To Buy Baby Food, Or Not To Buy Baby Food?

Disclaimer: I am not a professional, just a mom sharing her experiences. Please do your own research and talk to a professional to figure out what is best for you. To see my full disclaimer go to my Disclaimer & Disclosure Page.

Short answer: Do your wallet a favor and do not buy baby food.

Here’s why.

With my first 3 children I bought baby food and it was a fight to get them to start eating it at first. Eventually, they did eat it with no problem, but I had the extra expense of buying baby food. They also rarely ate an entire container of baby food. So it ended up getting thrown out. Our pediatrician would recommend starting with baby cereal at 4 months, but my kids HATED it. I tried with my first 3 and after throwing away basically a full box of baby cereal with each of them, I decided it wasn’t worth it. I wasted a lot of food and money when it came to baby food with my first 3 children. I can’t believe it took me that long to figure this out.

With my fourth child I was, for the first time, a stay at home mom. I had planned on making baby food to save on the expense of buying it. However, in my laziness and effort to try and eat better myself, I realized that it’s not even necessary to make baby food at all. One day I as was trying to eat better for lunch I baked a sweet potato to mash. As I was eating it, I realized it was the perfect thing to start feeding my baby and that’s when it hit me: Babies can eat regular food from the time they start eating something other that their mother’s milk. When I told our pediatrician that I wasn’t bothering with baby food, he said to just wait till she’s closer to 6 months to start giving her solids then. He didn’t at all show any concern about me skipping the liquid food stage with our infant. So when she approached about 6 months I started giving her fruits and veggies that can easily be mashed and we had in the house anyway.

Here are some examples:

Bananas 

Mashed potatoes (any kind)

Riced veggies (can be from frozen)

Avocados 

Apple sauce (I get natural unsweetened)

Steamed/ cooked carrots

Steamed/ cooked squash

Really any vegetable that can be mashed when cooked or soft once steamed. 

Smoothies (thick ones so they’re easy to spoon out)

The great thing about giving them frozen food (that is steamed obviously) is that you’re able to take out just what they’ll eat. Or rather how much you think they’ll eat. When baby is done eating, if there is any leftover, just put it in a container and then in the fridge to heat up for the next meal. I would actually recommend heating frozen food in a container that has a lid, so you just have to pop the lid on when they’re done eating. If you’re environmentally conscious, go with small glass containers. While we have made the switch to glass food storage containers, I have some plastic containers left over from my previous children, so I use those exclusively for the baby. Below are some examples of what you could use.

As they get a little older and are chewing, around 9 months to a year old, you can switch from smashing everything up to chopping it into small pieces. You’ll want to start with pretty tiny pieces until they understand how to take bites and make sure they aren’t over stuffing their mouths. They will probably go through the stuffing their mouths stage at some point. So just be aware of how they are experiencing their food and obviously never leave them alone while eating.

Now I will still get baby snacks like puffs, yogurt melts, mum mums, and baby crackers/ bars, but those are just for fillers when we’re out and about, or she doesn’t want to wait till dinner’s ready and just needs to calm down, or as a bedtime snack. Things like that. Most of these types of snacks have no nutritional value whatsoever. So they really are just filler to occupy them sometimes, or something to chew on while teething, because these type of snacks wont actually fill them up. One quick snack I’ve found that my 1 year old LOVES is dried fruit. These are her favorite bedtime snack and will go through a bag a night sometimes.

The great thing about feeding your baby real food? You benefit as well! Obviously you can just make food for your baby. However, if you make meals for yourself that your baby can eat as well, then you’ll be eating healthier. When you first start feeding your baby solids, they will only eat a couple bites in a sitting. This is one reason why buying baby food is so wasteful. Because it can only be stored in the refrigerator for 1-3 days depending on what it is. This may seem like plenty of time to use up that container of baby food, but when you’re baby is only taking 3 bites and then refusing anymore, you’ll be surprised at how much you throw out. I found myself eating better because I would heat up a sweet potato to mash, then feed the baby as I ate. I found that the 2 children that I did this with ate much better as babies than my older 3 did. You know the pictures of the babies covered in baby food?

Yup, those were my first 3. With my last 2 eating real food I found that they ate more than they wore, which is awesome. Don’t get me wrong. They were still messy, especially once they started feeding themselves. They were definitely more willing to eat their food though than wear it.

So as you can see it’s not really worth spending the extra money on baby food. They’re more likely to eat real food and it’ll help you eat healthier as well because you’ll more than likely be sharing with them in the beginning. Save yourself time and money by feeding your baby real food.