For sleep-deprived new parents, summoning the energy to fire up the blender or steamer and make baby food isn’t always easy, but the best baby food delivery services can streamline the process of feeding your little one by leaps and bounds. Once your baby gets to the point of being ready for solid foods (the American Academy of Pediatrics says this typically happens around the six-month mark), making your own food or buying ready-made purées is up to personal preference. But if you have the means to, one perk of trying a baby food delivery service is that premade baby foods ship directly to your door, usually ready to be chilled, unwrapped, warmed, and enjoyed.
One of the less obvious advantages of having pre-prepped, pre-measured baby foods on hand is avoiding food waste—especially for little ones who may not be eating much right now. If you’re making your own food, that often translates to a lot of food waste (since you may only need a stalk here or a handful of fruit pieces there to blend into a purée), or it means you’re freezing leftovers and feeding your baby the same dish over and over, without much variety.
Generally, the AAP also recommends exposing babies to a wide variety of flavors and textures, which is another great perk of baby food delivery services. Though just as a heads up, you may want to check in with a pediatrician before introducing common allergens like eggs, peanut butter, and milk. Since these services often consult with pediatricians, registered dietitians, and chefs, you’ll find lots of inventive flavor combinations, seasonal recipes, and healthy ingredients (which are often organic, if that’s important to you). Some services even grow with you, offering food for six-month-olds, toddlers, kids, and even teens and adults too (so the whole family can join in!).
Here, we’ve assembled some of the best baby food delivery services to try if you’re interested in dabbling, including some that our digital director Amy Eisinger has tried firsthand with her one-year-old daughter.
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Little Spoon
Little Spoon
Age Range: Six months to 10 months.
Why It’s Worth It:
Little Spoon is known for its range of puréed organic baby food, or Babyblends, that read like something off an adventurous smoothie bar menu. Sourced from organic fruits and veggies, without any preservatives or additives, you’ll find creative flavor pairings like beet, banana, and mango; pitaya, pineapple, spinach, banana, and coconut oil; and carrot, mango, coconut milk, and turmeric. Our tester mom said that the inventive combinations used in the blends really made this service worth it.
The service works with experts like pediatricians to personalize its meal plans for your baby’s needs, taking your baby’s developmental history into account. Food arrives to you cold and needs to be consumed pretty quickly since there aren’t any preservatives in there, if that’s something you’re concerned about. Our tester also noted that the food was tasty, bright (no ugly green mush!), smelled great, and perhaps most importantly: Her baby loved it. The meals also come with a magazine that contains craft ideas, reminders about “what’s normal,” and of course, baby horoscopes.
Cost: The Babyblends plan starts at $3 per meal.
Availability: Nationwide, excluding Alaska and Hawaii.
Nurture Life
Nurture Life
Age Range: 10 to 24 months.
Why It’s Worth It: Unlike Little Spoon (whose meal options start at six months old), Nurture Life is for babies who are 10 months and older. Their meals include solids that are cut up into what our tester describes as “perfectly sized, tiny pieces.” Almost all Nurture Life meals include zero added sugar (since the AAP says to avoid serving food and drinks with added sugar to children under 2 years of age), and everything is produced in a nut-free facility, which is good news if you have an allergy in your family.
The menu includes tasty, kid-friendly options like mac ‘n’ cheese with peas; mini falafel with carrots and rice; and black beans with sweet potato and pasta. It’s just the same as a home-cooked meal, except everything arrives precooked and pre-portioned. All you have to do is heat them up and serve. Our tester enjoyed that most of the meals were relatively mess-free (e.g. rice and beans versus something with lots of sauce), which offers adventurous parents the opportunity to let their baby hone those fine motor skills and practice feeding themselves.
This is also a company that can grow with your baby for years to come since it even makes toddler food and heat-and-serve homestyle meals for kids and adults (like tortellini Alfredo and chicken Parmesan with broccoli).
Cost: Nurture Life finger foods cost $7 each.
Availability: Nationwide
Yumi
Yumi
Age Range: Six months to 11 months.
Why It’s Worth It: Cofounded by a working mom and a former New York Times journalist, Yumi believes in offering personalized, nutritious meal plans for babies at every stage of their growth.
Its approach to baby food is all about pacing and introduces new flavors and textures to babies gradually over time, with highly specific food choices for each milestone. You’ll find blended, single-ingredient purées for first-time eaters (from Japanese sweet potato to raspberry), gradually more complex flavor profiles for babies seven months and up (like coconut cream pie and minestrone soup), textured seed and grain mashes for nine-month-olds, “pinchable” finely chopped foods like peas and carrots for 10-month-olds, and finally finger foods for tots that are 11-months and up (like latke bites and beet puffs). Yumi even offers a Chef Series for babies with refined palates that offers up delicious, high-quality meals like polenta mushroom Bolognese and sweet potato cheesecake.
In order to draw up the best plans for each stage, Yumi works with experts like pediatricians and offers a customized menu for each baby depending on their growth (introducing three or four new flavors every week. Yumi’s meals are also certified organic, with no added sugar.
Cost: Yumi offers three different plan sizes, depending on how often you want meals delivered, and plans start at $5 per day.
Availability: Nationwide, excluding Alaska and Hawaii.