Making Baby Food

Micah officially started solid food this month. We started out with acorn squash last week and this week I made sweet potatoes and yams.

I did the math and it's WAY cheaper to make my own baby food than it is to buy it. For example, I can get 4 ice cube trays worth of sweet potatoes out of $2.40 worth of sweet potatoes. Which is about 21 servings, bringing my total cost to about 11 cents a serving. Target is selling a two pack of sweet potatoes for 87 cents. That's 44 cents EACH! The stores are charging FOUR TIMES more than what I can make it for. CRAZY! Of course I don't buy organic or anything, but I also have peace of mind knowing that I don't have any extra fillers in the baby food too.

It's pretty easy to make most baby foods. For the sweet potatoes and yams I just peel them, steam them and then puree them in the blender. Then I put them in ice cube trays or these individual serving containers I got from my sister-in-law awhile ago and freeze them. Once they are frozen I can put them in gallon freezer bags to make more room in the freezer.




A little caveat ... there are some foods that are cheaper bought than made. I made applesauce once for Jackson when he was a baby and it turned out to be WAY cheaper to buy a large $2.00 jar of unsweetened applesauce from the store. AND there are some veggies that I haven't gotten the hang of making yet, like peas ... the shells always seem to make the texture a bit hard for a baby to eat. I think I'll give it another try with Micah, but I may end up buying the peas from the store too.

As Jackson got older and started having more and more food (particularly meats) and could handle more textures, I started feeding him a bland version of what we were having for dinner and used a food mill to grind it up (you can find them at Target or Walmart for pretty cheap). I loved the food mill because I could take it with me anywhere and Jackson had a meal.


Anyway, that's all I've got! I'd love to hear of any other ideas or things that other moms have tried concerning baby food.

6 Months: Napping!!

I've caught myself saying, "I don't remember what we did with Jackson" several times this week, so I guess that means it's time to blog.

Once Micah went down from 3 - 3.5 hour feedings to 4 hour feedings he naturally fell into taking three naps. The first two naps are about two hours each and the last nap can be anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

HOWEVER, I was still having a difficult time getting him to sleep all the way through naps without waking up and crying (especially the third nap). I thought maybe he just needed to drop the third nap. OH NOOOO, then he was a BEAR between 6:30 and 7:30 at night and he'd crash HARD for bed. So, it's obvious he still needs that third nap right now, but I couldn't figure out why he wasn't napping well.

So I got out my trusty copy of "On Becoming Babywise Book Two" by Gary Ezzo, M.A. and Robert Bucknam, M.D. In the chapter the addresses questions about pretoddler sleep there's this question: "My baby is sleeping 13 hours at night. Is this a problem?"

My answer: NO! We're lucky our kids sleep through the night! Let them sleep!!!

The book's answer: YES! "The cause [of longer night sleeping] is usually (but not always) tied to poor or nonexistent daytime naps. In response your baby is sleeping longer at night because of fatigue realized during the day. ... The effect ... is the negative impact it has on a nursing mother's milk production."

BUMMER!

Micah was sleeping from about 7:45pm to 8:15am (not quite 13 hours, but almost) and I had only started letting him sleep past 7:30am recently and that's right around the same time the nap times became an issue.

SO, I get Micah up now between 7:15 and 7:30am for his first feeding and so far naps have improved. I have been swaddling him and putting him in the swing for his third nap the past couple of days just to get him into the habit of a third nap again, but I plan on transitioning him back to the crib shortly.

Another problem we seem to be having (and maybe it's tied up with the extended nighttime sleep) is having someone else put Micah down to sleep. Colin's been giving Micah a bottle at bedtime once a week (with the exception of when we travel) and this last week he took the bottle just fine BUT when Colin laid him down he SCREAMED! UGH! I was at Bible study so I couldn't come rescue Colin and eventually Micah did go to sleep, but I'm hoping things will get easier.

I try not to cuddle with Micah when I put him down for a nap or for bed so that others can put him down easily. I can't remember Jackson ever having a preference over who put him to bed. However, I definitely put Micah to bed more often because usually Colin puts Jackson to bed and I take Micah.

Anyway, I'm hoping that over time Micah will grow out of this stage and go to sleep without a peep. Here's to hopin'!

P.S. Stranger anxiety has started this month too. Ugh. It may be a bit of an uphill battle.

6 Month Check Up

Micah had his 6 month check up today and I am pleased to report that he is a healthy little boy. I was a little nervous about the appointment because it was scheduled for 10:30 (right in the middle of his morning nap), but he did very well ... hardly fussed at all (we'll see how he makes up for the missed nap this afternoon).

Anyway, here are the stats:
17.11 lbs 50%
27 inches long 75%
45 inch head circumference 77%

Micah's pediatrician said that his percentage in weight going down from 60% to 50% is normal for his age as he begins to be more active, but not increase his caloric intake by much. He's comfortable with Micah being on a four hour feeding schedule during the day with two additional solid feedings (by the way, he tried squash for the first time on Sunday and LOVED it) and going twelve hours between feedings at night.

He suggested that I start offering a little bit of water in a sippy cup at the end of each solid feeding to start learning how to drink from a cup and because the fluoride in the water benefits his teeth. I also learned that combining foods with vitamin C (like most fruits) with iron fortified cereal helps his body to better absorb the iron. He also said that it's normal that Micah has gone from pooping every day to pooping every two to three days (as long as his poop is not rock hard there's nothing to worry about).

He got four more shots and downed the rota vaccine like it was sugar water. Jackson comforted him when he cried from the shots (what a good big brother) and for the most part Micah handled them like a champ (I still gave him a dose of Tylenol right before the shots just in case).

Anyway, I feel TOTALLY blessed to have two healthy little boys!!