Today’s guest post is from Cortney, the other fabulous mind of onceamonthmom.com ^[1] (they paid me with a freezer meal to say that :-). So, I’ll admit it – I never made my own baby food. But, I was always curious about it and thought it was probably too much work. It’s not…seriously! Cortney has so many great resources available in the Baby Food section of onceamonthmom.com ^[1] that help make this a piece of pie…sweet potatoe pie, of course!

Want 5 convincing reasons to make you own baby food? Don’t think it really makes a difference? Want what’s best for your little ones? Well check out, what I believe are some pretty convincing arguments on why you should make your own baby food.

1. Homemade baby food smells a whole lot better than store bought. Okay so this may not be the greatest reason to make your own, but if you are like me, I almost gagged every time I had to feed my first born. I don’t do well with strong odors and/or unique tastes. Your feeding experiences with your kids shouldn’t make you want to leave the room!

2. It gives you and your child an opportunity to try unique flavors. Making your own baby food exposes your baby to more of a variety of tastes and textures. This will encourage your child to try new foods when he is a toddler and through out his childhood, and in turn develop healthy eating habits. Not to mention you control the food combination’s! Maybe your child likes pears and bananas, but not peaches. Maybe you can find peaches and bananas and not pears and bananas. No problem, you are making the food, you can make whatever combination you and your child would like!

3. You know WHEN and WHERE your child’s food was made. I don’t know about you, but I like knowing that my child’s chicken and rice dinner was made in my clean kitchen, cleaned by my hands, using the freshest ingredients that I could find. No uncertainties here. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying baby food plants are dirty, I am just saying when I make the food I am CERTAIN of the conditions the food has been under.

4. You know EXACTLY what your child is eating. When my first son was an infant, he ate store bought food and he turned out fine. But he did suffer from allergy symptoms that we could not pin-point but that he grew out of eventually. But I often wonder if there was some ingredient that I wasn’t aware of that was causing his symptoms? I will never know but I know now exactly what my second son is eating. If you can’t pronounce niacinamide, ferrous sulfate, or thiamine mononitrate should your child be eating it, whether it is found to be safe or not?

5. It SAVES you money. On average making your own baby food can save you 10¬¢ to 40¬¢ a jar! Over the course of 6 to 8 months of your child eating baby food that savings can really add up! Can’t do the math that quickly? In my first month, that was a savings of nearly $40!! What could you do with an extra $40 a month?

Cortney recently became a SAHM to her two boys, after a 8 year career in elementary education. She currently resides in Kettering, Ohio where her and her husband grew up. She and her co-author, Tricia, love to find new ways to save time and money, especially in the kitchen. In doing so, they share these ideas with you at onceamonthmom.com ^[1].