Starting Baby on Solid Foods

Starting Baby on Solid Foods

It’s been SO MUCH FUN starting Joey Lulu on solid foods. Our pediatrician recommended starting anytime after four months, but we waited until our kitchen was finally useable a few weeks ago, as she was turning six months. I always thought baby food meant super bland, gross moosh, but the trend these days is to feed baby a flavorful, innovative and foodie-inspired diet — but in puree form. I love coming up with meal ideas for her (way more than for myself!), and I love seeing Joey’s face when she tries something new…

Someone in our family is a picky eater. He will tell you I’m the picky one because I barely eat meat, but I can’t even take the time to list all the things Andy won’t touch, or has eaten for the first time since I met him. Even so, Andy and I both want to make sure that Joey is introduced to a wide variety of foods right from the beginning — yes, even meat. So far she’s eaten sweet potato, carrots, avocado, cottage cheese, banana, peaches with cinnamon, green beans with oregano, spiced pear, zucchini with parmesan, Greek yogurt, peanut butter, and egg yolk. It took her a couple of weeks to really get it, but now she seems to really like food. Her favorites are peaches and zucchini, but she hated banana! (We’ll try it again.)

Here are some of the things we’ve loved for Joey’s mealtime:

Kangavou dishware set — we got this as a gift and it’s fantastic. I like that these are stainless steel and are easy to clean. Joey will need to grow into most of the pieces, but I serve her purees from the small bowl.

Munchkin white hot spoons — I picked these up at Target. They’re inexpensive and just the right size for tiny baby mouths. Sometimes Joey even grabs the spoon and feeds herself. These spoons turn white if food is too hot, but at this point Joey is eating all her foods either straight out of the fridge or defrosted at room temperature from the freezer.

FisherPrice Space Saver High Chair — Our friends have this high chair for their boy and we loved that it doesn’t take up any extra space. We just attach to a chair at our kitchen table without the tray, so she can sit at the table like a big girl. It’s also great for letting her sit in the kitchen with us while we cook.

Neat Solutions bib — We picked up these bibs at Target after realizing that our normal cloth bibs were not up to the task of mealtime (um, hello orange and green stains!). These are inexpensive and the plasticy covering makes them super easy to keep clean. Plus they’re adorable!

Mini Food Processor — Since Joey can’t handle any chunks or finger foods yet, I steam vegetables until they’re soft and then blend them into a puree in this little food processor, adding some of the water I steamed them in to make them smooth. This thing is just the right size to whip up a couple ounces of food.

Baby FoodE — I’m obsessed with the Baby FoodE blog written by Michelle Olivier, who is the author of several baby food cookbooks. On her blog, Michelle shares tons of really fun, innovative — and even delicious looking — recipes for babies in all different stages, searchable by age, and I like her down-to-earth writing style. I just bought all the ingredients to make THIS next! (I might have to try some for myself.)