Making your own baby food takes time, and time is definitely something us moms don’t have a lot of.

Thinking back to my youngest son’s baby days, I am so glad I took the time to make homemade baby food for him. His older brother was fed baby food I bought from the store and he turned out just fine, but there was something special about taking the time to make recipes and feed his younger brother what I had created with love.

Although it required a little extra prep work, I enjoyed the process of making homemade baby food for my second son because of three things I always kept in mind.

These are the three top benefits I’ve found when making homemade baby food and how it will benefit you and your baby.

1. Cost

Usually the first thing parents consider when deciding if homemade baby food is the right choice, cost savings can be a major benefit.

Compared to prepackaged baby food, you’ll spend much less buying organic ingredients and making it yourself than buying non-organic jar food. The cost savings add up!

It can also save you money by buying in bulk and making larger batches of baby food at a time. Here’s what I would do:

-Make a large batch of food

-Separate it into smaller portioned sized containers

-Refrigerate anything that will be used in the next day and freeze anything that won’t be used soon

-Fill a few reusable baby food pouches to grab and go when we’re out the house

It usually takes about an hour and I’d have enough food for a few weeks.

2. Quantity of Ingredients

This one is often overlooked, but controlling the quantity of ingredients in your baby food recipe can be a huge benefit. Buying pre-made baby food from the store can be a time saver, however when you make it yourself you get to decide if you want more apples or more spinach. More pears or more squash. Depending on your baby’s needs you can control the amount of each ingredient that will give her the best nutritional value.

3. Quality

I’m sure you’ll agree that quality is important when feeding babies. Knowing that I wasn’t feeding my baby any fillers, unnecessary water that diluted the food or pesticides made the extra time to puree my baby’s food from scratch worth it.

Local farmers markets can be a good source of quality ingredients since there is less time from field to table. Local farmers also usually try to farm environmentally responsibly so you can feel good about your choices.

Making your baby’s food at home means you can choose the quality and quantity of ingredients you put in his recipes so he is the healthiest he can be while also realizing significant cost savings for yourself.