Making and freezing baby food?

Question

I will soon be starting my daughter on solids. This time around I plan on making my own baby food. I'm going to start with sweet potato and see how I go. I am planning on cooking it, putting it into ice cube trays and freezing, and using as needed. I'm going to mix it with breastmilk, my question is, should I mix it with breastmilk before or after freezing? Also, how long can it be safely kept in the freezer? Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Great idea about the ziploc bags, Cagney, I was wondering about the safety of just leaving the food exposed. I like the idea of being able to drop them straight into hot water too. I'm not microwaving (I don't even own one, they're horrible-as blonde_mama said, they destroy the healthy enzymes), so this would be perfect for me.

BTW, I just noticed that I forgot the 'e' in poatoe; I know how to spell, really, but apparently it can't be edited :-)

Answer 1

I'm also making my own baby food and freezing it. My son just turned 11 months old and is just now finally starting to show a real interest in solids. The first food I made was pureed Sweet Potatoes and then organic yams. I purchased a kit from drugstore.com called "Fresh Baby". It's a kit that comes with two freezer trays with lids, an instructional DVD, a book with tips and recipes and a chart to put on your refrigerator showing the various foods that are best to introduce at different ages... plus emergency info on the opposite side. It's been a huge help and I've learned a lot from it.

Baby food stored in the freezer will last for 2 months. Defrosted baby food can be kept in the fridge for 1-2 days.

I add breast milk and rice cereal to the defrosted baby food right before feeding my son and that seems to work well. You can add the breast milk in before freezing but remember that the healthy enzymes are destroyed by microwaving. I do still add breast milk during the pureeing process when I'm trying to thin out the food... but I also add more before feeding.

Here is the link to drugstore.com if you're interested in the kit I mentioned...

http://www.drugstore.com/search/search.asp?searchtype=1&trx=28198&trxp1=60&ipp=20&srchtree=1&search=so+easy+baby+food

Best wishes.

Answer 2

i did this for my daughter. i did not mix any milk in with it until it was dethawed and ready to eat. i didn't know what and if it would harm it or not. i would just wait until dethawed. i would puree the sweet potatoe and put in the ice cube trays and freeze overnight. then take out of the trays and place individual cubes in freezer safe ziplocs. sometimes you can get freezer burn just staying in the trays. then you can just dump the ziploc in hot water until thawed then mix in milk. but honestly i stopped mixing in the milk and just fed the plain sweet potatoe. she liked it much better. i was told no longer than a month in the zip locs for keeping them. good luck. my daughter was fed this way and she is 1 now and will try and eat just about anything. we didn't have trouble moving her from jar foods which have sodium and additives to regular food since she'd had that from the start.

Answer 3

I wait to add the breastmilk after it's thawed. :) I have found that each batch I make only lasts a few months, so I haven't had to worry about how long!

(I do want to add that the Super Baby Food Book has awesome info about food safety, when to give what food, recipes, etc etc. I am sorry I do'nt know the author off hand, but I really love that book!)

Answer 4

Breast milk can be frozen. So you can mix the babyfood along with breast milk, then pop it in the freezer and it will be ok.

With some foods such as bananas and apples, it might turn a littel brown. When air hits bananas and apples and when you blend up bananas/apples in a blender, it will turn brown from oxidation, and you might need to add a tiny bit of lemon juice to it to keep it from turning brown and to preserve it. (i would suggest asking a nutritioist about adding lemon to baby food ) I'm not sure if the acid from lemon juice would be good for baby or not.


Good luck on making the at-home babyfood :-)

Answer 5

idont think is ok to freeze the potatoes just do enough for the week or 2-3 days and leave it in the refrigitator breast milk is ok

i made my own baby food 2 but after is frozen its not the same consistency i have 3 kids

Answer 6

good on you for making the time to make your own foods.
mum made my food when i was a baby and i plan to do it too.
mum used to put a little peice of meat in when cookin the veg to giv it a little more flava without adding salt and nastys, just a tiny peice is enough.