Baby Jar Food

Tiffany - posted on 12/26/2010

We started our daughter on sweet potatoes for 5 days. After that we introduced carrots for 3 days, then green beans, peas, etc. We started with veggies first. You should introduce a new food every 3 to 5 days so you know if they're having a reaction to any certain food. Some foods will give the baby acid, or a rash...some just don't agree with their bellies. If you do it 3 days in between then you'll know which one it is. Once the baby has had one type of food and you start another, they can still have the first one you did. We did the first week with just 1 jar a day adding it to her cereal. Then we did 2 times a day. After she was done with veggies we started fruit and gave her fruit with breakfast and veggie with dinner. Formula/breast milk stayed pretty much the same, maybe at the most 4 ozs. less but for the most part she stayed the same. I strongly recommend starting with veggies...it's easier to get them used to veggies before fruit. Babies who start on fruit tend to want fruit over the veggies. Make yourself a list of what foods you want to start and when. We did sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, green beans, peas, applesauce, bananas, peaches, pears and then introduced the mixed ones. Once you're done with those you can start introducing meats as well. Have fun! This is the most fun part. =) Also if your baby doesn't seem to like one of the foods, just keep with it and keep trying.

Savona - posted on 12/26/2010

Tummys can be finicky when starting with different foods =P

When I started giving my first bub different fruits and such I added little amounts in with her pabylum(rice cereal) like peach, apple and banana and such. Then I gradually started giving her some by itself after I noticed it wasnt causing her an upset tummy in her cereal.
If ya start slow then youre able to tell, more then likely, if its upsetting her/his tummy or causing her/him to bind up or diahhrea or whatnot. =)
Goodluck! =D

Rachael - posted on 12/24/2010

i made my own baby food, but I began with just 1 ounce at a time when the baby is hungry but not starving then follow up with a bottle. increase the food gradually and do not forget to wait a week or so in between introducing new foods. I started with squash and apples because it was fall and I made everything myself from fresh local produce. Good luck!

Lindsay - posted on 12/24/2010

We did one for each meal, that way, Jordan got to eat with us. Our Jordan was a piggy. We started small, but her belly seemed to have more and more room for jar food. She did not lessen her formula intake by much. She grew and grew. She just recently stopped eating so much (she is 19 months tomorrow). In my 3 kid experience, we have never lessened the amount of formula. I did however start the transition to sippys at that time.

Cassandra - posted on 12/24/2010

i would try it now
i did he ate it ever since

Julianne - posted on 12/23/2010

Its a lot easier to transfer to "adult food" if you skip jar food all together and do pureed veggies at home. That way you control the consistency and can slowly make it thicker. That way when your babies a little older you can skip the transition stage. I did this with gabby, shes a year old and eats the exact same food as i do i dont need to prepare it any different. Its a lot cheaper too. Theres nothing wrong with the little bottle foods, still healthy. Its just my mom told me that. She did jar foods with her eldest and just pureed whatever she was cooking for the youngest. She said it was easier. She raised 10 kids, so i take her advice on things like that.
Babies should have more milk than food until they are a year old. I started with 3 meals a day (very small ones) and stayed relatively the same with milk, if you find she drastically cut back on milk, shes eating too much solids. hope this helps :)

Stifler's - posted on 12/23/2010

jar food is the same as rice cereal. only in a jar. i just gave my kid breakfast and dinner and bottles in between at that age. they need more milk than food still.

Kathryn - posted on 12/23/2010

I started slowly with my son (3 years now) i think i started when he was about 6 months. I started with 1 jar a day around dinner time and it will build up to the 3 meals a day but i was told not to introduce to many to fast. My son was allergic to bananas, milk, and apples. The doctors told me when you introduce a new food give it to them for 3-5 days before you introduce anything else new. to make sure you can tell if they are having even a slightly reaction.

C. - posted on 12/23/2010

That's true, too.. Never feed a baby a new food on an empty stomach! It will just frustrate the both of you b/c they won't want to eat it if it's unfamiliar to them.

Ricky - posted on 12/23/2010

When I started my son on jarred food I mixed a little in the cereal so he could get used of the taste. If i gave him straight up food he would spit it out because it was too strong of a taste.

I used to feed my son a bottle and when he was about 3/4 done I would take it away and try some cereal and pureed food. If he ate it fantastic, if he didnt want it I would let him finish his bottle.
I only started to lesson his bottles when he was able to eat more varieties of food, such as meats, wheat, eggs, and dairy. That way when I did lessen the bottle he was still getting all the nutrients from the food.

Sarh - posted on 12/23/2010

Oh, I forgot something! When you do carrots don't get freaked out if there is orangish/redish color to his urine! The carrots goes through the urine. I've also heard of the color of the food appearing in a babies pigmentation who has fair skin. Just a heads up!

C. - posted on 12/23/2010

Pick one food, like green beans, and do that for about a week with nothing else but formula and cereal (do about a week per food). That way it gives you enough time to see if your daughter has an allergy to any of the foods.



A tip my mom told my sisters and me.. Do the vegetables before you do any fruits, b/c if you do it the other way around, they probably won't eat their veggies.



Also, it's a good idea to group them into colors (we did veggies first- green veggies first, then orange, then red, etc and then did the fruits the same way by color) Once you finish one color of veggies or fruits, go on to the next color.



We did it 2 times a day, if I remember correctly (our son is 2 1/2). We did just cereal and formula in the morning, cereal either mixed with the jar food or separate for lunch, along with a bottle and the same thing for dinner- either together or separate, jar food, cereal and a bottle. And of course bottles in between meals as usual. DO NOT take any bottles away just b/c you're feeding cereal and jar food. They still need formula/breast milk as often as you usually give it to them until about a year old.



Good luck!

Victoria - posted on 12/23/2010

we usually start with one jar a day and mix it with cereal. Bottles will slowly lessen as you had more food through out the day. It is important to still give them formula because it has many essential nutrients the baby cannot get from just milk and baby food at this age.

Sarh - posted on 12/23/2010

The bottles should NEVER lesson when feeding an infant (under a yr)! I hope you didn't lesson bottles with the cereal!?

Use one flavor/kind of baby food for 3-5days straight with out another flavor to make sure there is no reaction.

you can go to Gerber.com and use their meal planner, this may help you.

How often is she getting rice cereal? Give her jar food 3 times a day with her rice cereal or you can just give the rice cereal at breakfast. If you are not feeding her rice cereal 3 times a day then start slowly by doing the jar food just the once a day when she has the cereal and then after maybe a week or when you think she is becoming hungrier introduce a second meal and then again for the third.

She doesn't need rice cereal more then 3 times a day and the same for the baby food. I see another mother said this already, but it is more of "training" for them and a fun experience, the only thing a baby NEEDS is formula or breast milk.

Give her just formula for her first feeding of the morning (assuming she sleeps through the night, only give her formula in the night) feeding, her next feeding give her some rice cereal and 1/4-1/2 a jar of baby food ALONG WITH formula. Her formula intake should not decrease, if it does then her tummy is not big enough for more solids. Depending on how often she eats go off of what time it is when she gets hungry if it is close to lunch time then give her some food and her formula.

W/my son he sleeps through the night and when he wakes I nurse him, he then takes a 4hr nap so when he wakes up it is lunch time and between 10:30 & noon so he is only getting solids twice a day due to his sleeping patterns. After his first feeding when he wakes from his nap I give him 2tbsp rice cereal & 2tbsp mixed grain (mixed together) and 1/2 - 3/4 jar baby food. Then I nurse him the rest of the day until 9p when I give him 2tbsp rice cereal and 2 tbsp mixed grain again along with 1/4-1/2 of a veggie and a meat. When he first started I only gave him fruits and veggies though and he doesn't care for the meat and gravies, but the meats and veggies pre-mixed together he likes. However, my son started baby food at about a month old, but I hope this helps?!



When it comes to baby juice, don't start it until he is at least 6 months old. Do not exceed 2-4oz a day before baby is a yr old. There is no nutritional value and I only use it as something for my son to wash down his soilds, but he hasn't taken to the juice yet. Babies need their formula all day and night if they don't sleep through the night! Fruit juices has sugars that our human bodies can not break down! Our adult bodies can't let alone a baby. That is why when a baby is constipated soo many people "recommend" for you to give them fruit juice, the not breaking down of the sugars causes diarrhea, but when constipated it seems as though it brings the bowels back to normal. To prove my point.... go drink a 64oz bottle of apple juice! I bet you will be in the bathroom w/diarrhea. A male friend of mine decided it would be a smart idea to drink a 64oz bottle of apple juice in like an hour and he is 6'4" and like 250lbs! Not much juice for his size.

I hope this all made sense and helps some! Feel free to message me with any questions. :)

Danielle - posted on 12/23/2010

I started with the baby jars. I started with once a day. I fed my girls in the evening to help them sleep. then I went to two times a day after a month or so. then I went to three times.

Shannon - posted on 12/23/2010

for the first few months, food is just to teach them to chew and get used to new textures. their main source of nutrition should still be their bottles/breast. start of with veggies, such as carrot, or green beans. just start with a couple of spoons and gradually increase. also, dont intorduce more than one food at a time, just in case of allergies. so you would give her carrots say for about 3-4 days or a week before you intorduce a new one. BRAT foods are the most constipating (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast). good luck, have fun, and make sure you have a camera close by for the messy faces!

Heather - posted on 12/23/2010

When my son was started on jar food, we started him once a day (at lunch time) along with a 2-4 oz bottle. Give bottles throughout the day just as you are now. If you give too much jar food right away, your baby might get constipated. Also, start with vegetables before fruit because she might not eat the vegetables if you start with fruit first. After a couple of weeks of doing the one jar a day, I started doing one for lunch, one for dinner. By the time she gets a little older, her appetite will grow, and you can try giving her 2 jars at each meal.

Hayley - posted on 12/23/2010

i start slowly, i started just giving my daughter a jar of cow and gate porridge at 6months, then milk throughout the day, then you just build it up on how hungry they are etc, by the time their 10months id have them on 3 meals and milk at breakfast and bedtime with juice in between, everyone different though