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Home > Homemade baby food (but first a rant)

Homemade baby food (but first a rant)

September 13th, 2010 at 05:02 am

First off, thanks so much for celebrating my $100K milestone with me!

We had a nice weekend all to ourselves, which was perfect after my awful week at work. We were talking today about when AS hopefully has a baby; how we're going to try and take some parental leave with her. NT is fairly sure his job will let him take leave; they're a smaller place and all very supportive of our family, so I think it's possible, though not guaranteed. My job? I think it'd be a harder sell, since I'm not going to be biologically involved or anything. But I'm thinking I could take sick leave for the first week or two. Wondering how I could approach my HR or supervisor about it. Most people know, sort of, about my relationship, but we're part of a much bigger company that's owned by an even bigger holding company, and lately they've been into trying to squeeze us for every drop of work they can get out of us...anyway, I still think I should be able to take sick leave, which I never use, as family health time or something. And as I told NT and AS, if they won't work with me, they might have a date with Mr. Letter of Resignation. They're really not offering me much these days, so it wouldn't take much to push me over the line...

Whoops, didn't mean to do that. Just changed the post title a bit to warn you. ;-) All I was going to write about was that we've been making AA's food from scratch. We're doing it mainly because it seems like the optimal healthy choice, but it also seems to be much cheaper. $2 worth of organic veggies can make nearly a week's worth of food, versus the prepared baby food that's like 60 cents for a tiny jar (more if you go organic).

It's pretty easy and kind of fun. I just cook the veggies or fruit in water until soft, puree with some of the cooking liquid in our Vitamix blender, and strain it through a sieve into a Tupperware. I did keep it for up to a week at first, but then I read that you should only keep baby food for up to 3 days. So now, if I think it's going to last more than that, I spoon it into an ice cube tray, pry the cubes out the next day, and store them in plastic baggies, pulling out a few cubes the night before for the next day's food.

We found out the daycare lady's been giving her regular baby food, which is fine except you're supposed to introduce new ingredients 4 days apart, and now I have no idea if that was happening. LOL, oh well. Someone else warned me that these experienced older daycare providers sometimes "go rogue" so I wasn't exactly surprised or upset. It made me feel better, actually, because sometimes I'd only go a couple days before introducing a new food and I'd feel all guilty, but I won't worry anymore. Anyway, we told her we'd bring homemade food for AA most days. It's gonna be a bigger deal when she's old enough for meat, because we want to keep her vegetarian except for fish! But we'll cross that bridge later.

It's been really fun introducing new foods. AA likes most of it; so far she's been iffy on green beans and potato (though it may have been the texture); rejected banana, avocado and butternut squash; and really liked sweet potato, peas and carrots. Oh, and she LOVES pears, apples and plums!

Tonight I made carrot puree (with a small potato blended in) and added some powdered ginger (her first spice!) to take to daycare. Should last her 3 days. She's got veggie medley (pea-carrot-sweet potato-potato) and plums defrosting for dinner.

If you have a good blender already, it's a really cost-conscious choice, and pretty healthy too!

8 Responses to “Homemade baby food (but first a rant)”

  1. Miclason Says:
    1284352162

    My doctor recommended homemade food for Ale, too, when she was a baby. I would only buy bottled ones if we were going out of the city (trips to friends farm, or the beach)

  2. momcents Says:
    1284383657


    Couldn't you use the FMLA - I would think that if the company doesn't recognize your family, that would be discrimination - they certainly should work with you. If not, I'd be leaning towards a letter of resignation, too!

  3. Homebody Says:
    1284390215

    Yes so much cheaper. Ally would not eat any fruit as a baby, but once she could pick up the banana pieces herself, she decided she liked it. Now we just give her a banana and she loves to peel it and eat (after we of course start the peeling for her!).

  4. dmontngrey Says:
    1284398341

    Yes, go the FMLA route. FMLA rules are getting less restrictive on who the child actually "belongs" to when you request leave to care for a child. If you are responsible for the care of the child, the company really has no place to deny you leave due to a lack of biological connection. Just something to look into.

  5. ceejay74 Says:
    1284400750

    Thanks you guys! I'll speak with a family lawyer to get some more input, but I'm hoping my job will be understanding. Your comments give me a bit more hope.

  6. MonkeyMama Says:
    1284402867

    Not to be a downer, but the only other thing I could add is that not every company is subject to FMLA. But, I would definitely look into it.

    Smaller companies are not subject to FMLA (less than 50 employees?) But, if it is under a larger company, maybe they are subject to FMLA. You will need to find out what your rights are - they may not be much.

    I read the other comments and felt they were a little overly optimistic. My employer does not have to allow any time off to fathers in my office. He will generally let people use vacation time if it is not too disruptive. We have less than 10 people though - time off can bevery disruptive to the office. I have more rights as a biological mother than anyone else would. My only "rights" were to have my held job while I Was on pre/post pregnancy disability.

  7. ceejay74 Says:
    1284404275

    Don't worry MM, I definitely want all perspectives! I'm not even hoping for full parental benefits but just hoping they'll let me schedule some of my sick time (which, as I said, I never use, and expires every year unused and uncompensated) around the birth of our new baby.

    And yes, we do have FMLA in my office; I used it for my maternity leave.

  8. toddler meals Says:
    1284527373

    This is awesome blog full of information about the children health and foods. Thank you for making and sharing this excellent blogs.

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