Cold Turkey with Table Food?

Try it for a few days and see how she responds.
We did it with my DD, but the difference was that she'd eat anything, and loves food. So she was excited about it, and we actually did it at 9mos.

If you feel like she's not getting enough to eat on just the table food, try getting a food grinder. In other words, I'd stop buying jars (or whatever) of baby food, and get her on full time table food. You just might need to grind it up if she's not ready for it completely yet.

Up until 12 months my son ate very little food. I did go cold turkey with the bottle at 12 months. It worked out fine. Am I correct in that she gets around 16-24 oz of some kind of milk during the day? (Excluding the bedtime feeding.) It wasn't until we totally took my son off "drinking" his nutrition, that he really wanted table food. The formula was just enough that his tummy didn't feel like it needed table food. The day we stopped the bottle, he ate table food.

My son is 15 months and eats everything under the sun. I stopped the baby food around 11 months. I started him stuff like grilled cheese, spaghettos etc... He also loves all meat sometimes I will give him a little ketchup, peanut butter, or dressing like ranch. I think when they can dip stuff it makes it more fun to eat. To answer your question I stopped cold turkey with baby food and bottle. Hope that helps you out. Good luck.

I'd ask the ped, but I wouldn't do anything your daughter can't handle. I'd imagine if you didn't offer baby food, she'd do fine with table food?

My 9 month old LOVES food. I never bought baby food from a jar for any of my 3 kids. I make my own, and when they seem ready for food, I give it to them.

There is a lot of soft table food your baby should like - spaghetti and meatballs, very soft chicken cut into tiny pieces of course no skin or bones, lentils, soups, squash, avocado, and on and on.

Good luck!

just keep offering it and only give her a tiny bit of baby food. wean her off it 1/4 jar at a time :)

Both my girls were off the bottle ON their first bday! There is just no reason for bottles beyond that. They shouldn't be getting all they need from REAL food. We also cut out the baby food well before 1st bday. My kids hated it. We did all OUR meals, just cut up small.
People comment on how good our girls eat and will eat anything and it is because early on they were exposed to so much variety!
You need to just make the leap and realize your baby isn't a tiny baby anymore and get her eating like a big girl!
I would suggest hitting up a book store or library for some books on what to feed your daughter and at what age.

As for the person below that suggested you hit up McDonalds- for the love!!! That can't be serious! Now my whole family is vegetarian and I don't expect people to not feed their kids meat, but telling you not to give your child fruits and veggies is just wrong! WRONG!
The sooner she is exposed to those thing, the more likely she will be to want healthy foods for life! My kids don't get any meat of any kind and are VERY healthy and eat things most kids wouldn't even look at! They even like spicy thing because they have been exposed.

I encourage you to read up and certainly do not just give her FAT!

At a year our daughter was drinking from a sippy or a regular cup.

I did not purchase baby food. I just served her what we ate. I cut it up real small. She loved what was on our plate, so I made her a small plate and let her go for it.

Is your child interested in what you are eating? That is a way to entice them. Make some yummy sounds..

Try skipping the veggies and stuff for a little while... and head over to the McNugget.

Dead serious.

Babies need fat. They know this. Things that are low in fat and high in fiber are pretty bad for them (super low in nutrition, and then the fiber speeds their food through their systems before they can eek out what they need). They also need protein. They're building brain and muscle and bone... and fruits and veggies don't have those solid building blocks in them... treat those as desserts for awhile (we're done with our major building, we just need food to burn and vitamins/minerals/proteins/lipids/carbs to replace what's lost.

So head over to HIGH FAT land for a bit.

It's unhealthy for US, it's super healthy for THEM:

- avacados
- creme fraiche
- croissants
- steak
- salisbury steak dripping in gravy
- cream based curries
- mashed potato balls w/ chicken stock (or cream) and butter mashed into them
- ribs w/ sauce
- mac'n'cheese (hint: one reason so many kids will "only" eat mac'n'cheese, is that it's the only high fat food in their diet, and their brains need it, so they head over to the one source they can get... because their parents are mistakenly putting them on lowfat/nonfat diets that are healthy for adults).
- soups (strain out the solids and put them on the tray, and then put the soup part in a sippy/straw cup)

For the veggies... BIG HINT....Boil them in chicken stock. Adds protein, fats, and makes them soft enough to be gummed/swallowed.

As you get her used to more and more tablefood over the next month or so, you add in more fruits and veggies... but make sure to keep the protein and lipid count high high high. With her babyfood... she's still getting breastmilk... so it hasn't been as big a deal, but as you transition, it becomes more and more vital.

as far as the table food thing. Have you done the lumpy babyfood yet? the stage 3 stuff? where there are whole beans, peas, noodles etc? really lumpy thick cereal etc. start with that.

My opinion on bottles / breastfeeding are I hate it when people say take the bottle away but don't advocate taking the breast away also. if your taking her off of that and putting her on the sippy cup do it all the way or not at all. I know people say they get comfort etc from breast feeding. well they get comfort from the bottle also. I breast fed all my babies but having said that I don't get these people who scream take the bottle away but breast feed till the kid is 3 what is the difference?

Obviously you need to do what you feel best with regarding bottles, but I can tell you, as many others have said (and from my 25 years experience as a nanny and home daycare provider and Mom to a now 17 year old...so LOTS of babies thru my doors in that time), the 1st birthday is usually a cut off point for bottles and a transition point for food if its not already in place.

With my home daycare I am on a USDA sponsored food program. They have guidelines for meal service we have to follow so make sure meals are well rounded and portions are sound. Like for infants we have to add cereal at a certain age, then veggies/fruits at a certain age (baby foods or real foods). Usually I have kids on a full menu before the one year mark where they go on the full table menu anyways .

So the USDA tells us that at 12 mos old a child needs more nutritionally sound meals (a lunch includes liquid milk, a protein, a grain and 2 fruits and/or veggies total). The portion sizes are small. But this is their guide.

I suggest continuing to quickly expand her menu by offering her things you are eating, just cut it up, and give her time to mess with it. You might be surprised how quickly she tries these new things. Just avoid choking items of course and cut things appropriately sized. They say a child needs to be exposed to new foods many many many times before even trying them, let alone deciding if they like them. Babies are no different. Just because they like it as a mushy baby food does not mean they will like the new texture as a table food.

Just start now with the table foods. Every meal. And consider reducing/eliminating those bottles and then the nursing. For me, as a daycare provider, I tend to cut them off from the bottles at a year-13 mos. I have never had an issue with it.

Best of luck!

If the baby food is working for you then I would try the best of both worlds: give her some real food to start with and finish with the baby food. Eventually more of the real food will be interesting and less of the baby food. There isn't a real need to stop the baby food, it isn't hurting her so I don't see a need to push for the transition. Just my opinion, good luck!

14 month old was the exact same way! We had been offering him finger foods since he was 8 months and he refused everything except snack foods liek puffs and cheerios. At our 12 month well baby visit, the doctor actually reccommended going cold turkey and giving only finger foods. It clicked all of a sudden when he was 13.5 months old and slowly but surely he is eating more and more. Here is what has worked for us:

We reduced the amount of milk given. She only needs to have 16 oz. throughout the day, and if you want to continue breastfeeding,then I would reccommend reducing the bottles to half the amount. Milk is very filling and without that, she will be more hungry for food. I sat in front of my son at every meal ant ate with my fingers whatever I was offering him. He eventually got interested and at least started playing with the food, which turned into eating it. I started with only a few types of foods and kept repeating them over and over so he was familiar with them. I did blueberries and peas. While they are not as good as fresh or frozen, I used canned peas at first because they are slightly sweeter and also more soft. Once he started eating them, I switched to defrosted frozen peas. I used defrosted frozen blueberries because they are softer than fresh, but once he sttarted eating them, I switched to fresh because they are less messy. Freeze dried fruit is a great way to get the fruit portion of the diet in. They are 100% fruit, but they are crunchy and look/taste like a cereal, especially crunchy! They come in little snack sized bags and are sold in the produce area. You just have to break the slices into smaller pieces. These were great to build up to the fresh fruit. Even though it was recommended, I did not do full on cold turkey, but I did reduce the amount of baby food given.

These are the foods he will now eat consistantly:
peas
blueberries
corn
cubed sweet potato
cubed white potato
tuna fish or pb&j sandwich broken into small pieces

I still give jarred meat mixed with VERY LITTLE veggie puree for flavor, only because he will still not eat regular meat, and it can be a choking hazzard anyway.

We started taking the bottle away at the same time that we did all of these food changes. His sleep was interupted for a little bit, but I would give him 4 oz of milk only if I knew he was hungry, or water instead and he would usually go back to sleep quickly. Ifyou are planning on getting rid of the bottle soon, I would do it all at the same time so you will end up with less sleepless nights. please feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I even have a diet plan set out by a nutritionist designed for this age range to help me out. Keep trying, it will eventually click in her head!

Excuse my briefness, but give her the table food first, when she is hungriest. She will probably eat anything then. My daughter loved green peas and chopped carrots because she could pick them up with her fingers--Along with the cheerios etc.

I would give it a try, but just pick one meal a day and start there. Make that the cold turkey meal - I would suggest breakfast because usually they are so hungry in the morning...then after a week, start another meal as table food only. then a week after that, all meals. They it is gradual for you both and you know/or feel comfortable that she is getting enough nutrition(at other meals) until she is a solid table food eater. Some kids take right to table food, others don't and it just takes time. I noticed a few others suggested pureeing table food into a chunky consistency and that is a really good idea. Maybe start doing that for a week before switching the meals to straight table food. Then she gets a chance to experience the difference in flavors because what you cook does taste so different from baby food.

Have you ever tried taking table food and grinding it up and gradually grind it up less and less. I had a baby food (hand) grinder and I just took green beans, banana, etc and ground it up. Mash up the food less and less and that might help.

I don't know about cutting back on bottles but I tried it with my 12 to 14 month old and his whole personality changed until I put him back on the bottle so I would be careful about that and do it gradually. He didn't get off the bottle (nor my other kids) until they were ready which was around 1 1/2 years.

N.