I shamelessly enjoyed feeding Baby Y purees for the past few months because they were so easy. Fail me in Responsible Motherhood 101 if you must, but we’ve been buying him baby food at the store (organic, though!) shoveling it in his eager, gaping mouth, and calling it a day with solids.
I introduced his first finger foods – run-of-the-mill baby puffs and Mum-Mums – a couple months back, but they were always more of an after-puree bonus or a diversion at restaurants. In the past month, though, I’ve stepped up my game. Baby Y was doing well with the limited non-purees he’d been given, and he was sprouting a mouth full of teeth (7 at last count) to help assuage my fears that he’d choke.
To say that Baby Y has enjoyed feeding himself is an understatement. In fact, he has started rejecting purees. In the past couple of weeks, he has started showing his distaste in the following ways:
- Clamping down on the spoon so hard that it takes me 30 seconds to wrench it from his mouth, only to do the same exact thing with each bite. As you can imagine, it makes for one slooooow meal.
- Spraying the puree through pursed lips all over his highchair and whatever I happen to be wearing. (I thought this was cute the first couple of times … until I realized that he was doing it on purpose. Sigh.) The thinner the puree, the higher the risk!
Funnily enough, even though I liked purees because they were “easy,” it turns out letting Baby Y have table food is even easier! Aside from what little preparation may be necessary, now I simply get to drop some food in front of him and watch him go. No more hovering over him with a spoon. I’ve also found that as long as the food is fairly soft, I don’t have to go overboard tearing it into tiny pieces – Baby Y is a champ at tearing, chewing, and gumming things.
The table-food revolution is also making restaurant eating way more fun, as Emily noted in her excellent post on baby-led weaning. At breakfast the other morning, Baby Y noshed on some of my pancakes; at lunch, he had some steak, brown rice, carrots, spinach, and tortilla. (He is also making our meals more expensive – we leave such a huge mess that we feel it’s prudent to be very generous tippers).
I know many babies who are great, indiscriminate eaters go on to be picky toddlers, so I’m mentally prepared for that possibility. But I am holding on to a shred of hope that Baby Y simply got his dad’s genes when it comes to eating. There are very few things Papa Y will not eat, whereas I am still a bit picky. I somewhat blame my parents for this – they passed their meat-and-potatoes worldview on to us kids, though I am much more adventurous than I used to be. So I recognize how important it is to offer a wide variety of foods to Baby Y and show him we mean business by eating that way ourselves, too. (I’m also hoping that modeling good habits for the kiddo will force us to eat more healthfully, which we are not the best at sometimes!)
If anything, my concern now is whether I should worry about portion sizes, because Baby Y often seems like he would go on eating indefinitely if I kept putting food in front of him. The other night, for instance, he had turkey breast. And cheese. And banana. And tofu. And squash! I should note that he’s still nursing at least four times a day (and sometimes 1-2 times a night … though the past couple nights he’s slept STRAIGHT THROUGH. Knock on wood).
How did your baby do with the transition to table food?
Baby Led Weaning part 7 of 11
1. Baby-Led Weaning by Food2. BLW Gear Faves & Fails by Mrs. Stroller
3. BLW - The First Few Months by Mrs. Stroller
4. Getting Started With Baby Led Weaning by Mrs. Superhero
5. Baby Led Weaning by Mrs. Superhero
6. Getting Started with Solids, Purees, and Baby-led Weaning by Mrs. Bee
7. Time for Big-Boy Food by Mrs. Yoyo
8. My Modified Baby-Led Weaning Approach by Mrs. Pen
9. Little Tea Cup versus the spoon - part 2 - favourite first finger foods by Mrs. Tea
10. Starting Solids with Baby Led Weaning: A Conservative Approach by Mrs. Markers
11. Starting Baby Led Weaning by Mrs. Chipmunk
hostess / eggplant / 11068 posts
Just very recently, LO’s been rejecting her purees! She just gags on everything, even her favourite foods! I haven’t considered giving her table food because at 8 months she has yet to sprout any teeth! NONE!
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
My son didn’t have any teeth until 10 months, so while I tried table foods, it didn’t really work that well. I could get him to gum bananas and I would grate harder fruits into tiny matchsticks, that seemed to work too.
My MIL was shocked my son wasn’t eating fully from the table much earlier, but you’ve got to do what’s right for your family!
guest
Especially for breastfed babies who are slightly better at self-regulation of food, there’s little need to worry about portion sizes as long as you’re offering a variety of healthful food options. It’s better to let him decide when he’s full rather than restrict food if he’s still hungry (or push food if he’s already full).
hostess / wonderful honeydew / 32460 posts
LO loves table food.. sometimes! I still haven’t figured it out. Some days she’ll eat and feed herself like a champ. Other days, she’ll take 2 bites and she’s done.
clementine / 889 posts
I loved the ease of purees to. We bought Earth’s Best Organic foods, and then I even used some in the pouches, which DS loved to squeeze into his own mouth. We kept that up from 6 to 9 months, but over time he decided he was done with purees. I’ve been trying to do better with table foods. DH and I often don’t eat until later, so DS usually gets a mix of yogurt, applesauce, diced fruit cups, bananas, cheerios, toast, some meat (which he doesn’t usually like), pasta, bread, and diced frozen mixed veggies that I heat up. By the time I get home with DS from day care, it’s just about dinner time for him, so I usually opt for whatever is easy and available. The other night I made a pasta dish (small pasta, white beans and tomato sauce) and froze portions in a silicone muffin tin. I dumped the frozen portions into a ziploc and DS has been eating them right up! I’m going to try a few other casserole type dishes that will freeze together well so that when we need an easy meal option, we have a few to chose from from the freezer.
DS just hit one year, so we are weaning him off formula. I’ve been worried about portion sizes and making sure he’s eating enough, but the pediatrician said to not worry about it. DS has always been good at regulating his portions since we exclusively breastfed until 7 months. He does best when we give him his food and then leave him alone. When we hover he fusses more and refuses more food.
This weekend DS took a few bites of my pizza, which was fun to watch. I know it’s not the healthiest, but he really loves to eat what we are eating, and it’s even better when he can eat ours, rather than whatever we put on his tray.
GOLD / wonderful grape / 20289 posts
I’m scared of table foods because LO is still toothless. Well that’s a lie, she has one tooth starting to poke out. But still I don’t feel like it’s enough for table foods. I have stopped straining her puree’s though, so I’m getting there!
GOLD / wonderful coffee bean / 18478 posts
I went through the same thing you did – not wanting to get her off purees because they seemed so easy but then once she was on table food – I realized that it was actually easier!! I was actually shamed by our daycare provider into making the switch. They told me she was the ONLY kid still eating purees. I think this was at around 10-11 months. Sheesh, gimme a break. We only started rice cereal at 6 months and did that for a while so we only had fun with purees for about 3 months.
blogger / pomelo / 5400 posts
@Rubies @artbee: I would think any kind of very soft food would still be fine … babies gum things to death and have a lot of saliva to help! Bread, bananas, pasta, avocado, tofu, steamed anything … have you tried the self-feed bags?
@mrstilly: Yeah, we tend to eat later, too. We finally did mealtime as a family last night (ravioli!) and it was fun.
@Andrea: Yeah, now I’m like, “What do I do with the uneaten purees?” I may spread them on toast for him, ha.
cherry / 207 posts
@ mrs yoyo, the baby led weaning post was very insightful. ODD was fed purées and cereal. She got Cheerios and teething rusks but I should have given her soft foods and perhaps she wouldn’t be such a pick eater at 2 years 9 months old. Hope to do things differently for my twins!
kiwi / 537 posts
I am all too familiar with the raspberry-ing of purees back at me. LO (8 months)will take them if it is a pouch that she squeezes herself but as far as it being offered on a spoon, we haven’t had much luck as of late. So she is slowly getting offered more and more table foods…Pancakes, rice, gnocchi, chicken, cheese and turkey to name a few.
clementine / 889 posts
@Mrs. Yoyo: We had about 2 dozen jars of purees left when DS decided he didn’t want any part of them at home. He eats better at daycare when there are other kids around to distract him, so I sent them to daycare and she managed to sneak in a jar a day until he ate them all. I really didn’t want them to go to waste at almost $1 a pop!
persimmon / 1465 posts
I Lol’d at Baby Y spraying the purees. On purpose. Cheeky little thing!
We are slowly doing the transition to table food. LO really likes finger food and it is easier. Breakfast out with LO is great – pancakes, toast, eggs, bacon are all favourites.
olive / 55 posts
Wait… What are these self-feed bags you speak of, @mrsyoyo? My LO’s only 7.5 months but, inspired by a friend who’s really into baby-led weaning, we’ve given him a lot of opportunities for table food… But it’s challenging to find healthy new stuff to give him! He’s still breastfeeding a ton so food is more about new tastes and new experiences, I guess… Not sure that’s the best attitude! So far he’s tried strips of bananas and avocados, a big strip of stew meat, salmon cubed/mashed, small bites of broccoli…
blogger / pomelo / 5400 posts
@katmmad: These things:
http://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-Pack-Fresh-Feeder-Colors/dp/B000GK5XY2
And I wouldn’t worry too much yet as long as he still BFs well. And we were definitely still majority purees at 7.5 mos; most of his finger food was more of a bonus then.
guest
This is helpful…we have just started purees with our twins and hope to start BLW soon. I didn’t factor in the teeth/choking issue though, as they have no teeth yet (almost 6 months old). I wonder if I should wait for BLW until they have teeth..??