Customer Reviews

The Well-Fed Baby: Easy Healthful Recipes for the First 12 Months

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I had planned to make my own baby food, so I bought several books on the subject. This book was by far the best one of the lot. It gives clear, concise guidelines for what foods to feed babies at different ages, done in bulleted lists that make the book very easy to read. The recipes are fairly simple and don't use alot of esoteric ingredients like many of the other baby cookbooks. Overall, this is the best laid out and most informative baby food book out there. A great buy for anyone interested in cooking their baby's food.

There is some confusing and questionable advice in this book. For instance, it's commonly held that babies shouldn't have cow's milk before the age of one year, yet there are many recipes in here that call for 2 cups or more of cow's milk for 6-month-olds! Also, there are recipes that call for "brown rice", again for six-month-olds, with no explanation as to whether they mean cooked brown rice, like Uncle Ben's, or if there's an infant brown rice cereal (I've never seen it). There are even some recipes that recommend citrus for young babies, but I've read you should wait until at least a year to introduce citrus fruits. This may be a decent recipe book for older babies, but I don't intend to use it for my beginning eater.

I purchased this book because I was looking for help in making all of my son's baby food. The book doesn't really help with this, since all of the recipes are multi-ingredient, and (of course) when just starting out, you really need preparation instructions for single ingredient stuff.

I decided not to keep the book even after my baby was eating mixed food because: 1) The recipes are not very inventive (it was all stuff I would've come up with on my own); 2) The book is not very easy to work with (it's small and doesn't stay open to a given page very easily); 3) There are no illustrations or other aids to help you find ideas quickly.

A friend of mine brought over Super Baby Foods and I purchased that instead. I wish someone had mentioned *that* book to me before I'd bought this one - that's why I'm writing this review. If you're looking for help getting started making your own baby food, like I was, Super Baby Food is the book for you - not this one.

A friend let me borrow this book and insisted that it was "the best baby food book ever." I loved it so much I bought my own! This book has wonderful recipes for the "in-between" months - when stage 3 baby foods are too mushy for finger food, and baby can't eat all of the things mommy and daddy are eating. The recipes are simple and easy to follow, and there is a lot of variety. Now that my son is a little older I still use a lot of the snack recipes to make him healthy snacks that he absolutely loves.

I was starting my son on solids and was searching for advice and suggestions. This book provides both, in addition to information on nutrition and wonderful and easy recipies that the whole family will enjoy. It is a must have for any parent.

A must have for every mom and dad to be that plan on making their own baby food! The authors, Sweet and Bloom, do a great job of presenting a large variety of recipes that are also simple and easy to follow. No searching for California parsley tops like some of the other baby recipe books. My wife and I bought this book just after our son, Zachary, was born and we both found it's information presented in a clear and understandable way. This one is recommended to anyone wanting to go through the effort of making your own...and who wouldn't want to feed that special little baby the best food possible?!!! Good luck and good cooking!

I bought Super Baby Foods and was disappointed. It was hard to follow (with many cross-references per paragraph), difficult to make super porridge and other staples, and disjointed. All I needed was a book with recipes to make food for my baby! The Well Fed Baby did just that. The recipes are clear and easy to understand, all calling for fresh ingredients. The recipes use a variety of foods, including all the single-item foods you'd need. The nutritional information is straightforward and easy to read. I used these recipes exclusively from about 7 months to 12 months, and even now, my 14-month old daughter still loves several recipes that I blend chunkier than called for.

I could not have been more pleased with this book. It has tons of great ideas for all ranges of babies. The author clearly states which month you could start feeding each dish - many other baby cookbooks just say 6-12 months. Obviously, what a 12 month old eats is different than what a 6 month old does.

Other reviewers who have said it has questionable ingredients didn't read it carefully. Some recipes call for milk - the author says to put in formula or breastmilk until a year of age and then add cows milk. And yes, there are some recipes that have sugar - but in minute amounts. For example, there is a fruit muffin that has 1/4 cup of sugar...and that makes 12 muffins. Have you ever checked the ingredients on the back of a jar of food? They have sugar! And other things like onion powder (Gerber creamed spinach), or even cinnamon(zwieback)! And if you wanted, you can always leave this things out and still have a great dish.

The book is divided into breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and also has a sections on soups and snacks. I found this great cause I was always giving my son the same foods. It also gave me great ideas on how to mix things together. Unlike other books it didn't call for strange fruits and vegetables, but it does provide some ingredients you might not have used otherwise, like mango, millet, barley and every kind of bean you can imagine! And they tell you how to cook all the grains that it calls for.

I will say the author does not go into details on how to prepare single ingredient baby foods, but that is pretty much just steaming and pureeing, so it was not a problem for me.

So far my son has LOVED every single item I have made, and I can't wait to make some more. If you are looking for some yummy and interesting baby cuisine that is also EASY to read, then this is the book for you!

I bought this book based on others' reviews and because I wanted to make healthy food for my 6 month old. Right off, I realized this isn't the book I wanted. They only have about 2 maybe 3 recipes for 6 months olds, so this book is better for older babies and toddlers. The authors talk about introducing egg yolk at 7 months. My pediatrician told us to wait until a year old for eggs. Also, they have recipes for citrus fruit for 8 months, which we were also told to wait until a year. The authors talk about a vegan lifestyle and how to get your baby started on that. My husband and I are not vegetarian, so if your like us, I would not recommend this book. If you are, maybe you would like it. They also talk about soy and tofu, which I don't plan on giving my baby.

Bottom line, I really didn't like this book. I would highly recommend Blender Baby Food (see review).

I got this book for the same reasons everyone else did-to be able to provide my baby with good nutritious food in hopes of avoiding jarred baby food. I found this book to have one main problem, lots of contradictions. At first it told me what I wanted to hear, you can make baby food at home and it's easy and fulfilling. The emphasis seemed to be on providing foods that don't contain extras like sugar, butter, seasonings, etc. Then many of the recipes given contained these extras: sugar, salt, butter, and cinnamon for 10 month olds. I didn't find this very reassuring and not what I was looking for. These recipes came from chefs whom may or may not have kids so maybe that's the reason, but this was certainly not what I had in mind for my baby.