Using Purees in Baby Led Weaning

Using Purees in Baby Led Weaning

When I did baby led weaning with my first, I started out feeling like I should be totally against purees. I quickly learned that they have their place and can be equally important in the weaning process!

If you are curious about baby led weaning, you can see my original post here and I’ll explain why I prefer to skip traditional ‘baby food’ and spoon feeding.

I was sent a shipment of individually frozen puree mixes from Harvest to Highchair. I met the owner of this small company last year at Mommy Con, and now that Mommy Con is coming up again I’m finally getting around to working with her! Finley has been eating solids for a month now and is getting really good at it!

My opinion of these products are entirely my own, despite being gifted the baby food to review.

Offering your baby a variety of textures is so important! I love having the option to add purees to Finley’s ‘meal plan’ and feel good about what’s inside them! Harvest to Highchair uses clean and fresh ingredients tailored perfectly to babies who are just starting out!

The best part? It gets shipped right to your door!

The difference between Harvest to Highchair food and the baby food you will find in a grocery store is that Harvest to Highchair food has not been pasteurized and made shelf stable. Pasteurization requires food to be cooked at an extremely high heat, which takes away from the nutrition and flavor of the food.

Harvest to Highchair baby food is made (local to me) in Charleston, SC in a DHEC approved kitchen and shipped right to your door! It can be made fresh and shipped as such straight to your door within 24 hours, to be consumed within 7 days. Or you can opt for the frozen baby food which is frozen in individual cubes to minimize food waste. These you can keep frozen for 6 months!

I’m going to share a few ways you can incorporate puréed baby food into your BLW experience!

1. Spread it on toast, English muffins, bagels, etc.

2. Pre load a spoon and set it on baby’s tray. Let them explore and feed themselves!

3. Stir it into oatmeal or yogurt and pre load a spoon full for baby.

4. Use it as a dip for other foods like toast, veggies, or crackers.

5. Put it in a smoothie and let baby learn to suck using a pouch, sippy cup, or straw bowl. (The sucking milestone doesn’t come until around 9 months of age, so if your younger baby isn’t picking up on the sucking motion, it’s totally normal!)

6. Spread a little straight on baby’s tray for a little bit of messy, yummy sensory fun!

7. Add it to pancake batter! A simple recipe you can play around with is an egg, a ripe banana and a little bit of puree. You can double up by using tip number 1 and spreading some on the cooked pancake!

There are so many fun ways you can use purees in your baby led weaning journey! They don’t have to just be directly spoon fed to baby! Varying textures and consistencies are so important when baby is learning to eat so make sure to keep changing it up!

Let me know in the comments if you have any additional ideas on how you can incorporate purees into baby led weaning!

If you are looking for some great pureed baby food to try these methods out on, consider Harvest to High Chair! They are made with healthy whole foods and actually smell and taste really good (obviously I tried them myself! It helped that the ‘carrot’ flavor smelled amazing (like sweet potatoes).