Baby’s moved onto table food – use those leftover baby food cubes

Mar 21, 2008 Baby Food Recipes Updated, Finger Foods, Friendly Baby Food Advice, Transitioning to New Foods

If your baby has moved onto table food, you may be wondering how you can use those extra baby food purees that are nicely frozen in cubes in your freezer.   Amy entered our Baby Food Cubes contest with a great picture of her baby food cubes in a blender.  This image is the inspiration for this paricular post.

Use those baby food cubes in a variety of ways:

Make Baby Smoothies!  Use those cubes to make healthy and yummy smoothies for your baby!  These are great for sippy cup and drinking with a straw and are also soothing and cooling on baby’s sore gums.

Baby Sauce – use the cubes as a “sauce” to pour over baby’s rice,  pasta, meats and even other veggies or fruits!  Baby sauce may also be used to help baby make the transition to chunky table foods!

Baby Dip – extra baby food cubes are great to use as dips for baby’s finger foods.  While this may make quite a mess, your baby will love the tactile exploration of foods and colors!

Great Additions – use those baby cubes in your own recipes for breads, sauces, smoothies and even as a glaze for meats! 

Tags: Finger Foods

Toddler Cup from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Mar 11, 2008 Nifty Baby Stuff, Transitioning to New Foods

  Check out this cup we found!  It comes in purple, orange and this pictured blue.  How cool is this and it actually looks functional too.  I think I’ll buy one for my kiddos – even tho they have mastered the cup at this point. 

`Dombo` Children`s Cup

Designer:
Richard Hutton, 2000

Manufacturer:
Richard Hutton, The Netherlands

Materials:
polypropylene  (safe) 10″x 3″x 3″

Notes:
Big handles that are easy for little hands to hold.  Designed by Richard Hutten who was closely associated with Droog Design in the mid-1990’s. Available in Blue and Purple.

http://www.cooperhewittshop.org/?path=item&topid=6&itemid=204

So why can babies have yogurt if they can’t have milk?

Feb 7, 2008 Allergies, Dairy, Friendly Baby Food Advice, Nutrition, Transitioning to New Foods

This morning we received an email from Melissa.  Melissa had read our Newsletter and was wondering about a tip from one of our visitors.  Melissa wrote to us regarding our “Great Tips from our Visitors”. She questioned the use of Yogurt for our Forum visitor’s baby who is “technically 5 months old”. We include her email and our reply below. We apologize for any confusion that this may have caused!

—–Original Message—–
Great Tips from our Visitors – Learning to use a Sippy – In your newsletter you included the visitor tip of making a yogurt smoothie to introduce a sippy cup to a 5 month old. I had read that babies under one year were not supposed to have dairy (cow’s milk) products. Do you believe that to be incorrect (the visitor with the tip used whole milk yogurt)?

Melissa

—–Reply Message—–

Dear Melissa,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us! We appreciate your feedback!

Our Forum poster who left us the tip about the sippy cup has a preemie baby. Little Alex is a bit over 8 months old but his adjusted/corrected age is a bit over 5 months old. You may have also read that Alex’s doctor said that this was ok.  Offering babies who are 8 months of age or more is the typical recommendation. There are many pediatricians who will recommend yogurt for babies as young as 6 months of age!

I will be sure to post an item in our News blog to further clarify what our member meant when she said “technically 5 months of age”.

Thank you for letting us know that this may cause some confusion!

Warm regards,
Maggie

Below is a short-but-sweet summary about why it’s ok for babies to eat yogurt (and cheese).  I hope this helps clear up any confusion as well!

You may find more information at the
following pages:

http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/tipYogurt.htm and http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/dairy.htm

“We all wonder, what is the magic of Yogurt and Cheese that makes it OK to
give to my baby before 1 year old? The truth is, there is NO great magic in
Yogurt or Cheese! The most common reasons for yogurt and cheese being ok for
baby prior to age 1 year old are:

Unlike Whole Cow Milk beverage, your baby is not at risk of formula/breast
milk being replaced by Yogurt or Cheese.

The medical community worries that if Whole Cow milk is introduced to an
infant prior to 1 year old, that parents would stop formula and/or
breastfeeding and use Milk as the replacement. This would possibly be
dangerous to your baby’s health! They, however, neglect to specify the
difference between baby drinking milk and eating yogurt and/or cheese.

Lactose is already broken down with the culturing of the yogurt or cheese
and milk proteins are either removed or limited thus it is typically easier
to digest; people with lactose intolerance often are be able to handle
cheese and/or yogurt without trouble. The same is often true for some people
with a milk protein (either to the casein or the whey) allergy.

In a nut shell, the medical community believes that many people would stop
formula/breastfeeding and start their kids on whole cow milk earlier than 1
year old unless they were told not to. This is basically why pediatricians
and nutritionists say that other milk products such as cottage cheese,
cheeses and yogurt are fine.”