Baby food - bought or home made?  

i used to use the jars of food as i new that there were not too much salt or sugar in them and that they had added vitamins in them too so i always thought this was better and it was easier than preparing fresh food all of the time especially when we first started weaning but once they reached 9 months old i used to make my own

My baby has feeding issues due to a medical issues. Even at 18 months his foods are a bit thicker then the jarred foods. We make his to him.

With there being so many choices out there you can do good jarred food. I did a mix for all my kids. I made some and froze it in ice cube trays covered with plastic. I also bought jarred for things I couldn't make at home or for travel.

You can even make your table foods into food for baby once they reach a certain point.

we always had the plans on making our own baby food. we just never had enough time to get through with it. we always bought baby food and she never had any issues with it. we sometimes got the organic bottles but we never really paid attention to that, we just kind of picked it up. our doctor said that there was nothing wrong with buying the bottles or making our own that they didn't have a preference it was all up to us.

I did a bit of both, it depended on the food. It's certainly easier to just buy it, but cheaper to make it yourself, so for me it depended on what the food was and if I had the energy to do it myself. Something like bananas are so easy, you just mash them with a potato masher, and maybe add some formula, milk, or even water just to smooth it out a little to make it easier to eat and mash. At home I did corn, peas, bananas, carrots, pears, and a few other things, I forget now. Pretty much whatever was left over after feeding the rest of the family, I'd throw it in the blender with some liquid until it was the right consistancy for the baby to eat.

I gave my children both processed and homemade. The homemade is simple, what I didn't like about some of the processed is the amounts of sugar so I made most of the fruit myself. Sweet potatoes are simple and so are bananas and strawberries. You can even make the baby food from cream of wheat, that is an all time favorite at my house. Also for food with more texture when the baby gets older, you can soak cereals in warm milk until it gets soft and mushy, that's good food for the baby also. Regular cereal like total whole grain, not just the rice cereals.

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Hello...my children are all grown now but I can tell you what I did,,"back then"
I believed that natural food was best and also less expensive and we did not have a lot of money when my first was born. When it was time for vegetables, and not all children are the same, some will object if they just arent ready, I cooked my own such as carrots squash etc, and i mashed and poured it into ice cube trays and froze it. Each cube was a meal, I just had to pop it out and warm it up

Yes, home made foods are always better for your baby and most ideal. If you have time to make them it would be to your babies advantage. I had my kids mixed with bought and hoe made since I have work and am really busy when they were babies. I usually mix some fruits and vegetables in their porridge or baby cereals. It's a good thing my kids were not choosy with foods.

As you know, my daughter isn't to that stage yet, but this is definetely something that we've discussed for the near future. We always plant a large garden, and this year we will most definetely be planting an even larger one. I plan to plant as much of a variety of vegetables that I can, so that we can jar or freeze them for the later use for her baby food. I can have the comfort of knowing that there are no added chemicals or generic fertilizers used in her food. As far as fruits go, we only have one peach tree and two cherry trees, so most of her fruits will have to be bought from the store.

While I did occasionally buy baby food, I usually made my own. When I cooked tea for the rest of the family, I set some aside for my babies. For example, if we were having pumpkin, I'd make extra, puree it for my babies and freeze it in ice cube trays. As my babies got older, I'd leave a bit more texture in the food and add more variety. They all loved my vegetable soup, which I left nice and thick and they adored pumpkin and pears mixed together. My kids only developed fussier tastes once they were a bit older. As a toddler, one son would only eat if he could walk around to do it and would not sit down to a meal. To my mother's disgust, I let him graze. He'd have some cheese and come back when he felt like it for banana, carrot sticks or whatever. I tended to look at my toddler's diets over the space of a week rather than what they ate in any one day. For example, if they refused vegetables one day, they would make up for it the next. I found that trying to force them to eat didn't work so, this system worked well for us.