Baby food update

Since I started him on solid foods, Aaron has tried rice cereal, oatmeal, banana, carrots, peas, winter squash, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes. He eats everything, although I don't think he really liked the winter squash, so I've stopped buying it. The mushed up banana didn't evoke the positive reaction I expected for his first really sweet food, but I've started mixing it in with his oatmeal in the mornings and he seems to like it just fine.

I've made carrots and sweet potatoes from scratch, freezing them in ice cube trays and storing them in bags, and I fed him canned organic pumpkin that I watered down (and froze the left overs in cubes). I tried preparing peas (from frozen organic), but wasn't happy with the texture. I might try that again though, because right now, everything I have in the freezer is orange. I'm afraid he'll have a Vitamin A overdose! My mom is going to help me make some applesauce this week, though, so we'll have a second fruit to add to the menu.

He is such a good eater and I'm hoping that by exposing him to lots of foods now, he will stay a good eater, but I've heard it doesn't always work that way. I'm also hoping that by making as many of his foods myself that he will be less picky later on. My friend Lisa made a lot of her daughter's foods, just using the veggies she was going to eat, but preparing them special for Kimberley. Since home prepared foods tend to be a little more textured than jarred baby foods, she credits this practice with Kimberley's willingness, when they were away from home, to just eat mashed up or cut up food from Lisa's plate when she was a toddler, rather than Lisa having to cart around special baby food for her.

I've found that the carrots I cook and blend myself are more palatable to me than the jarred carrots I've bought (I taste everything I give him). So hopefully Aaron thinks so, too. Jarred baby food just seems to have a weird lack of texture and flavor. And as he grows up, it will be easier to just transition over to feeding him what we eat (minus the added salt) if I'm already preparing his food from scratch. Not that I don't buy jarred baby food - I do keep it for emergencies. But since it's so easy to make it, I don't see the point in using it on a regular basis.

In addition to eating solids for breakfast and dinner, I've also started giving him a sippy cup with water at dinnertime. He can't hold it himself, but he likes to suck some water out, swallowing some and letting the rest dribble down onto his bib. It's good practice for when he is weaned and it seems to be a fun experience for him.