Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Works for Me Wednesday: Too-Tart Baby Food


So it all started when AJ started eating the baby food peaches, which have a very strong odor, although I haven't sampled the taste. He liked eating them, but after every other bite, he would scrunch up his face and shiver, kinda like you would do if you were surprised by the tartness of a candy or something. While this provided VNB and I endless hours of amusement (AJ too because I'd mimic him and he thought that was the funniest thing ever), I began wondering what I could do to make the food less tart for him (especially when he started doing the same thing with the applesauce - there aren't that many foods for us to choose from right now, especially fruits for breakfast, so I wasn't about to give up on them).


Finally I came up with an idea - add the rice cereal that was just taking up space in my cupboard. AJ prefers that the peaches with rice cereal "age" for a few hours prior to eating (I guess to more completely merge the two flavors or something - he's going to be a gourmet chef, apparently), but he'll eat the applesauce with rice cereal right away.


One added advantage of this (besides getting rid of the cereal) is that it's helped him get used to the tastes. Now he can down a container of peaches without a second thought (or shiver). It also gave me the opportunity to accidentally give him squash with rice cereal for breakfast one morning (squash and peaches are roughly the same color, and did I mention it was morning?). While he was a little confused by that, he actually liked it, giving me _another_ opportunity to get rid of the rice cereal...and a way to make each container of food last a little longer.


So, rice cereal in tart baby food works for me! For other ideas, go here.

8 comments:

Lady Why said...

I love to slide vegetables into the cereal too. They never know the difference!

*carrie* said...

My son's 9 months, and I still mix cereal (oatmeal or mixed grain) with applesauce and fruit or veggie. I like to make little "casseroles"--kinda fun, and he hasn't turned anything away yet!

SAHMmy Says said...

I usually avoid non-traditional breakfast foods for my baby in the morning too! I don't know why--she couldn't possibly know that people don't usually have zucchini or pasta for breakfast! Great tip on the cereal--I haven't broken out the ol' food processor, so my baby hasn't had meat yet. I mix almost all her foods with a little baby oatmeal so I can hope she's getting enough iron.

Hillary (Mrs. Einstein) said...

Great idea!

Yogurt works well to take the edge off of tart baby fruits, as well. I even got my oldest daughter to eat peas and beans, as long as the yogurt was on the end of the spoon.

It didn't work too many times, though.

Anonymous said...

Funny you said that because I do the same thing for the opposite reason. J loves the fruit but can't stand the cereal, so I mix them so he'll eat the cereal (I'm always worried he's not getting enough iron too). Of course, he is just on oats because rice stops him up in a bad way.

Melissa Markham said...

That is a neat idea! My baby days are well behind me, but I will keep the tip in mind for the grandchildren of the future or the children of friends.

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Melissa Markham said...

That is a neat idea! My baby days are well behind me, but I will keep the tip in mind for the grandchildren of the future or the children of friends.

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Melissa said...

ARG! We have to worry about them getting enough iron??!!!

Sigh...and here I was focusing on keeping all the people in the world from giving AJ wheat and dairy (and corn and meat) until I'm ready for it all! (I mean, until _he's_ ready for it all).

Well, I guess the cereal is good filler. He ate at least _EIGHT_ of the 4.5-oz containers yesterday (in addition to nursing several times and drinking juice and some "Perky-Os" and a teething buscuit). Maybe by adding rice we can slow the baby food purchases some. Or maybe we should just buy stock in Gerber.

Unfortunately, oatmeal stops AJ up. We can't even get the mixed cereal down without a serious fight. I haven't tried the barley by itself yet, but we may just stick to rice for a while longer.