Baby food, make your own or jar?

Baby food, make your own or potty?

Are you team 'I have to make all the snacks myself' or team 'a jar is also good'? Of course we live in a country where both are good. There are pros and cons to both options. We put these next to each other in this blog & tell you what choices we made ourselves.

Your baby is growing way too fast, that cliché is certainly true. Before you know it, your baby will be 4 months old and he/she can slowly get used to solid food. These are 'practice snacks', because milk is still the main food. We started with a banana, broccoli and carrot, just a few bites and then we're done. They thought it was delicious and very interesting that they got something on their tongue. The moment we started feeding Rafa, we were advised to regularly add a pinch of peanut butter and small pieces of egg to the snacks. There are studies that if you bring babies into contact with these ingredients early, they are less likely to develop allergies (TIP from JIP, it does not help).

After 6 months, you usually start with supplementary feeding and replace a bottle with a snack. A new world will open up for you again, because so much choice, you can make your own or buy jars or order freshly frozen jars (NEW!).

What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of one or the other, read it below.

Homemade snacks

Benefits
- If you make everything yourself, then you know exactly which ingredients your baby gets.
- You can give your baby individual flavors, so you quickly know what he likes and needs a little more practice has.
- As your baby grows you can decide for yourself how fine or coarse you puree (and can combine with the Rapply method).
- Generally cheaper than jarred food

Disadvantages
- It takes more time.
- You have to cook separately for your baby, often the baby is not allowed to eat everything you eat or there is too much salt or other herbs in it.

Potty food

Advantages
- It is ready quickly. Just heat it up in the microwave or pan with hot water and you're done!
- Super handy for on the go.
- The composition is just right for babies as indicated on the packaging. No ingredients that your baby can't digest yet. No chance of 'mistakes'.

Disadvantages
- They often contain more calories than your baby needs.
- Vegetables/Fruits are often mixed together, so that your baby does not recognize the separate flavors.
- The taste is less intense, because of sterilization.
- Choice is limited.

Fresh jarred food is the newcomer to baby food. It has been on the market for a few years now. You know it mainly from  Eetspruit  I think. Fresh and easy. It has the advantages of both options, it is fresh and precisely balanced for your baby's age. The only drawback of this is that it is still quite expensive.

We both chose to make the snacks ourselves. Yes, this definitely takes time. But that's how you develop your own method. For example, I cooked once a week, usually steaming 4 kinds of vegetables and making different combinations with potato/pasta/rice and meat/fish. This was weighed with a scale (check Google for the right amounts!) and put in an IKEA bag. Let it cool for a while and put it in the freezer! Then you could just defrost a snack every day for the evening. The fruit snack was so pureed of course, just what fruit was in the fruit bowl. I just used a  simple hand blender with container from Braun which I also used for Thiago, small investment, but still a lot of fun!

Femke did this with Dex in exactly the same way as I described above. Tido has been eating solid food for 2 months, what a food monster that is! She 'treated' herself to a baby food processor and is really over.It takes little time & you can make your own baby snack every day. You can cut the vegetables, let them steam in the appliance first, let them cool down and mix. IDEAL, haha. The advantage of this is of course that you can mix every day and you don't have to fill your freezer. The only drawback we can think of is that it is slightly more expensive. No spon, but she is completely enthusiastic about the Philips Avent steam blender.

There is something to be said for all options. And one big advantage of living in the Netherlands, all options are good, because everything is just neatly tested. Because of course we only want 1 thing, the very best for your child!

Love Maaike