Big Family Food: What I Feed Our Babies

Curious what I feed our babies? While they don’t eat large quantities like our big kids, I still felt like this would be fun to talk about within our Big Family Food series! After all, there are a lot of babies at our house. :)

We currently have six kids ages 8 and under. Four of our kids are 3 and under. (Five kids 3 and under three days each week – I’ll explain below.) We have 3 exclusively in diapers, 1 who still sleeps in diapers, and 1 who comes over three days a week and is still in diapers. Five in diapers, you ask? Yep. We just line-em-up and change diapers (or run to the potty). All day long.

Our little ones’ ages are currently 8, 6, 3, 3, 2, 17 months, and 7 months. Here are five of the kids huddled around Daddy as he reads Brayden’s birthday card out loud.

The fella on the left (below) was our foster son for 18 months. He is reunited with his dad now, praise God! But because he is a relative of our current foster/adopted kids, his dad lets him come for frequent visits each week. THIS IS SUCH A GIFT. For all of us. :) :) :)

The picture below shows two of our little girls. Girlie on the left is 17 months old and not yet walking due to foot and leg issues we’re working on. She gets around though – up and down the stairs, into the cupboards and trashcans, and has the best belly laugh on the planet. :) Girlie on the right just turned 2 and has come so far since she moved in last summer! She is as sweet as she is stubborn and helps me be a “mommy” to all the babies in our house.

Aww, there they are again, busy as ever.

Matt, Malachi (age 17, but remember when he used to be my baby?!), and I took the kids to a Historic Farm for a fun fall festival they were hosting last October. I’m pictured here, holding our littlest girlie who just turned 7 months old. Her smile is as big as her face and she is pretty chill most of the time. I think she knows she has to be since she is the youngest of ten!

Never a dull moment?! That would be correct. Here’s Daddy holding our 2yo and Keith chugging down some juice while Brayden and Bonus Sister act out a play.

What’s more fun to look at? Kids or food?

Kids. Obviously. But let’s move on now to show you what our littlest kids eat. (And big kids too, just in larger quantities.)

Here’s a sample of breakfast plates I fixed for Keith (age 3) and two of our girls (ages 2 and 1). A breakfast cookie (plain, no dried fruit or chocolate chips), rewarmed Breakfast Casserole, and blueberries.

Another day, this was what their breakfast looked like. Bananas, pears, and sourdough toast (a special treat from a friend!)…

I buy applesauce squeezies, pear cups, peach cups, and mandarin orange cups in bulk. I keep a tray stocked with them at all times so I can open them up and hand them to babies and kids as needed for side dishes or snacks between meals.

I try occasionally to take one or two kids to the store with me. It’s a fun outing for them and gives us one-on-one time together, which is rare and precious since we have so many kids now. Here, Keith went with me to get fresh produce. It was fun to talk to him about all the fun fruit and veggies choices we were making, what Daddy loves, what sisters loved, and so on. :)

I recently told you about my favorite way to eat an apple. Turns out, it’s one of the kids’ favorites too! Often, I’ll cut really thin slices of apples onto a plate with this cheese. We go through half a bag of apples this way as the kids just keep reaching in for more. So good!

I use my Blendtec like crazy when feeding my family. This Orange Julius recipe makes a fun snack or “side dish” with our meals.

We go through a lot of eggs at our house! Keith loves to help me crack them as we prep for breakfast.

How sick are you of me talking about these smoothies? Yes, Laura, we know. You like to make these smoothies with greens in them so that your kids can drink salad and be happy about being so nourished. So I guess I’ve mentioned these before then?

Here’s a fun parent hack if you aren’t already doing this! Whenever we make Mac and Cheese for the kids, we dump frozen peas into the bottom of each bowl, like this:

Then, we put the hot mac and cheese on top of the frozen peas. Stir it together, and boom. The peas are cooked, the mac and cheese is instantly cooled, and the combo of mac and cheese with peas tastes really good!

While we most often blend our greens into smoothies like I shared above, our kids will also eat fresh spinach on a plate with a dab of ranch for dipping. They eat the spinach just like they dip carrots in ranch. And on this particular day, Keith also tried dipping his strawberry in ranch. Hmmm… Looks like a silly goose to me.

Muffins!!!! Oh my goodness, the muffins. We eat them and then we eat some more. It is my goal to bake and keep muffins on hand, even if I don’t ever get any other baking done. All the kids love them and they help to stretch our meals or to provide an easy-to-grab snack at all times. (Here are 40 muffin recipes I reference frequently.)

I’ll keep taking pictures of our kids’ plates during the next few weeks so I can share more!

What are your favorite meals for itty-bitties?

Stay tuned for more Big Family Food posts, where I share all about how I make food for our big family!