of good organic and pure fruit and/or vegetable baby foods available pre-made these days. But many parents still enjoy/prefer to cook and blend food themselves, especially in the earlier days of weaning. I like to do this, myself. It’s a good way to make sure you know exactly what you’re giving your baby and allows for adjustments to their tastes and reactions. For some families it’s not overly difficult or time-consuming to boil or stew a pot of apples, of sweet potato, pumpkin etc. Immersion stick blenders are wonderful for whizzing it all up right in the pot. Now all you need to do is pop it in the fridge or freezer…

#2 Baby item you definitely shouldn’t bother getting: Specialised pots for storing and freezing baby food.

There are several different styles available, often online or from baby superstores. They are simply small plastic containers, usually of around a 100ml capacity or there about. Sometimes they come in a stand to stack them in and keep them stable in the freezer. The cost varies.

There’s no need to go looking for these speciality items. Just get lots of ice-cube trays. Just simple, cheap, plain old ice-cube trays. Fill with your blended/mashed foods. Freeze. When they’re solid, pop them out and store in labelled snap-lock bags in the freezer.

You can reuse the ice-cube trays over and over, building up a good supply of different kinds of foods ready to go. Each cube will usually hold approximately one tablespoon of food. In the very early days of weaning your baby won’t eat anywhere near 100ml of solid food at a time, meaning you either waste the whole pot or have to finish it quickly before trying them on a new flavour. You can’t make a new batch with a different ingredient until enough pots have been eaten through and emptied, meaning your baby ends up eating the same single flavour meal in and meal out.

By using the single cube you can mix it up every time you feed them. As they eat more solids you can mix and match flavours to create varying meals with a range of nutrients. You can make as much food as your time allows and continue to pop the cubes out of the trays and into the bags to freeze. You are limited by your time, your enthusiasm, the size of your freezer – but not by how quickly your baby can get through a whole batch of blended pears. The cube fed baby can enjoy a much wider range of food than the pot fed baby.

Once your baby is older and eating well established meals you may want some small pots to keep portions of whole meals in (5+ tbsp). The 100ml pots designed for weaning foods that were once too big are now too small! Now is the time to get some regular, small Tupperware style containers, from any supermarket etc. But don’t bother with the specialised baby food pots. The ice-cube trays and snap-lock bags are much cheaper and allow you to more easily feed your baby different flavours, textures, and nutrients.

You may also like:

• #1. Top 10 things you don’t need for your baby – nannysavvy.com
• #3. Top 10 things you don’t need for your baby – nannnysavy.com
• #4. Top 10 things you don’t need for your baby – nannysavvy.com
• #5. Top 10 things you don’t need for your baby – nannysavvy.com
• #6. Top 10 things you don’t need for your baby – nannysavvy.com