At first you’ll have to puree all your baby’s food, but this stage won’t last very long, so if you don’t have a blender or food processor it’s probably best just to get a cheap hand-operated food milk. At first a sieve will be perfectly adequate. As your baby gets older you can feed him coarser foods. By the time he is six months old he will be able to take a thicker puree, and at nine months he will enjoy a mash with chunks of meat or vegetables in it.
You can use a variety of liquids to thin home-prepared foods: the water you’ve used to steam fruit or vegetables is ideal. To thicken foods, you can use ground, whole-grain cereals like wheat germ, cottage cheese, yogurt, or mashed potato. If you feel you need to sweeten food, use naturally sweet fruit juice, not refined sugar. In general, however, young babies don’t have a developed taste for sweets, so try foods unsweetened first, adding sweetener only if your baby absolutely refuses everything without it.
