She also got her first tooth just before she turned 7 months old, and is working on another one that I am expecting any minute. She ALWAYS wants to be chewing on something. She loves the teethers you can put in the freezer, but they warm up so fast. She likes chewing on food, but that goes pretty quick too since they are easy to gum up and get down. I knew she would love some sort of teething biscuit that she could gnaw on for a long time. She also likes things that are big for easy grabbing, such as a whole half of a banana or eggs in a long stick form.
They make cracker-like biscuits just for this purpose, such as these by Earth's Best. It isn't so much the ingredients that bother me (besides the dried milk and just the fact that they are made in a factory), but the price and and texture. They are really crunchy, and I fear that a big chunk would break off and my little angel wouldn't be able to gum it up in time and she might choke. They are great for older toddlers when you need something packaged and on-the-go, and I did use these for my boy when he was a little over a year, but I wanted something else for my 7-month-old. Something hard, but not brittle, and nutritious too.
I had no idea these would come out as good as they did. I was kind of blindly throwing darts at the board and happened to come up with a fantastic baby-led weaning recipe. They are so perfect for her - she can grab them easily, they take her forever to get soft enough to get a little bit in her mouth, and she loves the taste. They keep her busy, her gums happy, and she gets a nutritious snack if she gets any down.
I used jarred sweet potato baby food here, but I'd rather use fresh mashed sweet potato. I just happened to have the jarred stuff and didn't' want it to go to waste.
I also used baby cereal. I read the ingredients several times, and deemed it legit. There are added vitamins, which I'm not sure how I feel about, but given my certain tendency to be anemic I figured it couldn't hurt her to have a little extra iron source.
My ingredients: whole wheat flour, baby cereal, banana, sweet potatoes, butter, and maple syrup.
I started by mashing half the banana and sweet potato together. If you want to skip the sweet potato, I'd just use a whole banana. Alli likes half of bananas though, so it worked out nicely.
Nothing like baby mash.
Then I added the melted butter. A lot of other teething biscuit recipes are fat free. Not in this house.
Then I added the flour, baking powder, and cereal and got it all mixed up.
I took half the dough and rolled it out in more baby cereal. I worked quite a bit of cereal into it.
I rolled it out cracker-thin, and then used cookie cutters to accomplish this. A donut cutter would work well too. This also gave me adorable little heart-shaped crackers suitable for my toddler.
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Baked!
Aren't they cute?
Baby girl loves them. They are just slightly sweet, and very wholesome tasting. My toddler likes them too - so win win!!
Lovin' it! They do get kind of messy because they become complete mush, but, don't all things at 7 months?
These are also so much better than those awful puff deals.
Teething Biscuits
1/2 a banana
1 jar baby sweet potatoes, or an equal amount of mashed sweet potatoes.
4 Tblsp. butter
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup baby cereal
1/2 tsp. baking powder
Mash the banana and sweet potatoes together. Add in the butter and maple syrup. Then stir in the flour, cereal, and baking powder. Separate dough into 2 portions and roll out pretty thinly - a little thinner than a graham cracker. Cut out into desired shapes and put on a baking sheet lined with either parchment or a sil-pad. Bake at 350 degrees until browned slightly - about 15 minutes. Let cool and store in air tight container. I packaged mine good and freezed most, so I can take them out as I need them. I didn't want them sitting around going bad given she eats about 1 every 3 days :).
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