Krisp,

I'm a long way from being an expert, but from what you've described about the food being pushed back out, well, it sounds to me as though she hasn't lost her tongue thrust reflex thing, which means she doesn't yet have the skills/maturity to know how to swallow. There's a pretty big school of thought that says that there's really no need to rush the whole solids thing, and that they still get the majority of their nutrition from milk for quite a few months more. I know that my DS has only just started to be consistently interested in solids, but even then we're talking tablespoons at a time, not cups, but as far as I can tell he's pretty normal in his development. THe finger food thing I think is a good way for them to explore texture and tastes, but at 6 months I'd expect it to be just a game, not a way of getting that much into them. Broccoli is good though - I used to cook it with some slices of apple, so that the apple juice flavoured through the broccoli bits, which DS then quite enjoyed sucking on, but there was never much that actually got eaten.

If I had my time again and I had a bub that kept pushing the food out, then I'd just give it a break for another month before trying again. But, that's just me, and not necessarily the right approach for other people. But I definitely wouldn't stress about it...