Finger Food for 9 Month Old

Cheerios. Small pieces of cheese. Bread broken up. Bananas (messy but my little guy loves them). Small diced pieces of cooked carrots, broccoli, green beans, veggies. Crackers, try to get low sodium. Cooked macaroni (best is the whole grain). Lots of stuff. My little guy is 9 months old and has been eating finger foods for while now.

I always pat dryed my kids food with paper towel to make it less slipery. Also try cheerios or frootlopes if she has teeth, Gerber.com has lots of ideas to.
A.

Don't give her to many canned fruits because they have a lot of sugar added to them. Now they have all these finger foods on the market in the baby food aisle at the store. Bitter biscuits are a good snack idea. They pretty much melt. The best fruits for a baby like yours are apples, peaches, bananas these all are good for gumming and they are also good for teething if they are chilled. Now meats are harder to do if your child doesn't have teeth. Maybe for the time being just feed her jarred meats until she gets teeth. This is so much easier when they have teeth because there are so many more things that they can eat.

I have 3 children and I found that rinsing the canned fruit off seems to make them a little less slippery. I also like to make meatballs with ground turkey and some pureed veggies in them. The ground turkey is really tender. Actually my 8 month old just ate 2 meatballs for dinner the other night. Of course cut them up into tiny pieces. I also liked to give my older ones frozen waffles so they could suck and chew on them. There is also those feeder things that have a handle and a net that you put the food in. My 8 month old LOVES the gerber veggies and fruit that are dehydrated little pieces of the food. They aren't the same thing as those star puffs, they are actual fruit and veggies. They dissolve very fast. We go through a bag of those apples within 2 days at least (my 2 year old likes them too). Canned veggies are always good for quick meals. Good lUck and have fun!!!

Hi Lisa,
I gave my son cheese sticks and chunks of cooked ham, both great for sore gums.
M.

Hi Lisa -

I have read that rolling fruit or other slippery finger foods in crushed graham crackers or cheerios helps them get over the texture issues. (My son's allergic to a lot of the ingredients in both so I didn't get to try it!) As far as finger foods, have you tried boiling a potato or sweet potato? My son really seemed to like those and the texture is not so slippery.

Good luck!
T.

My son is 9.5 months old and he is pretty good about finger foods. Right now, I still use #2 fruits to mix with his cereal in the morning and then throughout the day I give him half a banana that he holds himself and he likes to hold an apple or pear and just suck the juice. Fruits are slippery, but there are those fruit and veggie puffs that are really good and dissolve very quickly. Those were the 1st finger foods that he ate and he really liked them. He now really likes cheeries and we also give him diced carrots, green beans and other vegetables that he can pick up easily. Hope that helps!

I started my baby on canned mixed veggies, canned green beans and canned peas. Soft, yet easy to handle.

My Kids loved frozen peas (thawed of course) cooked beans (black beans, kidney beans, pintos etc) Cooked sliced carrots (which takes all of 5min to cook!)

Bananas are the perfect food for little fingers. Canaloupe is soft enough when ripe and chopped small. Kiwi are also soft. I always favor fresh and natural foods. My kids both liked beans too. They ate kidney beans right out of the can and still do. Beans are a nice supplement if she's not ready for meat yet. Try to keep with the fruits and veggies because no kid needs to fill up on crackers and pretzels. Remember, if it's from the "bread" group, it needs to have at least 3gr of fiber to be worth eating!!!! Tomatoes may work soon too and avocadoes are a wonderful food as long as there is no family history of allergy. Try to transition her from now until she is about one year old to start eating basically what you do ( as long as that is healthy). Also, somethings that seem hard can be eaten if shredded: apple, cheese, pear, etc

I know what you mean. Try making sweet potatoe fries. I just cut sweet potatoes into short small fries and bake them in the oven until tender. I would spray a touch of olive oil on them. I would refrigerate and serve cold. Also, cooked green beans.

Little pieces of bread or toast work well, they are easy for them to grasp. Also canned veggies like green beans. But keep giving her the fruit too, it's good practice and she'll get better and better at it.

Hi, My daughter just turned 13 months old, and probably was about your daughters age when I was doing the first finger foods and her being on stage 2. I'm a big advocate of the Gerber Star Puff finger foods (they have corn, sweet potato and 3 fruit flavors) for starting out, they dissolve very easily and are a good start for her to pick up, I also did really thin saltine type crackers broken up as well. When she gets a bit bigger and is a bit more used to table food, toast bites, cheese and cooked egg yolk

Hi Lisa,
Both of my kids really liked sweet potatos. I would put one in the microwave about 5 minutes, peel, and dice it into little cubes. They are pretty sticky and easy for little fingers pick up. If your baby liked the sweet potato baby food she should like the real ones too. Plus they are full of nutrients. Good luck.

My son is 8 months and has eight teeth already so he's kind of ahead of the game, but we've tried cooked soft baby carrots, ritz crackers, green beans, and cheerios. He likes all of those.

Hi Lisa,

When My kids were just starting to try new foods I got a great book called "Feeding you Baby" Practical Handbook. It's by Sara Lewis. Check it out. It's got really good ideas and many recipes, too. It took all the guess work out of feeding the babies. I picked it up at borders.
I hope this helps.

Hi Lisa,

My son is 10 months today and about a month or so ago, the doctor told us he should be eating meats (as well as fruits, veggies, carbs) each day. It takes them awhile to always get everything in the mouth. You will have more of it in her hair, on her lap..but they will get the hang of it...my son loves turkey, cheese, crakers, corn, green beans, KIX cereal, reg. and fruity cheerios, beans, strawberries, bananas...it really does take some time, but to help make things less slippery I will often put them on a clean paper towel and just dry them off a bit before giving them to him so it's easier for him to pick them up. We also give him some things he can hold on to by himself, pretzel and just chew it until it dissolves in his mouth.

Good luck!