When our first was old enough to finally start trying "real" food, we'd wanted to go the "baby led" route...but our tiny baby didn't have any teeth yet (she wouldn't get her first tooth until she was about 11 months old).
So I decided to take my love of all things food and dump it into making my own baby food packets.
I chose this route for a few reasons, but the biggest ones were that I was missing a creative outlet in my life (crafting is not my thing and writing had taken a big ol' backseat since having a baby) and developing my own blends for Godzilla became a great way for me to relieve stress and feel clever.
The other reason is that I'm cheap as hell *snort laugh*. And it was way
cheaper (and a whole lot more fun for me) to make my own food.
The two big things I learned through this process were:
Babies aren't really born with any innate allergies. THAT SAID: if you or your partner (or the birth parents, if you're an adopting family) have an allergy to any type of food, just be on notice when you first feed that item to baby (things like nuts and strawberries come to mind). The only thing that babies absolutely cannot ever have before 1 year old is honey. Raw honey is a huge no-no.
Give the baby the flavors! If my husband and I were eating it, I was probably grinding it up and putting it in a pouch for Godzilla. She was (and is) my spicy baby. Spices have never bothered her, up to and including cayenne. Don't be afraid to introduce awesome flavors to your little! We LOVE north Indian/Nepalese food in our house so curry was something she ate pretty much out of the gate!
Making your own baby food isn't for everyone. But I encourage you, whatever food introduction route you take, to let your baby explore all the beautiful flavors the world has to offer, right along with you!
If this is a thing you might like to try, here are a few of my favorite products for going about it! (oh and I don't get any kick-backs from the 'Zon for telling you about these) ChooMe Reusable Baby Food Pouches
And if you're ready to try some custom blends, but don't know where to start, I got you!