Nipples, and making your own Baby Food...

I had my first and only child when I was 22 years old. At the time, I had been living in Tennessee for about 3 years. In Tennessee, it takes at least 20 minutes to get to any kind of a store, and that’s only if you illegally pass a tractor, in the right lane. Therefore, it’s no surprise that I lived hours away from my closest family members. My then Baby Daddy, now my Husband, worked 24-48 hour shifts so I could stay home with our daughter. It sounds like a backdrop for a Lonely Existence with splash of Suicidal Ideation, and a sprinkle of Manic Depression. But it wasn’t! It never occurred to me to be lonely, much. I had my hands full with a newborn infant, my traumatized nipples, and making Super Baby Food. 

Back then I was stubborn, determined, and adventurous. What do you mean not much has changed?! I decided during my pregnancy that I would breastfeed, because I read it was the most optimal nutrition for an infant. I didn’t know anyone personally who had nursed their children, nor did I know anyone who was doing it currently. I was unfamiliar with the internet as a resource, so I read about it in books, and attended new parent classes. I saw the pictures, and read the chapters about how the infant latches on with innate expertise, nurses only until her belly is full, and easily adapts to the mother’s schedule and milk production. What a beautiful, natural way to bond with your baby while still maintaining that hectic hair and nail schedule! 

Because I had no one to ask, and my requests for a La Leche consultation at the hospital failed, I went home with 2 nipples and a prayer. Within the first couple of weeks, my human nipples looked like an entire boulevard filled with Ladies of the Night had stomped them with 6 inch spike heels! Then threaded them through a Pasta Grinder set on Spaghetti. Then torched them with cans of hairspray and propane tanks. I’m not kidding!  I begged the doctor for moisturizers, salves, even a Nipple Transplant. Nothing helped, until my own skin toughened up, and my daughter learned how to latch on properly. It would have been handy to have had that little demo from the beginning. Lesson in Perseverance: learned!

During my endless hours a day nursing (there are more than 24 of them in a day when you’re a new mom, and you’re awake for most of them), sitting stationary on an uncomfortable couch, starving because my daughter was using me as a human pacifier and I was too inexperienced to realize it, I came across another bright idea. An additional activity I could perform to nurture and encourage supreme nourishment for my growing infant. I decided to make my own baby food! To compound matters, Baby Daddy and a few others insisted I could not do it. They felt that my inability to use the lever of a toaster, or recognize that oil in a pan over high heat would eventually burst into flames, would inhibit my success. What a bunch of Debbie Downers! 

An advertisement in one of those value packs introduced me to the idea of making my own baby food. It was for a book by Ruth Yaron, called Super Baby Food.

I learned alot from that book, not just how to feed your baby ultra healthy food, but also how to make your Mom baby puke! The basic message of the book is using organic, all natural, and 100% whole grain ingredients to feed your child, and not precessed and preserved baby food in a jar.  My daughter devoured bowls of kale, avocado, brewers yeast, and homemade soy milk yogurt mixed into hand-ground whole grain oats, while my mother gagged and smiled. After a bit of trial and error, it was inconceivably simple and surprisingly rewarding to make all of my own baby food. I highly recommend this book, and will be glad to help anyone who tries it! Send me an email at Nichole@ParamedicCooks.com, or talk to me in person. May the Wheat Germ be with you!