What kinds of solids should she be eating now?

[briggsy's girl]

we tried those mesh things - once - she looked at it, threw it away, and cried til i gave her the food properly!

we didn't give her apple til a bit later, and no raw carrot til later either, but everything else she got in her hot little hand and loved it to bits

brocolli trees were a fave, peas (she'd chase them around the tray til she learnt to squish them) - she'd actively search through a pile of peas and corn to pull out JUST the peas... roast spud (we'd make sure there were no sharp bits), roast sweet potato and pumpkin

honestly, if you can, try to give her the same as what you're having for meals. she may not eat much, and you might feel you need to add some puree after her feed, but give her a chance at it. it is part of the nature of a baby to sample lots of things to learn about taste and texture (look at the stuff she was trying to eat at the playground the other week) - so if she is ready to explore, why not give her good healthy alternatives to explore kwim?

[*LittleMissSummer*]

BG thanks so much, you have given me so much great info and i wont hold back anymore! LOL and yes she was after EVERYTHING that day. She wanted that cupcake so much! And shoving leaves and whatever else in her mouth.

I think ill put her in the high chair and give her food and let her go nuts.

whats the go with biscuits, fruit bars and even sandwiches is she still too young for those??

Anything you can tell me is MUCHLY appreciated, im a complete newbie to this!

[briggsy's girl]

fruit bars are something we avoided til much later - mostly from a sugar perspective. she has the occassionally now (they were a life saver on road trip) but i still try to limit the number she has. same with biscuits. we tend to have milk arrowroot or marie type biscuits in the house, and have done all along. she occassionally got maybe half a biscuit but again, rarely - mostly from the sugar factor.

we didn't try bread til about 8 or nine months - mostly because of the fact it tended to go a bit gluggy and sticky in her mouth and she'd be trying to spit it out and we'd end up having to help her. toast she had for breakfast pretty much from 6.5 months, crusts we'd give her - just the soft doughy bread we waited on. we also used grainy bread - we don't have white bread for us, so didn't see the point for her. i have read that some people think grainy bread isn't such a great idea, but E never had any dramas with it (and turns her nose up at white bread sometimes now - my mum has actually got a loaf of grainy bread in the freezer just for Miss E!)

teething rusks we founds were a great idea as she was learning to grasp food and get it in the right place, without having a lot of wastage from food breaking and being too small for her to grasp. she would be entertained for ages while we cooked - sitting in her high chair. we also gave her a spoon at every meal - even before she was eating much - and let her play to learn about hand eye coordination. it helped heaps i believe

have a good read of the BLS thread - one thing that was a sanity saver for me was reading that babies WILL sometimes "choke" - but it's not really choking. it's more that they get food a bit far down and then cough it back up. panicking doesn't help - you just monitor and see if it is a real problem after a couple of seconds, or whether she has cleared it herself (you can generally tell by their coloring if it is a genuine problem or just a reflex action to get something up that went down a bit big). it takes some getting used to the idea of not stressing, and of course, you still need to be vigilant! one of E's first big words was "youright?" i think we said it a lot to her!

i guess the biggest advice i can give you is to trust your gut - and trust K. if you think what you're having seems like something she could handle, give her a go. babies still have a really strong tongue thrust reflex, so she will spit out what she doesn't want.

and if you make spag bol - put heaps of veg in it and let her go to town - it's messy, but the tastes and textures are great for her. E will now eat capsicum raw (straight from the plant if we're not careful) and prefers food with a bit of bite, rather than bland (hence her refusing the sausage roll at the playground - was a really boring sausage roll compared to the ones her daddy makes!)

[*LittleMissSummer*]

I do also give her teething rusks occasionally especially if she is between feeds is a bit fussy and when we are shopping to keep her amused.

I think i might make up some steamed vegies for her to munch on for dinner one night. I was going to buy some milk arrowroot bikkies for her to much on also but i dont want those to be an everyday thing either. We occasionally give her chips off our plate when we go out to dinner or lunch but i make sure theyre not too oily or salty so i suck on them to make them mushy then give it to her and she likes that.

I want to make pikelets and/or pancakes just something soft.

Oh im going to have so much fun lol

[briggsy's girl]

I want to make pikelets and/or pancakes just something soft.

E is a huge fan of these too


TMS i think MR's joking sample size said it all - parental attitudes play a huge part. my preference is for home cooked, lots of veg, minimal meat meals. i have salad every day for lunch (when salad is available) and generally left overs when i cant have salads. DD is not averse to sitting in her high chair while we prepare food, eating pieces of carrot, capsicum, cheese, and whatever else she can convince us to give her. she will even eat spring onion straight from hubby's plate. she knows what takeaway food is (we had to eat far too much of it while on holiday) and she ate it, but the first night we stayed at my aunts place and sat down to steamed vegies, she put my cousins kids to shame with her eating habits...

[*LittleMissSummer*]

I just had my mum over and me, her and my step MIL were talking about this. I had mentioned it and said i wanted to give it a go and i got the "oh no no she is FAR too young for that stuff" and i said well shes not interested in the mashed up foods we give her, she turns her head or pushes them away half the time so im worried shes not eating enough. I said i dont want to baby her for the rest of her life. MIL went outside and i spoke to my mum and said i really want to give it a go and i feel DD is ready for it. Then MIL must have heard me saying it and she came back inside and huffed that we will have to move her highchair somewhere else as it will get messy... Then my mum said what about vegemite toast and MIL said "oh no far too much salt" and mum snapped back "well im not talking slathering on a huge layer" Oh it annoys me!!

[briggsy's girl]

your MIL sounds like she is stuck in her idea that you aren't old enough to make decisions for your own kidlet

if mess is a drama, keep her on non-carpetted floors or, if your house is like our old place, put a "messy mat" underneath here. hell, you can split a garbag open and lay it under her to catch mess. mess is part of growing up! babies need to experiment. they need to learn, whether nan is ready or not, about dropping food, about eating etc.

to get around the toast thing, give her a crust off a slice of your own toast, and then rave about how much she enjoyed feeding herself...

[starangelk]

Good on you for saying something LMS For what it's worth, we feed DD mightymite on toast (same as vegemite) and last night I gave her mustard on toast and she looooooved it! Obviously if that's all she got yep, it would be too much salt but with a varied diet of fruit, dairy, meat etc etc for her other meals - I think it's totally fine. An example of my DD's food for the day is this:

Breakfast - toast or rice cracker with melted cheese or mighty mite, a dried date, some fresh fruit and yoghurt
Morning tea - rice pu*** or baby mum mums, dried fruit
No lunch as she sleeps then
Afternoon tea - cheese cubes, salad bits and pieces, avocado or ricotta on crackers or toast
Dinner - whatever we are eating. Last night it was chicken with steamed potatoes, beans and carrot

I reckon just start giving your DD bits of whatever you are eating at the time and see how she takes it. That way it's not a big deal, it's just like "finger food" and you're sharing with her. GL!!

[FabFiona]

Small corns on the cob and lamb cutlets are favourites around here. The lamb cutlets are good as the meat has a handle for him to hold onto when he eats!

I tend to stay away from biscuits and fruit bars, more because they are very processed. However if you make some stuff yourself that is perfect. The great thing about that age is that they really do eat very little so if you make a batch of healthy biscuits (for example) they last for ages!

Mini vegemite and cheese sandwiches are also a winner.