I never imagined myself as the type to make homemade baby food. To be honest, I thought it seemed like a crazy amount of work and how would I possibly be able to manage making baby food when I’m trying to manage taking care of a baby! But after seeing my friend Jen manage to make her own for her daughter, here I am attempting to make a massive amount of my own baby food for my son! I started doing this yesterday and since then I have complied a small pros and cons list from my experience thus far. So here we go!

Pro: I know exactly what I am feeding my son. I know that I went to the grocery store, picked out the vegetable (which I could buy organic if I wanted to), bought said vegetable, brought it home, cooked it, mashed it, froze it! The end. I know exactly where it’s been from the time I bought it to the time I cooked and froze it. I know there’s no secret additives or chemicals that perhaps store bought baby could contain.

Con: It takes a long time to prepare enough baby food to last me a couple of weeks. My friend (mentioned above) even warned me of this back when Nate was probably a month or two old. She specifically told me with her daughter she wished she had started making the baby food early on (like when her daughter was a few weeks old) that way she would have had some already frozen and ready to go for when her daughter was ready for solids. But instead she spent an entire day preparing, cooking, and freezing veggies and fruits. I should have listened because now here I am in the exact same boat! It takes a long time to prepare, cook, and freeze each vegetable. And since Nate is just starting out on solids, I can’t mix up the vegetables and fruits because I need to make sure he has no allergies. If I mixed carrots with sweet potato and he had an allergic reaction how would I know which veggie he was allergic too?

Pro: I feel good that I’m making him food from scratch! It feels nice knowing I’m putting in all this extra effort to make sure he eats as best as he possibly can. I like that feeling!

Con: It makes a friggin mess! I’m kind of a neat freak when it comes to my kitchen. I’m constantly cleaning up while I’m cooking so that when the meal is over there isn’t a huge mess left for me. Well, trying to prepare all this food means I have dishes every where! From pots for steaming veggies, to pans for baking them, to utensils to mash them up, to the massive Ninja blender we own; there’s just so much stuff everywhere! Plus, we only have one blender so if I make more than one vegetable or fruit at a time, I have to thoroughly wash it before using it again so there’s no cross contamination.

Pro: I think in the long run making my own baby food will save me money. My top up pay from my work has ended so I’m only getting my employment insurance money now which isn’t a whole lot so finding ways to save is a definite must! Baby food seems to cost between 89 cents to $1.09 per jar (depending on the store) so if I buy a large sweet potato that costs $1.99 and it makes enough food to last me over two weeks then I feel like it’s totally worth making my own!

Con: There has to be another person around to entertain Nate. When I started making the carrots yesterday he was napping so I thought it was perfect timing, however; he ended up waking up half way through so it was hard trying to steam, mash, jar, and freeze all the food plus keep him entertained. I had to stop after only one batch of carrots because he was demanding my sole attention. So if I had another person around then they could help with either the cooking or keeping Nate entertained. I decided to ask my sister to come over on Friday so I can get the rest of the baby food finished.

So after only two days of making my own baby food, my pros and cons are equal! Stay tuned and see if one out weighs the other after I finish! Since I still have more carrots, green beans, peas, blueberries, mango, and strawberries to make I’m sure the list will continue to grow on both sides!

*Please note that these are my own opinions. I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to make my own baby food. I by no means think that if someone feeds their child store bought baby food they are doing something wrong or being a bad parent. I simply chose to make my own! I do not judge anyone who does the opposite! And who knows, maybe I’ll get tired of making my own and end up buying jarred!*

Thoughts? Did any of you ever make your own baby food? Do you have any advice for me as I continue to make my own? Let me know!