We have a food snob on our hands. Nine-month-old Mary Elizabeth turns her nose up at anything pureed. Mashed bananas do nothing for her. Forget the plain avocados. This girl wants the good stuff. She loved my guacamole, which is a bit on the spicy side, and she had no problem feasting on my lasagna.
I can’t blame her. She’s been getting the subtle nuances of myriad flavors and spices in Mama’s milk. I have a penchant for aromatic Indian food and spicy Mexican fare. I love feta, dark chocolate, ginger, garlic, cumin, and cilantro, so why wouldn’t she hope for a more beguiling blend of flavors?
So I’m breaking all those “starting your baby on solids rules” and getting creative. Sometimes I mash what we’re eating as a family (lasagna is easy). If a food is particularly difficult to mash, I’ll use one of my favorite baby food tools that I purchased long ago with my first child: The Munchkin Baby Food Grinder.
My new approach seems to be working. M.E. still prefers my milk to anything else and isn’t too big on meal times at the table, but she’s starting to sample small bites more and more each day, and she no longer gags quite as much or looks at me as if I’ve poisoned her like she did when I tried to spoon feed her rice cereal (mixed with breast milk, odd that she didn’t care for it) or more traditional first-baby foods.
Have you had a reluctant eater on your hands? Both my older girls voraciously gulped down solids as soon as I started offering them at six months. Madeline, I recall, grabbed the spoon from my hand and shoved the food down during her first feeding. Anyone have any tips for getting a baby to eat more solids? I’m in no hurry. I know she’s getting all she needs from my milk, but this might be a good discussion for any moms out there who are faced with a more persnickety eater.
Kate — she's not being finicky about the food itself – just the texture!! Obviously, she likes food since she's willing to try chunkier solids. Jordan ate NOTHING except breastmilk and the occasional cheerio until he was almost 11 months. Couldn't stand babyfood at all. He went straight to table food. I just ended up doing the same for Joel and Jamie, although they ate table food a bit earlier (9 months? it all blurs together!!). None of mine EVER liked baby cereal, although they were more tolerant of oatmeal. They all hated the rice. Josh was really the only one that liked pureed food, and he's now my pickiest eater. There is something to be said for just giving them food with flavor, whatever you are eating, mashed up. When you make something that she likes, save the leftovers for her, when the rest of the family is eating something she can't or won't eat. I used to make up little casserols for the boys and freeze them in small containers to just pull out of the freezer.
I don't have any advice, but I wanted to state the obvious – what a cute, well-fed baby you have! No matter how she's being fed, she is obviously thriving and happy. Keep up the good work!
I have no helpful tips to offer you…I'm going to be clueless when my own child arrives. All I know is that is one beautiful baby! (But I'm sure you already knew that!)
We had the same situation with Jena. She hated puree. Once we gave her more texture, so did fine. Once they are past 9 months, combination food is fine. So, just keep doing what you are doing. She'll be fine.
My first daughter wasn't interested in food for the longest time. Come to think if it my second daughter still doesn't really LOVE food. There's a definite preference for mama milk at our house. That being said my first loved curries once she got going. I was realy proud when my one year old started eating eggplant instead of the strained carrrots her friends were eating. They say it takes, what? 10 or 20 (or more?) times to get used to a food so for some kids they really have to be exposed to something over and over before they're interested. And if they're breastfed, they'll always know where to find the best eats in the house.
All three of my children were on table foods by 9 to 11 months. My first one because he was a preemie and having difficulty gaining weight. Table food has much more nutrition and more calories than baby food. We just skipped that disgusting stuff in a jar. And I don't have one picky eater. All of them will eat anything- including sushi, salsa, anything!
I say let this child lead you. Give her table food- just cut up well.
She is so cute! My 1st was trying to take bites of my burger at 3 months old.
My 2nd has no interest in solids until she was 9 months old, and even then it wasn't that often.
I haven't done jarred baby food since kid #2 and stopped pureeing food after kid #3. We go straight to table food here, although I have been known to cheat and use instant mashed potato flakes to give a hungry child something when dinner is an hour away.
I also don't start solids until 8 or 9 months or later. They aren't interested, and I don't push it. If they were grabbing for my food, I would offer it, but they don't. I tried to start my oldest at 4 months with cereal as per the doctor's orders, but all I ended up doing was fighting with this boy for 5 months until he was finally ready to eat.
Baby-led eating is the way to go.
When you have more children than hands, you'll quickly find out that babies will eat anything their siblings will feed them!
My oldest child ate no solids until she was over 13 months old… she also didn't have a tooth until then. For both my girls, we went right to "real" people food. I never bought a jar of baby food at all (except prunes once when my youngest was a bit constipated! ;). I loved that it was so much cheaper and it was just natural. I just made sure that the first foods were very soft and cut them in chunks, like very ripe pear. Their gag relfex is really quite good, although of course it is still important to supervise them closely when they have chunks of food. I blogged about starting solids myself a while back here: http://mommyerin.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-do-i.html
I felt like my baby was the only one who didn't eat solids by a year, but I was very blessed to have support from my LLL leader that my child was just fine even if she wasn't eating anything but breastmilk.