How to Make Squash Baby Food

Squash is a great first food for babies and easier to make than you would think. You can use this method to cook any type of Winter squash or pumpkins. We used butternut squash.

First, make sure you wash your squash (hehe!) and slice it own the middle lengthwise.

Use a spoon and scoop out all of the seeds and stringy stuff from the inside.

Fill a small baking dish with about 1/4 inch of water and lay both halves of the squash with the flat side down

Cook in the oven on 375 for about 45-50 minutes or until the flesh of the squash is very tender.

This is how mine looked when it was done:

Next, take your spoon and scoop out all of the squash from the skin.and put the squash into your food proccessor or baby food maker.

Puree the squash to your desired consistency. Logan is still on Stage 1 baby foods, so I pureed mine for about 30 seconds.

Let cool and then scoop into whichever baby food containers you prefer...You can use ice cube trays and freeze them, or you can purchase special baby food containers. I just use baby food jars that I wash and sanitize.

Our medium butternut squash made 3 1/2 jars of baby food. You can keep these in the fridge for 2-3 days or freeze them for up to 3 months.

Using my Beaba Babycook (with tutorial!)

Yesterday, my little sister Sydney came over and spent the day with us. She is 12. She saw my babycook and decided that she wanted to make some babyfood. I bought my babycook on craigslist, so it didn't come with any instructions so we just had to guess how to use the thing. It turned out to be pretty simple, actually. After watching a youtube video of someone making baby food, we decided to make our own how-to video, but Logan cried the whole time and you can barely hear what I am saying, so we aren't going to post that :) We ended up making carrots, bananas, and apples. Heres how you do it:

1.) Wash and peel your fruits or vegetables. Even if they are organic. You never know who has touched them.

2.) Cut the vegetable/fruit into bite size pieces and put them into the steamer basket. 

3.) Fill the container up with water to the appropriate mark. Generally, the harder the vegetable, the more water you will need. So for potatoes, you would want to fill it to the 3. But for softer fruits, such as pears, you don't need as much.

4.) Pour the water into the reservior at the top of the machine.

5.) Attach the container to the machine and insert the steamer basket. Place the lids on both the main container and the reservior at the top.

6.) Switch the front dial to the left to steam. The picture looks like a little cloud.

7.) Wait 15 minutes for the food to steam.

8.) Remove (carefully!) the steamer basket from the machine. There will be some water left in the bottom. Reserve this cooking liquid so you can add it to the pureed veggies to achieve your desired consistency.

9.) Put the veggies into the blender part of the machine. Put the lid back on and switch the dial to the other side to blend. You may have to add some of your cooking liquid to get it to the correct consistency. I had to do this with the carrots, but not the apples or bananas. Especially since Logan is just starting out on baby food, I wanted it to be very mushy and not have any chunks in it.

10.) Spoon your baby food into portioned containers labeled with the name and date you made the food OR portion the food into ice cube trays or other baby food freezer trays and freeze for up to 3 months. It is recommended to freeze the food and then put the cubes into a heavy duty freezer bag to keep them fresh.

Logan really liked the food we made. He actaully doesn't really care for the Earth's Best apples that we have been feeding him because they are very tart. I used an organic Gala apple, and he seemed to really like it. I still have about 20 jars of first foods left in the pantry, but I am going to use them for travelling.

Some good choices for baby's first foods:

Vegetables- Peas, Green Beans, Squash, Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, Pumpkin, and Zucchini

Fruits- Avocado, Apples, Bananas, Pears, Prunes, and Peaches

First foods, Sleeping through the night, and no more ammonia :)

These past couple of days have been big ones for us. Logan slept through the night for the first time last night, had his first baby food yesterday, and we finally got rid of our ammonia issues once and for all... It's been a great weekend.

Friday night, Logan slept most of the night. He only woke up once and cried himself to sleep. Saturday I had to get up and feed him once, and he cried it out one other time. But last night, we put him down around 10:30 and he slept until 8:30 this morning! We had a huge storm last night, too, that woke both me and the husband up several times....but he slept right through it. I did go in and check on him 2-3 times just to make sure he was still breathing (I am a worrier..I cant help it), but he didn't so much as make a whimper throughout the night. I am so happy, but I hope he keeps it up. He went through a phase around 3 months where he was sleeping around 6-7 hours a night for a while, but then went back to his old sleeping pattern. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Yesterday, we gave him his very first taste of baby food...Earths Best Organic Sweet Potatoes. I don't really think he liked it all that much, but I wanted to start out with vegetables so he doesn't get spoiled on the fruits. The pediatrician said she prefers to wait until babies are 6 months to start baby food, but he was showing all the signs that he was ready for something new. He has been getting cereal for a little over a month now and loves it. He doesn't push the food out of his mouth with his tongue anymore, and he opens his mouth and leans toward the spoon. He loves to eat! Plus, all of the books say between 4-6 months, so I thought 5 months was a pretty good age. We are going to give the sweet potatoes a couple of days and then move on to peas. I do plan on making my own baby food with my new Beaba babycook, but I bought a couple of trays of starter fruits and veggies on sale a couple of months ago, so we are going to use those first.

Also, I am so happy to report that we finally got rid of our ammonia stink issues! Thank goodness! Logans rash was so terrible on Friday night, I was almost in tears. I had used Dawn dish detergent to strip my diapers a couple of days before, but I guess since they had so much build up in them from not stripping them well enough in the past, that all the Dawn did was bring the ammonia to the surface and it caused burns on his little bum :( Thankfully, the rash didn't seem to hurt him. So, I stripped my diapers AGAIN on Saturday. This time I did a cold wash with my Rockin Green Soap and Calgon water softener. Then I ran a second hot  wash with a teaspoon of regular blue Dawn dish detergent and a 1/2 cup of bleach and several extra rinses. I know this sounds like a lot of wasted water, but we have a high efficiency washing machine and you only have to do this once a month. It's been two days and even my overnight diapers have no trace of ammonia smell! I am so excited to finally find a stripping method that works for us...It's strange the things you get excited about when you become a parent!