Table Food for Baby

A.,
There is a great website that gives a list of table foods that can be introduced to children at which ages. It also has homemade recipes. The website is www.wholesomebabyfood.com.

Rice cakes are great because they love holding and playing with them as well as eating them. The rice cakes also become soft as soon as they go in the mouth so you don't have to worry about choking.

Super Baby Food is a great resource. My daughter also was more into table food by that time. She still loves her peas and carrots.

hi! avoid difficult veggies like broccoli or even most raw, crunchy veggies, and as my pediatrician loves to say "don't feed her a t-bone." lol! my daughter started table food at 8 months and is now a 3 1/2 year old girl who will eat almost anything - and i think it has to do with the huge variety she got early on. i fed her anything we were eating for dinner. here are some examples of what we did in our house:
lasagna night - she got no salad, but i gave her little bits of lasagne she could pick up with her fingers, as well as a breadstick she could sort of gnaw and gum. we weren't afraid of a little garlic butter either.
tacos - i use turkey, not beef, so i would just save some out for her that didn't have the spices on it. and little shreds of cheese, plus diced up tomatoes (which she hated and still hates). even little diced up bits of avocado, which is very mild and buttery, if you make guacamole. (and even if you don't, let her try some sometime. she might like it and it is so good for you!)
asian - rice or noodles, sans soy sauce. bits of tofu, green peas. avoid the carrots at this point.

my best advice is to think outside of the baby box! go for fresh, colorful foods, and just make sure it is a texture you could easily swallow after mashing it up with your tongue. she will be better off in the long run and will appreciate so many more foods down the road!
:)

Baked/broiled fish can be prepared for her to eat as it crumbles easily. You can cut canteloupe into very small bites that she can pick up. Green beans are easy for them if they have been cooked until tender. No bite should be large enough for her to get choked on it. With a little time you can prepare chicken for her to eat as a finger food. Just put clothes on her that don't matter if they get stained and let her eat from her high chair tray. It will be messy but that's OK. V.

I am having the same issue with my son who is around the same age! My pediatrician said to stay away from fish, eggs, and products with cows milk. As long as your daughter knows how to mash food, I would just give her very small pieces of whatever you are eating assuming it is healthy.) Breads, pasta, fruits, meats, cooked veggies, etc. I always save leftovers for the next meal. I also keep frozen veggies and deli meats for quick meals! My son has no teeth and is great at mashing food- I think it is a skill they have to learn.

cooked noodles, little pieces of cheese, little pieces of meat. anything you can cut up into small pieces.

At that age, my daughter loved mashed potatoes, mashed carrots, squash casserole, eggs, peas and applesauce. Pretty much anything you can mash should be ok. She loved it when I made a pot roast with carrots and potatoes b/c I would mash the veggies, but they had the meat flavor, too. She also loved spaghetti and rice. She did have problems with canned fruit, so I would make sure I mash that if I were you. I thought she would be ok with diced peaches/pears, but she choked on them.

my baby is also 10 months old and she eats just about anything we do, as long as it is cut into small, soft pieces. she also likes the gerber graduates meat sticks, but i cut them into small pieces. any cooked veggie,like beans, peas, carrots, etc. that are soft and in small pieced she can feed herself. also soft fruit in small pieces. i even give her some chicken that is cut into very small pieces. just watch sodium content of canned veggies.

As long as she is eating bananas without problem and "chewing" them and not just swallowing she can eat almost anything that is not on the allergy list from your pedi. It is important to allow your child to experiment with different foods and textures if you don't want her to be a picky eater when she is a toddler. Try all cooked veggies in small pieces(asparagus, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, corn, edemame, green beans, mushrooms, zucchini, etc) , any kind of pasta, deli meat, ground beef, very small bits of chicken, and my favorite, flaky fish (frozen tilapia at walmart $6.42 for about 8-10 fillets!) Another good source of protein is beans, obviously not baked as they have excessive sugar but all other types of beans are great. The general rule is to cook the food you are giving your baby a little longer so that it is softer than you would like. However once she has shown that she can handle it just feed her off your plate. If you are not very adventurous with your food selections for yourself, now is the time for the sake of your child's health to branch out a bit and have some fun with food. Enjoy your daughter's budding independence and help her to enjoy all foods, especially the healthy ones.

With my kids, I just cut up what we were eating in tiny pieces, or used a mini food processor. I it was something spicy, I would separate out a small portion for the girls and then cook the rest in the spices.

Some things that are super easy are:
chicken, boiled or baked, cut up in to little cubes or put in the food processor.
steamed veggies cut up in little pieces, mashed with a fork, or put in the food processor
fruits mashed with a fork, or put in the food processor

Both my kids went through that when they were about the same age. I ended up having to put whatever I made us for dinner in one of those small food choppers, and make my own baby food. They ate that pretty well for a while. Then we had to move to "regular" table food as they wanted to eat what was on our plates. You just have to find that balance of things that are good for him and what he will actually eat.
Good luck!

Apologies if you got these suggestions already -- didn't have time to read through all the responses. I posted similar info a while back to a feeding question, so here are my ideas:

We skipped stage 3 foods and moved on to "real" food around 10-11 months as well. We started with regular applesauce, mac & cheese (cut up tiny), potatoes (inside of a baked potato, or mashed potatoes), soft green beans, peas, Gerber fruit puffs (they dissolve), cheerios, oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, breads, etc. Basically most side dishes or veggies you'd have with a regular meal can be used if they are soft enough or small enough.

I must confess we also eat out a lot, so in those cases, she loved rice and sweet carrots (think of the kind you typically get with Chinese food, but you might want to pick out the eggs), plus stuff at the pizza/salad buffet like the little ham chunks, pineapples, peaches, shredded cheese or chunks of cheese, cottage cheese....

Also helpful for fruits is a mesh feeder (like this http://www.munchkin.com/products/detail.html?pID=37) Baby can chew on it and get the juices and pulp but you don't have to worry about choking. I guess you could put other stuff in it too. Our daughter loves strawberries, apples, blueberries and those little mandarin oranges. And bananas.

We also gave her yogurt starting around 11 months, when we started the transition from breast milk to regular milk.

Hope that's helpful.

It's great those jars can get costly and when you go out to dinner you won't have to carry those things with you. My kids got tired of the jar food rather quick take advantage and let your little one taste the different textures and foods. Have fun with her on trying new things, this was to me the best time when they found food to enjoy and didn't turn their nose up at things...when she's 4 yrs old she may not like to try so many different things. I used to chop up plums and pears I even used a hand chopper and my kids loved it.....

How many teeth does she have? My son had almost all of his except his back "2 year" molars at 10 months, so we fed him just about anything as long as it was cut into very small pieces. Ask your doctor what he/she thinks -they all seem to have a different opinion as to when to give kids what, although personally I think it's more dependent on the child since the doctors change their minds every year or so.

I am a mother of two and both of kids at the age 10 months ate whatever we did. As long as its not to hard of a food and its in the right size pieces she shouldn't have a problem. because it is so much easier when you don't have to make diffrenet things for them.

My son got to a point where if he thought it came from jar he refused to eat it. What I started doing was chopping up dinner in a food processer for him. I would do is cut up the chicken I made for dinner and toss it in there with the veggies and liquid too. Chop it up till it's really fine and see if you can help feed it too her or let her try herslef. But I would make enough so that I could toss the leftovers in the fridge and he could have it for lunch the next day!!

Good luck!!

S.

Hi A.,
Isn't this such a fun time? I have to tell you I was really surprised at the foods my son would try and enjoy at that age. I saw someone else mentioned avocado. My son enjoyed that. He loved Cheerios and pieces of sliced cheese, as well.
One of the most surprising things to me was how much he liked grapes. I would just peel the grapes and cut them into smaller pieces and he gobbled them up! My son also finished a full child's plate of lasagna at that age. I just cut it up into bite-size pieces and he had a ball. So, I feel like you can pretty much give them anything you're eating as long as it's a manageable size and not a choking hazard (like raisins, etc).
Have fun with it!

J.

Hi A.,

Once again I'm on the same page with Donna! Avocado is a perfect first food. It has a good overall nutrition and babies love the taste.

The other suggestions are good too with the green, yellow, and orange!

Regards,

M.

When mine were infants, they got real food that I would puree until they were able to handle larger pieces. Allot of chicken and green beans!! You just have to make sure it is small and soft so that choking doesn't happen. I have veggie eaters so they would eat spinach and carrots and broccoli and cauliflower too! Get them started early so they will continue the "habit" of eating them.

We do avacado as a first food. It's yummy and the kidos typically love it. After a while, I actually added a bit of salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder and a tad of salsa. I know, amazing that a child would eat it. As mine grew older, she ate it with crackers or tortilla chips.

I preferred making our own 'baby food'. I would cook the carrots and mash or puree it to the consistency of the particular period that the child was going through and then put it in ice cube trays and then once frozen, put into gallon freezer ziploc bags. I'd only take a cube or so out of what was needed. I actually had baby carrots cooked and kept as is in the ice cube trays. I did broccoli, mashed potatoes (used leftovers of the potatoes), butternut squash (can get at Publix in the frozen section in a small box), green beans, peas, etc., you name it. It was quick and easy to do the cooking ahead of time and then you just get out what you want and warm it up.