8 Month Old Refusing Baby Food

My twin girls, now 1, also refused baby food somewhere around 7.5 months. At first I was reluctant to do finger foods, especially since one had no teeth. But they did really well with it and we were done with the baby foods. Some of the first finger foods that we did were banana, watermelon, peas, toast, elbow macaroni, green beans. I generally don't prefer canned vegetables but found that they were softer than steamed veggies so I used them for awhile.

Hi K..... My now 19 month old son was an early table food eater and the doctor said that was fine. As long as what you are feeding from the table is good for them and has the vitamins that they need there is no problem. Also that it is easily swallowed and digested...

This was a no-brainer for me! Jarred baby food is gross, smells gross, looks gross and tastes gross too! Not to mention is CRAZY expensive compared to normal foods.
I always just fed my two daughters exactly what we were eating ourselves. At first I'd mush them up very well, and then by 8 months for sure, they were eating small cut up pieces of whatever I was eating.
My girls are now 4 and 6. They eat anything and everything, don't mind spices or different textures and love to try new foods. They prefer real food over the usual kid selections and don't even like to order off of children's menus. I think this is directly attributed to the way I fed them as babies.
Listen to your child. He's trying to tell you what he likes. Baby food has no nutritional value over the table food you are eating. It's just mushed up and put into a jar for convenience (and profit).
-S.

If he wants real food then he is ready for real food.
I have had babies as young as four months old want real food, and they did just fine with it as long as it was mashed up well enough.
I guess I do not understand why this seems to be such a dilema for you young mothers.
When the baby is hungry one feeds the baby.
A baby anything can eat the food its mother eats as long as it is mushed up enough.
He will be fine and he will thrive.
Best wishes and God bless
Grandmother Lowell

If he's ready and not gagging, give him table food. Saves time and expense. There's nothing special about baby food except its texture and blandness, both of which your son probably doesn't like any more. Obviously you'll make sure he's still eating healthy stuff, but I think you should just go for it!

As long as he is eating a variety, I don't see the problem. There's nothing magical about baby food except that it's mashed up. It's actually very positive if he wants more - many kids don't like the varied textures of "real" food but your son doesn't seem to have this problem. It will be great in the long run as well.

If you think he is not getting nutrients in a particularly area. then you can add a great children's supplement (US Patent) - NOW for Kids. It's a delicious powder you can make into a shake, add to milk or juice or applesauce, and it will completely his nutrients. It has the DHA, omega 3's and other items he needs for brain development.

Enjoy your happy and enthusiastic eater!

I also went through this! My daughter is VERY head strong (Aries, thank you), and once she started table food the stage 3 would be knocked off the spoon onto the floor. Here's what we found works best for us (it could just be personality, but why not try it?). Start your son with table food so he can control what he eats as an appetizer (even a cracker or two if you have no table food handy). Once he's underway with that, start spoon feeding him the real food in between his bites of the other. If our daughter is hungry she'll eat it, and she'll be "satisfied" by having some control over her meal at the front giving her a more sunny disposition and open to eating. If that didn't work, we gave her something to play with in the chair (spoon, measuring cups) and while she was concentrating on that would mindlessly eat what we fed her. We like to give her a graham cracker sometimes at the end so she gets her crunchy/hand held food fix in at the end.

That's just my experience. Good luck!

At 8 months a lot of his nutrition is still from formula /breast milk. If he is interested and able to eat table food I think that is great! Just try to not introduce too many foods at once for allergy reasons and I think you'll be fine. : )

Hi K.,
I will be interested to read responses too because the same thing happened with me and my 8 month old this week! I have been going heavy on the Cheerios this week, and tried some peas, boiled carrots and baked beans cut in half. The best has been getting one of those baby feeders with the mesh bag - he loves that and has enjoyed melon, plums and bananas in there so far. I'm thinking of trying meat soon too. Also, this website helped me: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/solidfood8to10montholdba...
Good luck!

I made my children's baby food instead of feeding them store bought baby food. When my oldest son was a baby, I did it because I couldn't afford to buy baby food. But occasionally, when I was a way from home, I would buy it for the convenience. He refused to eat it. I believe that after children taste table food, the baby food is just too bland. I continued making baby food for my second two children even though I was in a better situation financially. I believed it to taste better and be better for my children. I think you should continue feeding your child the table food he is able to eat on his own and put the rest in a blender or food processor for him. I froze mine in ice cube trays. It made it very convenient serving sizes.

Why not blend the table food? It will save you money and get you used to cooking for that extra person anyways. But if he's got enough teeth and you are avoiding choking hazards (ie hot dogs) I don't think there's anything wrong with that. My now 19 month old didn't want too much to do with the baby food. He was way more interested in what we were eating. So from our meal I usually tried to have something soft. A nice soft veggie or a potato that was easy for him to eat. He was later in getting the teeth. But I just watched him closely with stuff too. There's nothing wrong with him having table food. Probably better than getting him hooked on those baby foods.

then give him table food. there's nothing wrong with that.. just mash everything up that you eat. try not to salt stuff though or over spice things

A lot of people have answered your post as if it's the fact that it's baby food, rather than being spoon fed pureed regular food that he's objecting to. THat distinction is important because if he doesn't want to be fed "mush" anymore (my little girl wanted NOTHING to do with someone trying to feed her with a spoon around 1 year or so - ONLY would feed herself) then it won't help to puree your food anymore than to give her jar baby food. If that's the case you just have to serve bits of food that are soft and cut up, but not mushed. Some ideas: ripe pear, ripe avocado, well cooked pasta, cheese, tofu, banana, potato (sweet or white, baked), cheerios, small pieces of bread/roll/bagel, cut up prunes, sweet peas (this was a real favorite here) etc. Just be sure to always watch him, cut things small so he's less likely to choke and enjoy watching him move to the next stage.

Are you still pumping for him? My little one stopped nursing but I pumped so I wouldn't have to rely on formula until she was a year old. Your doctor would probably recommend you give formula until he's a year if he's stopped nursing rather than going to cow's milk.

Best of luck, sounds like you are doing just fine.

My oldest was eating table foods at this age while my youngest doesn't like a lot of textures and still will eat baby food and he's 2.

My son would barely touch people food, even after one. It took a long time and he wouldn't, still wouldn't eat stage 3. If he has teeth and he is using them feed him soft vegies, rice, chicken, etc. Most doctors want you to breastfeed or formula feed until at least age one for the extra nutrition and calories, so if your baby is thriving, gaining weight, growing I don't think you have anything to worry about. Just ask your pediatrician if he or she thinks you should use formula (which you may already be doing). I used formula after breastfeeding for 10 months after I weaned my son at 10 and half months. He would get one after breakfast, one before his nap and one after dinner.

In the Babybook, Dr. Sears says : Some babies never eat “baby foods”, and all this preparation information can be bypassed if your baby tolerates a lot of texture, delays solids, hates spoon-feeding, or goes straight to eating finger foods. Some mothers really get into making baby food; others just go with family fare for the baby’s meal and use a fork to mash.

I would worry too much about it! As long as you keep monitoring what he eats to prevent allergic reaction, it should be fine...

Genie

my daughter was about the same age when she would not eat baby food. We just put what we were eating in the food chopper and made sure it was small enough for her to eat. she had 1/2 her teeth at this point. she was very happy and ate it really well. Good luck.
ps we would freeze it to so we had it when we had meats se could not have i have some for her. We used ice cube trays with saran wrap over it.

K.,

I think it's great that your son wants to eat what you eat. He wants to be part of the family not a baby. Go with it. If you make this an issue it will only make problems. I would say make the same for him as you do for the rest of the family only don't add as much seasoning. I have a baby cook book and it says for baby under 1 year don't add salt and pepper but parsley, oregano and such are good. It gives them flavor.
If he wants to feed himself go with finger foods. A lot of the babies we play with went thru a similar refusal of purees at some point and the easiest transitions have been when the parents have embraced it and helped there baby explore and eat table food.

Enjoy,
L. M

Mine is doing the same!!! The key is to find so that your baby likes, it might be the flavor!!! I also put some water to change the texture until he gets used to the food!

When a baby has older siblings, it is very tough to get them to eat baby food for any length of time. My son (#2) never ate it - he went right to table food. My daughter (#3) ate it for a little while but never really took to it very much so she too went quickly to table food. Don't worry about it - just make sure it's cut up into very small pieces. (By the way, just for reference, my daughter (#1) ate baby food until she was over 1 - in addition to table food but definitely not instead of!). Good luck.

All 4 of my babies were on table food/ solids at a young age. Go With It! The baby will be a better eater in the long run for it! If you are worried about vitamin/iron consumption, or lack thereof because of being on table food, give him a vitamin supplement with iron.

My sons (two of them ages 9 and 12) basically never ate baby food. I was also worried, but then realized that "back in the day" (before Gerber...) kids ate what was available—table food! Both my kids are healthy, well-adjusted kids of normal height and weight with no "food issues." Go with your gut--it will usually be right!