What does your infant/toddler eat?

I never really got the hang of feeding my daughter baby food when she was under a year old. I didn't know that you could start feeding them yogurt at 9 months and she didn't start eating little chunks of table food until she was almost 18 months! Now that my son is 8 months old, I'd like to know what YOUR infants/toddlers eat.

My son still eats jarred baby food (wish I had time to make my own). He's eating Beech Nut stage 2 food and I'm not sure when I'm supposed to make the move up to the chunkier stage 3 foods. He eats little bits of bread, avacado, banana, etc. We've tried doing the Gerber puffs and Yogurt Melts but he chokes on them very easily for some reason. We even break them into even smaller bits.

I just read an article in which a woman mentiones that she shares Goldfish crackers and maccaroni and cheese with her 11-month-old and that seems so young to me!

So, what solids does your baby eat?

Julia has a bottle in the morning and then when I'm gathering everything to pack the car, she hangs out with me in the kitchen while I have my coffee and she has her Peach Puffs.  She's almost 11 months; I started her on the puffs at 10 months-  as well as the yogurt melts and dried fruit. 

For lunch, I give her stage 2 DHA pasta/veggie combo with another stage 2 veggie and a few more fruit puffs.  Then for dinner; I give her a whole stage three from gerber/beechnut.  I too; would like to make my own food for her; but time and cooking skills-  well....neither of them are there.

I started rice cereal and stage 1 foods at 5 months.  Around 7 months I started Stage 2.  Then at around 8 months I started her at Stage 3 fruit and at 8 1/2 months I started her on Stage 3 dinners since they were more chunky.

Gerber Stage 3 makes a Spaghetti and Meatsauce as well as a Lasagna and meatsauce that are pretty much the same-  they have small pastas in there- and these were the first things she learned to chew.  Also the Turkey and rice dinner has very small carrots-  I had to test each one individually to see which one was good for her-  b/c some are way thinker than others.

Beechnut dinners Stage 3 are much more chunkier than Gerber-  so you may want to switch for now and see how he does.  B/N has whole Peas and potato bits that made Julia choke a bit.  Also; their pastas are short spaghettis while Gerber's are like barleys. 

Since she does get the fuit puffs, yogurt melts and dried fruits, I try to give her a sweet veggie like sweet potatoes and carrots for dessert-  don't want her getting hooked onto sweet things too early!!

The only table food that goes into her mouth is the heel of the bread when we're at a restaurant.  She'll chew on it for a while and feel like she too, is getting a treat like the rest of us!

Hope this helps!

at 11 months all you really need to do is feed whatever you eat at dinner.  And I strongly recommend adding flavour and spice while they are young.

As long as its really well cooked(veggies, potatoes etc).  like a stew then its fine for them.  One trick I did was make a weekly meal say fish chowder, stews, bean dishes etc at 11 months on the weekends and freeze in icecube tray.  I spiced with everything, including onions and garlic, I could find except salt.  I do this for any daycare kids I have as well.

At 11 months they should be eating a variety of finger foods like chunks of friut say peaches, mango, bananas, cucumber without the skin, cheese all from tray.  Cheerios , crackers.  Remember the smaller the piece the likelier they are to try and swallow it whole so make the pieces larger then you'd think. and of course monitor them as well

And lastly try to get flavour into their diet when they are young(under 1 yr.) as I've seen too many kids whose parents catered to their taste face huge eating issues when they get older.

The more varied their diet the better.  One more thing just b/c you dont like a food doesnt mean it shouldnt be tried by your child.

I never did jarred food.  I think it tastes nasty.

He gets adult food.  I send him to daycare with breakfast, lunch, and snacks:

Breakfast:  cream of wheat or oatbran mixed with whole organic yogurt, berries, and ground flax.

Lunch: some form of carbohydrate (whole wheat pasta, sweet potato, winter squash, white potato, etc), some form of protein (beans, tofu, cheese), and some veggies (he likes peas, carrots, corn, green beans).

Snack:  usually fruit:  cut up strawberries, watermelon, banana, etc.

For dinner since we dont' have a lot of time, its usually a natural nutbutter sandwhich (peanut butter, cashew butter, or almond butter) with low sugar jelly and some more veggies or fruit.  I may make him a scrambled egg with a bagel occassionally.

He eats anything except animal meat.  No chicken, beef, or fish.  Just doesn't like it.

My son will eat anything put in front of him be it food, paper or whatever. He likes spice and all kinds of flavors. I make my daughter try any new food at least a couple times. If she doesn't like it after that, no biggie. She also eats foods that I can't stand (like mushrooms).

My son can't eat any kind of nutbutter yet. It's a choking hazard and he has moderate eczema which makes him more susceptible to nut allergies.

for_zev, it sounds like your son is a bit older than mine unless you pop all the food in the blender. My son does love strawberries, bananas, squash, sweet potatoes and egg yolks (again, the higher risk of allergies means we have to hold off on the egg whites for a while).

For some reason, my son's not a fan of carrots. I don't know why because he woofs down everything else.

Spuckine, I've heard of the frozen food in an ice tray trick before and if I have the time, I'll try it.

I just haven't had time to prepare my own food for him yet. Things are kind of slowing down in our lives now so I might try to make my own this weekend but I'm not against the jarred foods. They're easy and Beech-Nut adds nothing but the veggies/fruits and water.

I was more interested in the finger-type-foods. Like, I see these babies eating Cheerios and the thought has never crossed my mind at this point, despite my son having 6 teeth. He does the chewing motion but I don't think he actually chews things. Maybe I'll have to just try it and see...

Edited to add: Vanessa, thanks for the comparison between Gerber and Beech-Nut. I've noticed that the consistency is different depending on which fruit or veggie you buy in each brand. I try to stick with Beech-Nut because they seem to only add the fruits/veggies/meat/pasta and water where Gerber adds vitamins and minerals. For some reason, that just irks me.

My son turns one in a couple of weeks and he eats whatever we eat. 

For breakfast he eats cheerios, baby yogurt, pancakes, waffles, etc.

For lunch he eats whatever they are serving at daycare....pizza, grilled chicken, mixed veggies, pieces of fruit, pasta, etc.

For dinner he eats whatever I cook.  Over the weekend it was carnitas with rice and beans, chicken parmesan; tonight it was shepherd's pie. 

For snacks he eats graham crackers, ritz crackers, goldfish, gerber puffs and cheese puffs, cheese, etc.

He's a very good eater...not picky at all.  He only has w teeth and he can eat everything I put in front of him.  I think it would be safe to move up to stage 3 foods and then table foods.

We recently started solids with our 6 month old, and we are doing Baby Lead Weaning following the book Baby Lead Weaning by Gill Rapley.

Basically we give our baby the same food we eat in large chunks so he can feed himself, it's super messy but he will learn to feed himself and I don't need to worry about buying him jarred food.

I encourage checking it out.

Original Post by hotharmony:

We recently started solids with our 6 month old, and we are doing Baby Lead Weaning following the book Baby Lead Weaning by Gill Rapley.

Basically we give our baby the same food we eat in large chunks so he can feed himself, it's super messy but he will learn to feed himself and I don't need to worry about buying him jarred food.

I encourage checking it out.

We are inadvertently doing this with our child.  

When she was around 4-5 months, I started off making her homemade baby food.  She just wasn't that into eating pureed food from a spoon.  But she would grab at any food that we were eating.  She was able to chew it despite not having any teeth.

So we started giving her little bits of what we were eating and I also steam or boil fruits/veggies especially for her.  It only took a few times for her to master chewing, even without any teeth.  She has been able to pick things up and put them in her mouth since she was 3 months. 

She hasn't been given any nuts, meat, eggs, or dairy yet.  We will give her meats and egg yolks in the next month or two. 

Even though she doesn't have any teeth yet, she does great with chomping on cheerios, goldfish, toast, pasta, fruits, veggies, and any other food we allow her to get her hands on.

Being able to feed her finger foods makes it a lot easier and convenient since we are on the go quite often.  I just have to make sure to bring a couple changes of clothes and plenty of wipes for when she makes a mess. 

My son has been doing the "pincer grasp" with food for months now. He just hasn't figured out that he can put it in his mouth. He also drinks from a sippy cup and a regular cup but can't figure out the straw.

I guess I'm going to just have to start trying the chunky foods and see what happens.

Thanks for all the advice!

Yeah, just over cook a portion of what you are going to eat, add a dash of salt  or herbs to it and put it in the blender/food processor. That way you can control the "chunkiness" of the food.

At about 11 months my son was able to eat soft/overcooked unblended bites of what we ate at the table. It if was super spicy or salty I would make him about 1/2 cup of mild food. Now he just eats smaller portions of whatever we have. He has molars, so it doesn't have to be too squishy. I haven't done nuts or really hard food yet thought. He only has one molar on top and one molar on the bottom on both sides, so he can't grind very effectively yet.

He started drinking from a cup about 3 weeks ago, and can now walk and drink at the same time! (I only give him water unless he's sitting down in his booster seat. Less mess that way.)

my daughter is 10 months and shes has at least two bottles a day and eats just about whatever i eat. when my family members tried feeding her table foods i was pissed but its something you get over. shes perfectly fine.