Beaba Baby Cook- any experience ?

[lola1971]

Hi- I am considering buying the Beaba Baby Cook and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with it. It looks pretty simple and quick - even for full time working moms. Even though it seems spendy up front- I think you would save money in the long run by not buying prepacked baby food jars all the time.

Just curious if any moms out there had a chance to use this product...

[milesymommy]

Wow! I can say I've never seen that before.
I made a lot of Miles' baby food, with working. I used the recipes from www.wholesomebabyfood.com . I can say it really wasn't that hard. Most of my time spent was cleaning and peeling - and that's nothing that a machine can do for you. I just used regular pots to cook stuff in, and either a blender or mixer for pureeing it. Blenders create a different consistency than mixers, but mixers can't always get it fine enough, depending on the food. I just used small containers and then froze a lot of it. I'd take it out of the freezer the night before I would be using it and placed it in the fridge. Never needed to use anything to defrost the baby food that way.
I can also say I won't be doing it with Josh. It is time consuming, and with two I just don't have the time. I honestly don't think I saved much money. A two pack of gerber organic peas is only .88 where I am. I think the only thing I could make cheaper with minimal effort was mashed sweet potatoes.
I'm not trying to dissuade you - I enjoyed the experience and can say I did it. I'm just saying there may not be a cost savings. You may want to hold off buying this and trying without an expensive maker because making baby food is really simple, even without an expensive machine.
If you buy it, look at buy buy baby and use a 20% bed bath and beyond coupon to save some money...

[kara]

Our DD was on baby food for a whole 2 weeks before switching to table foods, something we wouldn't have been able to forsee, so it surely would have been a waste of money for us. I say buy it if it saves you time, but I doubt it will save money. You still have to buy the stuff going into it, the electricity to use it, the water to clean it, etc. But I'm all for convenience, and if it lets you do fresh baby food, and you can splurge, why not? ;-)

[season]

For the price it would not have been worth it to me. I made my baby food, but in multiple batches at the same time. I would be baking sweet potatoes and steaming some other foods all at the same time. Then I'd blend one, and separate for freezing, and then do the next etc.. That device does not appear to make the same quantity of food per batch, and you could not be cooking one batch while pureeing the first batch etc...

To thaw, I just heated water in the microwave and set a dish with frozen food in it - the food is in such small quantities that it thawed quickly.

I do think making baby food is cheaper than buying it. I bought fruit and vegies on sale at the farmers market etc - so for a dollar or two a pound could make a large amount of baby food.

I also found that most in season fruits did not need pureeing - just mash and feed - and as Kara pointed out soon enough the babies move on to table food anyways. If the fruits were not in season I would by them frozen and thaw and mash as needed.

[mnmom]

I rarely used jar baby food. Most of the time, I used the food processor and they ate many of the same foods the rest of the family was eating. I did also freeze some, but most of the time I mashed/pureed and fed all at once.

[alexa5]

I have always just used the purchased baby foods....they really only use purees for a relatively small amount of time, so it didn't seem worth it to me to make a big effort to make my own. Plus I just really don't have much time, and the time I do have I don't want to be making food when Gerber has done it for me :-) My son does still eat purees, but he also eats table foods so it really hit home that the puree part of his life wasn't all that long.

If you choose to do it, I hope it works well for you! I do think it is nice to do your own if you are able to....