Every baby is different, but I made pureed food for all of 4 months. I also only made one fruit or veggie in medium size batches about two to three times per week. You only need the super smooth stuff in the beginning. At a certain point, if it’s mashable by fork then it’s soft enough for baby.

Equipment like this IMHO seem to cater to the parents that think baby food is supposed to come from a jar. I kid you not, I had friends who didn’t want to make baby food because they didn’t think they could get it smooth enough.

While the machine may seem pricey, if we assume an average use of one year and 3 meals/day, each use adds $0.13 to the cost of the food being prepared. So, convenient, inexpensive, and of a quality equal to of better than that of prepared food? Sounds like a good choice for my daughter.

My criticisms of the machine include the difficulty of cleaning the overflow valve in the handle and the base of the blades, as well as the lack of a bell warning that the cooking cycle has completed. Also, like seemingly every other modern electrical device, the cord is too short!

I would never spend $150 on this, but if money was no object I would have bought one in a second and then passed it on so it would get lots of use.

My second sort of just skipped baby food. From breastmilk straight to food off our plates (fork-chopped) in about a week’s time. The only things I delayed were common allergens (peanut butter, eggs, cow’s milk). Even easier stuff- especially since we never had to give her a spoon, she went straight to stuffing her face on her own.

So yeah- I’m currently biting my tongue while my friend gets excited over this thing, which she got for a shower with her first baby. As neat as it may be, can’t possibly beat the neatness of not even worrying about what/how you’re going to feed the baby, since the baby eats whatever you do!

It is so much more convenient to use than dragging out a pan and food processor (and we don’t own a rice cooker or a microwave). I can chop up some veggies, toss them in, and go tend to the munchkin. I don’t have to watch the boiling pot on the stove, etc. Plus, it’s much easier to wash the tiny little machine versus the large pot and large food processor (picture the image of woman hand washing food processor with one hand while tending to four month old baby with other hand. The scale of the items you are washing is an important factor!) We also happen to have the smallest kitchen in Southern California, making it near impossible to have a pan and a bowl and a food processor in use at the same time, so score another point for the Babycook machine.

Another surprise use we found for the machine was a pet food maker. Our little cat had a bout of the flu and wouldn’t touch any of her normal canned food. The vet suggested we make some home cooked food (gave us a few good recipes). We used the Babycook to prepare a warm meal three times a day for our ailing cat (she recovered just fine, loved the food).

okay, I’ve blathered on for a while now. I love my “unitasker”! And it takes up less cabinet space than an ice cream maker or a juicer (ha-ha, jab at Erin, sorry )

I just use a pot and a Magic Bullet, because that’s what I had around. In fact, the Magic Bullet was a gift, and I thought it was kind of silly until I started making baby food!

In fact, I think it is a useful appliance, especially if you’re going to have more than one child but you buy it for your first. Then at least you’ll get much more than the 6 months’ use out of it. That said, as a mother of 3 kids, I always just steamed veggies and then blended them with a hand blender… and on trips I used the jarred stuff.

If I make a chicken soup for the family, I mash up some of the veggies from that too.

then again, I got my kid on canned peas and carrots and canned corn and teeny bits of tomato, cucumber, apple, etc as soon as she could pick up food herself, so it was maybe 2-3 months of mushy food.