10 Ways to Use Purees
From Dawn Winkelmann @spectrumspeech
Speech Language Pathologist & Feeding Expert for @ezpzfun, @TheBabyGuyNYC
Every family and every baby is different. Sometimes, when we don’t recognize that, we end up putting a lot of extra stress on ourselves. If questions like: “is my baby hitting milestones on time?” and “am i doing this right?” have once or twice (or more) run through your head, we totally get it AND we’ve experienced it first-hand.
As a team, we’re here to support parents in whatever works for them; in feeding and beyond. While we chose to put our delicious recipes in a baby food pouch, that doesn’t mean that pouch needs to limit you! In fact, we teamed up with Dawn Winkelmann, Speech Language Pathologist & Feeding Expert, to think about 10 ways to use purees that have nothing to do with eating directly from the pouch.
We’ve covered the first couple of ways here. If you want to learn more about different uses for pureed foods, check out Dawn and Jamie’s (@thebabyguyNYC) FB Live Chat about Inspired Start. As always, be sure to talk to your pediatrician about what will work best for you and your baby.
Dawn’s Ways to Use Purees:
Test baby’s swallow reflex
There’s a difference between the swallowing reflex from breast, to bottle, to puree. Purees are a nice transitional food and allow you to make sure baby has a great swallow before transitioning to a fully solid diet.
Use as a Dip
If BLW is more your thing, you can cut up fruits and vegetables and use puree as a dip! Inspired Start’s apple & peanut and banana & tree nut recipes are some of Dawn’s favorite for dipping.
Understand what textures baby likes or doesn’t
You can add in Granola, chia seeds, or even fruit loops to see if your little one likes crunchy textures, more solid/uniform textures, or anything in between.
Enjoy through a straw
Straw use is fun and it ends up being a really good motor activity because you are using muscles in your cheeks and your lips. Later in life, this lip rounding is used in speech production!
Want to keep learning? Click here to go to our FB Chat with Dawn and Jamie!
