Feeding solids, no purées

Rosemarie

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 12:04 am

My baby is over 10 months old already. For the past month or 2 maybe since sukkos, I have been introducing solids. Thing is, she refuses anything pureed, no applesauce, even chunky applesauce, no mashed food... She loves pieces of carrots from the soup, potatoes from my cholent, and any cookie, cracker, cheerios, bread crust... Things that she can hold in her hand, suck on till it's soft enough for her to chew and swallow. She still nurses all day and even once or twice at night. I really would like to get her to the point of eating normal meals and only nursing before bed and when waking up, or something like that. I need ideas of what to feed her, what meals should look like, how many meals and how much food she needs at this point...

I am so at a loss, other kids started with jars or homemade purees, and baby cereal.

pizza4

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 12:52 am

It's always hard to start giving solids, I think!
Rule of thumb while you're nursing all day, is, give food after nursing. I found it best and easiest to put a bit of soft finger foods on the highchair tray and let the baby explore and eat as much as she wants. Steamed vegetables, soft fruits, chicken, cheerios, are all good to start with.

chocolatecake

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 12:59 am

One of my kids wouldnt touch any puree either. If it was on a spoon she wouldnt go near it. She was fully nursed till like eight months and then I started putting cheerios on her tray. After a few weeks when she got the hang of eating I gave her everything in bite sized peices which she fed herself, chicken, cheese eggs bread etc. I actually found this way much easier and neater than feeding the purees.

Rosemarie

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 7:36 am

smile12345 wrote:

Why does the food need to be pureed? 10 months is quite old already, I would try regular easy-to-eat meals e.g meatballs and rice etc

It doesn't need to be pureed. But baby food makes figuring out what to feed super easy. And thats why I started this thread, to get ideas of what to feed my baby

FranticFrummie

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 7:45 am

Almost every other culture in the world gives babies mashed up or cubed bits of whatever the adults are eating. If they see you eating it, they are going to want to try it, so introduce new foods while you are sitting at the table with them.

Of course, this will depend on the age of the baby, and how many teeth they have. DD got her first two teeth at 3 1/2 months. shock

I've also known babies who were completely gummy at one year old, so use your best judgement.

DD loved bread crusts, brown rice pasta, cubed potatoes, pretty much any veggie she could chew on, and all the other foods listed above. Just let your baby explore, and if a food is rejected, try it again in a couple of weeks. Tastes change really fast, and some foods take getting used to.

If your baby is teething, frozen green beans are the BEST! When DD was getting her first molars, I was getting dinner ready, and she kept pointing at the bag of green beans and begging for them. I gave her one, and she knew exactly what to do with it, chewing on it with her back teeth to soothe the gums. I found out that it was a great way to get her to eat veggies, and she loved the texture. (She's 13 now, and still loves frozen fruits and veggies for snacks!)

amother

Coral

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 8:36 am

Look up baby led weaning by Gill Rapley! My son had whole meatballs and soft cooked whole slices of vegetables at 6 months. He ate it all by himself and I didn't need to make anything special for him except soft cooked veggies if we were having salad. Really he ate the same as us from then on and still does.

lucky14

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 8:43 am

You can feed your baby a lot of what you eat. If you have time to make "special" baby meals there are cookbooks out there. Many recipes are quite good and you can serve them to the whole family. I like the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook by Gill Rapley. There are many other "baby"/toddler cookbooks though. Check out some from your local library (that's what I did).
I know there's plenty people who would roll their eyes at the thought of a cookbook specifically for babies, but it's nice to find some easy to prepare healthy recipes in one place that are low salt and easy for babies to eat themselves. And like I said they're pretty tasty . I can give you other book suggestions if you want.
Many of these books talk about which fruits and veggies are good for what ages, and tips for how to serve raw produce. Most of the books differ on how/when/how much of foods to give so you really have to decide for yourself or ask your doc what you're baby is ready for.

Volunteer

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 10:26 am

I agree with the baby led weaning ideas.

Mine didn't want (and still doesn't like) pureed foods at all. He wasn't ready for food until well over a year, until which time I breastfed him exclusively.

I also never made him special food. I just cut up soft foods I was eating.
Some ideas:
Omelette cut into little squares
Cooked shredded chicken and beef
Flaked cooked fish (no bones of course)
lentils
tofu
shredded cheese
cooked vegetables (carrots, cut peas, string beans, etc)
tomato sauce
potatoes, sweet potatoes
banana
avocado
pear
cooked apple
cut grapes
cut pasta
bread bits

smile12345

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 10:49 am

Rosemarie wrote:

It doesn't need to be pureed. But baby food makes figuring out what to feed super easy. And thats why I started this thread, to get ideas of what to feed my baby

I would try giving to eat three times a day.
It could even be plain cheerios for one, a plain slice of bread for the other and then leftover cholent for dinner (I would still use Sunday and Monday as long as reheated.)
Vegetables and knaidel from soup. I would try with bits of chicken pieces as well.
soft oven fries
meatballs and rice
tuna patties
potato kugel
pieces of banana

Much of what you're anyway preparing for dinner will be okay for her too.

Teomima

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 7:29 pm

My first two were like that. One had no interest in anything until the day she stole a breadstick from the table during a kiddish, and suddenly food was appealing, as long as she could feed herself.

Now my youngest is also ten months and she's always been fine with purees. But now I feed her when, and what, I eat.

Breakfast was yogurt and cereal (she finger fed herself the cereal- Cheerios and cornflakes). Lunch was soup vegetables, including chunks of cooked carrots, potatoes, zucchini, and with barley, plus half a chumus sandwich. Dinner was scrambled egg, avocado, cucumber sticks and roughly chopped tomatoes.

Between all that was bottles. Until a year a baby's primary food is still meant to be breast milk/formula. So don't rush into the world of "real food." But also don't let the commercialized market of baby cereals and purees make you forget that food is food, and babies don't need special manufactured processed foods marketed according to age. They just need real food, and a little common sense (you know, things like don't give your baby whole grapes, duh).

FranticFrummie

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 7:40 pm

Somewhat off topic: Please have your pediatrician show you the proper way to do the Heimlich Maneuver, and how to remove pieces of food from the throat.

DD once nearly choked to death on a piece of Pesach cereal that looked exactly like a Cheerio. Cheerios are designed to get soggy quickly and go down easily, Pesach cereal does not do that, and she inhaled a whole piece. By the time I noticed that she was being unusually quiet, she was starting to turn blue. Surprised

B'H, I got it out by Heimlich, and the cereal shot 20 feet across the room! Never in my whole life was I so happy to hear a baby scream.

sky

Sun, Dec 04 2016, 8:24 pm

dd is 10 months. While she eats some applesauce - its very little.

Her supper tonight was:

- "chicken soup without the broth": diced chicken, carrots, zucchini, parsnip
- frozen peas (defrosted)
- over cooked macaroni
- a potato from the cholent

I think its much more balanced then giving an apple sauce with multi grain flakes or butternut squash jar with oatmeal.

But she is only eating 2 meals a day. Supper is typically like the above meal.
Breakfast is cheerios, bananas and avocado.

She is still nursing regularly. Unless a baby is getting a bottle, don't they still have to nurse even if eating 3 meals and snacks? I thought that is where most of their nutrition is still coming from.

amother

Rose

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 1:46 pm

Question : my dd is 8 months old and I'm starting to introduce solids now.. Anyone know if the Israeli rice cereal ( it's like a powder) can be put into applesauce? Or does it need to go with hot liquid like a bottle??

amother

Rose

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 1:46 pm

smile12345

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 4:16 pm

amother wrote:

Sure it can.
Though my babies prefer the oat cereal.

rowo

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 11:56 pm

My baby is 12 months (just getting her first teeth) and has been eating regular food basically since she started eating.

I don't really worry about how much to give. She stops when she has had enough. She isn't a huge eater, but she's growing nicely and nursing still so I'm not concerned.

She likes, chicken - cooked on the bone so it gets nice and soft.
Salmon
Fish patties
Meat balls
Most vegetables
Rice noodles
Rice
Quinoa patties
Shnitzel
Etc
Whatever I'm cooking for everyone else.

She does love the chicken and vegetables from chicken soup, so when I make a big soup I freeze small containers of it for her.

Breakfast ideas are oatmeal, plain yoghurt and banana, pancakes (blend one banana and two eggs, make mini pancakes) or if I'm making myself a smoothie she'll have that.

Lunch, either dinner leftovers or a scrambled egg or a sandwich.

The first few weeks of her eating by herself were quite messy, BH now she's much better at it.
Besides for when she's had enough and starts throwing the rest on the floor Wink