9 Month Old and Table Food

i think that it's great she wants what you are eating!!! as long as she's crawling around, she should be fine. just cook/steam veggies so they are soft. even bits of chicken should be fine... noodles too cut up. my kids liked pastina or orzo pasta with butter. now you can save money by not buying baby food!!! :) just go with what she likes and let her experiment with food. Be thankful that she's not picky about trying table food like mine was! :) good luck!

-L.

Have you ever seen a 9 month old with Molars? Babies gum their food. They can eat what ever you eat just smaller peices. They can "gum" almost everything. Just use common sense.

gums are stronger then you think. Try giving her baby food first and then the table food. Try to mash what you are having for dinner. If all else fails, give her the table food just watch her carefully

Have you tried avocado? My peditrician said that it was "great brain food." I also have a friend that is a pediatrician and she said that at 9-10 months babies can pretty much eat regular table food. Just make sure that it is really mushy or tender. If you are worried about choking they sell these things that are mesh that you put food in and the baby can chew away on it and they basically puree the food themselves - they have it at "One Step Ahead" - they have a catalogue or you can look on line. Good luck!

Oh H.!

This is your chace to introduce so many fruits and veggies! (Of course, with your pediatricians approval).

My 10 1/2 month old has been completely on table food since 8 months...way earlier than my other 2 kids.

Ava loves avacadoes, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, mangoes, melons, mandarin oranges, bananas, prickly pears, peas, lima beans (I steam them, then pop them out of the little pod they're in), sweet potatoes, yams. That's just to name a few. She also like fruit cocktail, but I don't give her the light syrup it comes in, I put them in a colander and rinse it all off (or as much as will come off).

A couple weeks ago we started scrambling just the egg yoks with a litte milk, and she loved them. Yesterday, I made French Toast and she loved it, (that was the first time she got egg whites, and she was fine). She loves yogurt, and whole wheat bread and pancakes...She loves chicken adn turkey, turkey burgers. It's so exciting to see her try all these new, wonderful HEALTHY foods...instead of some processed foods full of preservatives.

Obviously, all the fruit is cut up small so she can feed herself and not choke. It's scary to watch when they kind of gag, but my ped. always tells me that's how they learn, so be sure to stay close! It's hard, I was a wreck at feeding time with my first!

She will do wonderfully and you will to by feeding her such healthy foods!

Best Wishes!
J.

Most of her nutrition is still coming from formula. Let her eat what you eat as long as it is small and mashable. My son is 11 months old and we stopped the jar food last month. He doesn't want it anymore. It's more about introducing new foods and textures than making sure all the calories come from the meals. Babies have a lot of saliva and can mush up more foods than you think!
Try sweet potatoes, avacoados, soft veggies (carrots/green beans/peas, hummus on a cracker, soft cheeses, french toast, pancakes, kiwi. I am sure that she will love it!

Hi - my son was born 7-6-07 and he seems to be the same. I mix the food so he gets both. For example, I'll give him chicken and sweet potato dinner but I'll add some very well cooked rice or pasta cut into small pieces. Or when I feed him his baby food I give him tiny pieces of bread or baby puffs. This way he thinks he is eating what we all are having but also his baby food. I also taught my children to chew by making that 'mniam mniam mniam' sound and it worked for my older son who did not get any teeth till 11 months but still wanted to eat our food. My younger has 4 teeth already but I still do it.
And think about anything that basically melts in their mouth - like those baby puffs - and it will be fine.
My doctor said that at this age they can eat anything but allergy causing foods- milk, eggs, soy, nuts, peanuts, strawberries.
Good luck.

I would suggest oatmeal. If she won't eat baby oatmeal, try the regular old fashioned (not the instant with all the sugar & stuff). You can always add applesauce or finely chunked banana into it. I didn't do baby food, except for cereal in the beginning. My kids usually ate pureed or finely chopped food that we were eating. The key is to make sure they are getting enough variety. I would do veggies and fruits with cereal as a filler. Adding protein is important if she's not doing as much breast milk or formula. Eggs, cheese, & ground beef are great places to start until she gets her teeth. Lunch meat (without alot of extra salt) finely chopped is another easily eaten item. Just make sure you are close on hand when she eats and that the food is small enough for her to swallow with a little bit of "gumming". Don't be surprised to find undigested peas in her diapers until she gets teeth, they tend to go right through if not chewed.
Hope this rambling helps.

That is great that she is eating your home made veggies. Just mash them very well because she would be getting "chucky" jar food anyway. BUT, do not put a lot of spices and salt in the food-salt especially can be dangerous for a baby. Just make the food bland with olive oil or butter and enjoy feeding her a home cooked meal which is much better for her because it has live enzymes that jar food is probably lacking.

H.,
What a great birthday for her! The best thing to do is to puree the table food. A food processor or even a blender should do the trick. As long as she is getting the nutrients, what difference does it make how! Good luck,
G. L.

well my daughter was the same i had to mash everything i or my hubby ate to feed her she hated baby food ,,so try to make mash potato's with creamed spinach mash bananas ground chop meat in the mash potato's

I've known 1yr olds with no teeth to eat a normal (not baby food) meal. They can do wonders with their gums. If she eats what you are eating I would just give her that. No where does it say that a child must first eat baby cereal, then mashed up baby foods, then chunky foods, etc..... Be glad that you can either save money not having to buy the jarred stuff or save time in making and pureeing it yourself.

Sounds like your little girl is doing great! If you are happy to be giving her table food than there is no reason to encourage baby food. Also, the biggst indicator for table food readiness is baby's desire to have what you have. I can remeber my 7 month old cousin ripping a breaded veal cutlet off my aunt's plate and gnawing on it!!! Hmmm, was he ready?

Continue to offer her new things one at a time (every 4 days or so) and make sure everything is well cooked. And as other moms have mentioned, stay away from the most common "allergy" foods for now like eggs, peanut butter & milk.

This is a great opportunity to encourage healthy eating - she is already expressing to you what her needs are. If you try to force her to eat the baby foods, you could start a kind of food war with her which can be a disaster.

I found it was easy to feed my kids table food at home but much harder when we were out to dinner (they never cook veges enough for a baby!) The other thing I found hard was meat - none of my kids was too thrilled about it until they had a mouth full of teeth. My solution was to give them soups. Chicken soup with pastina was (and still is) a fave. Lentil soup is great too, especially if the lentils are well broken up.

Keep up the great work :-)

My daughter is the same way she stopped eating purees at about 71/2 months (when she scooted over and stuck her hand in my meatloaf!) - she loves the pasta and organic sauce ( i try to buy healthy - she also eats the annies natural mac and cheeses) and cheerios - we're also playing with different veggies and fruits and when i don't think she's getting enough fruit i give her the gerber organic fruit juices and water - i also cut up raisins (she has 1 and a half teeth but has been eating like this since she had no teeth she has really strong gums!!!) go with your instinct - ask your doctor - look it up on line and listen to the moms with the great ideas on this site!! - relax and have fun with it i'd just recommend not introducing nuts because i think that's a big allergy risk and you should check with your doctor

Hi, H.. You daughter seems beyond her age and I'm pleased to hear that. Potatoes, make it mashed and put it on your plate and your husbands and hers and carrots, I still say puree it and yogurt is okay and have her eat that. Will she eat the carrots pureed and the peas pureed. I would call the pediatrician and see what they say and also what other mothers suggest. This is the best place to go. I can't say much because by 9 months, my boys had teeth, but I would worry about them. How about sweet potato with no skin. Let her see you mash it up on your plate and have her see you eat it and if she wants it and tastes it and likes it, then you give her that mashed that was on your plate and go from there. I gave my youngest boy recently mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes (pureed because he is only 6 mos old) and I also gave him pureed or mashed bananas and plain yogurt with mashed/pureed banana in it. Hope I was some help....pray for you all.

Try a Happy Baby Grinder- (google it)- you put your table food into it and it grinds it right at the table with a little hand crank. Your child will see it's from your plate and you don't have to worry about choking

Hi there
My younger daughter absolutely hated baby purees, both homemade and out of jars - I was really worried about it as it seemed she would not eat. But when I started feeding her finger food - steamed/boiled veggies, banana, pieces of fish and chicken etc, just bits of whatever we were eating - she started to eat much better. She just hated the pureed food. She didn't have any teeth at that stage and she just "gummed" things. She never choked and as long as things are well cooked I don't think there is any problem at all. In fact I read a piece in a magazine saying that all these baby food purees are a waste of time (and a major profit maker for the baby food manufacurers!) and we should all just be weaning our babies onto pieces of table food. My daughter is 3 now and we found it much easier to get her onto family meals this way. Good luck

Hi H., My sons (ages 15, 13, 9 and 7) were the same way, So I fed them what we ate, we are not spicy eaters, and if we ate something that they could not eat, like pizza I made soemthing else for them. Veggies, I just blended in a food processer, pasta I just cut very tiny, and meat the same way very very tiny, and I mixed it with applesauce or veggies, they loved it, and are not picky eaters now, they eat very well. Hope this helps..

Just remember that even though she has no teeth poking through, they are all there, just under her gums, quite solid and capable of mashing the food you give her. Just use common sense and let her eat most of what you eat. You didn't mention her gagging on peas and green beans, likely she wont gag on anything else you give her - I've found that kids are either gaggers or they're not (I have one gagger out of 3!) At 9 months, her primary nutrition is still coming from breastmilk or formula, so don't worry, just let her enjoy all the new foods.

Hi H.,
Try and find a baby food grinder. We fed our children from our plates (as long as we were eating appropriate foods).
You can grind it and give it to her while you eat. You will have no worries about choking because the food is ground up small.
Also, get a good book on nutrition. It will give you confidence about what she needs to be healthy. This is a great time to start !
I swore by Adelle Davis; Let's Eat Right series. They are quite dated, but have such good advice for healthy eating for life.
Good luck !

wow! this is exactly what my youngest did...and it worked for the best. My eldest got his teeth late, loved baby food and even after being ready for table food still preferred "cereal and a jar"...yes...he was already talking and that was what he asked for. The doctor told me that I should be thrilled because at 2+ he was getting more vegetables than he would be eating otherwise (in fact - for the first few years he had that slight orange tinge from carotina from all the beta carotene in the baby food jars - carrots, sweet potatoes etc). Now, at 15 I still can't get a vegetable in him, and he eats very few fruits too. On the other hand - my youngest was breastfed and would NOT eat anything that was not on my plate. It was so hard doing the food allergy testing as he despised baby food from day 1. BUT...he is a wonderful eater - he eats nearly all fruits and vegetables and also loves all kinds of fish especially shell fish. He is very adventurous with foods - for his PreK graduation dinner I told him he could choose the restaurant... he decided he wanted to try SUSHI for his graduation meal! So, just watch out for anything choking size or with bones and let him eat whatever you are having! You will be thrilled with the outcome years from now!

Did you try mashing a ripe banana and mixing it w/ a little formula? My kids loved this!

My first son stopped eating baby food at the age and ate only table food. Even though she doesn't have any teeth you'd be surprise how much they can chew. You can shred tiny pieces of chicken and meat. My dr. always says feed them whatever they will eat. My oldest was eating a whole chicken cutlet - no teeth...check with your dr. if you want but you can also try really small pieces of whatever you're eating. I was your age when I had a baby that age too!

My daughter was the same way... She is now 13 months old and only 6 teeth. She always had a good chewing motion when food entered her mouth. We gave her instant oatmeal which comes in many different flavors, toast with gravy or milk so that it is softer, puddings, jello, ziewbach toast which is hard and she will naw on that forever... (not sure if I spelled that right but its made by gerber... and just watch her close with that one because pieces can break off not easily but they do), mushy type fruits like bananas sliced up thin, watermelon in very small pieces, applesauce, mashed potatoes, tator tots (as long as they are cooked in the oven) - things like that. I hope this helps some.

Just some ideas that come to mind for me are rice, banana, chopped meat cooked and mushed up into small mini bite sized pieces, spinich that's ity bity, mashed up carrots, apple sauce. The teeth will come soon enough and as for the hair, lol my daughter had none till over a year and then I never cut it again till her high school graduation. I'd probably wait till a year for the yogurt as it has stuff in it that is not for wee ones just yet.

She just wants what you all have. Have you tried putting the jarred food on your plate and acting like you are eating it? My 11 month old does not really care for the taste of the baby food so he has been eating "people" food for several months now. I buy rotisserie chicken and tear it in to tiny pieces and mix it in with sweet potatoes, or I make him little tortellini with butter and parmesan cheese (or tomato sauce if he is going to take a bath afterward!). You can also make/buy meatloaf and mashed potatoes and veggies and mix and mash it well so that it is not a choking hazard. The absence of teeth is not a problem as they don't really use them anyway. Most things are mashed with the gums. My son is going to be 1 in a couple of weeks and still only has two teeth!

Best of luck!

L.

Hi H. H.,
You have to follow up with your family pediatric doctors to be sure that you little one is getting the essential vitamins and minerals that a nine month old needs for bone and tissue growth. It is ok for her to have table foods. It is perhaps exciting for her though stressful for you. Is she still taking formula or drinking regular milk?
You also want to be sure that the foods that your daughter eats are cut up small enough and are soft enough for her. Use caution with foods that have thin skins, avoid popcorn, hot dog skins, etc. You also want to be careful to limit foods that may cause allergic effects. I'm sure that you doctor can give you a list of food items that are appropriate. Good luck!

A little about me: I am a 41yo mother of three girls, ages 15, 13, and 5. I am also an RN, however I primarily work with neonates, age 0-3yo, but I also work with pediatric children both in the hospital setting.

I purchased a baby food mill and ground everything we ate for both of my boys. It came with a container for travel. It was wonderful. I haven't purchased one in 8 years, but I bet if you just go on line you can find a baby food grinder. It was about 5 in. tall and very compact. It washes great. Much more economical than baby food and your baby will learn to eat what you eat at meals.

My son was 13 months before he had any teeth, but he managed to eat everything we eat and gum them. of course I would cut them into very little pieces, and try to smoosh the food when needed. He even ate steak, bbq chicken and rice, vegies, and loves fruits. I remember him gummind a plum and eating the whole thing. Just stay close by when she's eating as to watch her, but I say better our foods than the jar foods as long as you also eat healthy.

my son did the samr thing. what i did was when i made our food, i portioned his food out and cooked it until i could mash whatever it was with a fork. let her eat. she knows what to do. believe it or not, the gagging is a good thing. it's her way of learning how much to put into her mouth so she doesn't choke. my baby is 18 mos old now and is eating everything that isn't nailed down. enjoy!

Sounds like she's getting some healthy food. She should still be nursing or having formula, so she's getting enough nutrition from that. Even without teeth, she can obviously handle the coarse stuff you mentioned, so experiment with mashing softened vegetables that are on your plate for her, or shredding meat into very small bits for her. Good luck!

My daughter is almost 10 months old (07/21/2007). She is the same way. For breakfast she eats Cheerios, pancakes, toast or oatmeal and some sort of fruit. Usually for lunch I give her canned veggies (no salt added). For dinner I give her a Gerber Graduate Meal, mac and cheese, soup with noodles or anything soft enough for her to gum. She only has 2 teeth, but tht does not stop her. I would just try different things and watch her to see how she reacts with it. I am sure she will figure it out and be fine. I did the same thing with my two older kids and they had no problems. Just be sure to watch out for allergies especially nuts and eggs. Good Luck.