Introducing Food to an Almost 9mo.old

I have a gagger too! I would try avocado...my little one lovessssssssssssss it! You can blend it with banana, rice cereal and water or you can use milk. Good luck!

My 10 mo old goes through phases daily of what she will and will not eat. Her mainstay is the Organic Baked teriyaki tofu from Trader Joes. I cut into small pieces and heat up a little. It's the only thing she consistently eats besides yogurt. I feel better about the tofu since it's protein, not sugar!

Mangos and kiwi are two fruits that are very easy to mash and don't require cooking. Kiwi you can just cut it in half and scoop it out with a spoon, same with the mango. My daughter LOVES bananas and mangos. Yams are easy too. Once they're cooked completely they're nearly mashed on their own. Yogurt is another great thing you could introduce him to. You can sweeten it yourself with whatever fruit he likes. If milk is a problem, soy yogurt is a good introduction too. If he's gagging, sometimes you just want to thin it out a little more with some breast milk or formula.

If you want to start making his food yourself then I suggest checking out Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. You can get a short intro to it here: http://www.superbabyfood.com/

The book gives you all the tips and recipes you need to make your own food for him. It includes an extensive list of foods and when, how, and why to introduce them to your baby. It's easy to make the food. I just spend one day one weekend a month or less making up her food. The porridge recipe is great. Your son is old enough now to eat pretty much whatever you want to give him. You can give him plain pasta (like macaroni or rotini), cheerios, cheesy crackers bites, grapes cut in half, cheese cubes, etc. so he can practice feeding himself.

My daughter eats cereal made from ground brown rice and millet. I grind it myself- it takes 3 minutes to grind and the amount I grind at a time makes two months worth of her breakfast. The book gives you all the tips and recipes you need to make your own food for him. It includes and extensive list of foods and when, how, and why to introduce them to your baby. My daughter now eats whatever vegetable I've made up, cheerios, hard fruit slices (she can gum them and they won't break), cooked egg yolk in some form, and soy yogurt. She likes very basic lentil soup (pureed of course), pasta, etc. If she doesn't like whatever I've made she will just eat half of it. If she doesn't like it the first time, I just try giving it to her for a few days. Eventually, she eats it even if she doesn't like it.

Assuming he has some teeth. He should be eating finger foods now and that will give him the chance to pick it up and eat it himself. They like that. You can still cook veggies and put it for him to eat. Their little independence kicks in and they want to do it theirselves.

H.,

My daughter was the same way. The gagging is will go away. Its something new for them and pactice makes perfect. I took baby steps and gave her Stage 2 from 9 to 10 months. This was to get her used to the different flavors. Then started Stage 3 from 10-11 months this was to get her into eating pieces. Occationally she did the gagging but I mixed it up with her favorite as well, Bananas or Applesauce. Around 11-12 months I was giving her scrambled egg and cheese & pieces of wheat toast, beans & rice. My daughter is now 14 months and only has her front 8 teeth and is a picky eater. Her jaws are stronger but no back teeth yet. I just try over and over until she finally eats it. When she has a hard time with a meal I never force her I just had a backup meal :0) It all takes time and patience.
Hope this helps.
T.

I agree with everyone who suggested "self lead feeding" giving small pieces of soft foods that could be picked up so he can feed himself.

With my son i started him on solids at 4 months, he would eat and eat and eat, spoon after spoon of anything we offered him. He is not picky at all and was eating with us by about 7 months. The only thing i have found that he doesn't like is cantelope and honey due, he will even eat a salad over anything else.

My daughter on the other hand, i didn't even offer her food until a few days before she turned 6 months. She had already been grabbing at my plate trying to eat my food for quiet some time. She doesn't like anything that isn't sweet, she gagged and gagged at every texture we offered her even banannas. She hates veggies. As far as jar food goes (which i don't like to offer) she like yogurt, banannas, apple chicken and sweet potatoes. She is 8 1/2 months now and i've just in the last couple weeks started cutting what everyone else eats into tiny pieces and putting it on her high chair tray to eat, play with or do whatever she likes. She seems very content with this, eats some, some ends up in her seat but, if i was to open a jar of food it would be a waste.

I bet your little guy would love sweet potatoes and they are fairly cheap to buy and cook for him, they also have protein.

Ya know I always thought that if I could get the texture smooth enough my 7 month old would eat it, that's how it was for my son. Not this one, but she will eye everything I eat and grab for it. If your son is doing that, he may just want the real thing, non mashed! Mine isn't quite ready for that, but 9 months is a good time to start some soft foods. You might try organic puffed brown rice cereal, it melts in their mouth and they have fun playing with it on the tray!
K.

maybe try mixing fruits and vegi's? you can mix yams/sweet potatoes with applesauce, ect...Maybe since he has had the fruit, he wants the sweet?

Just a thought!

Something that has worked for us with our little one is to mix in some rice cereal and water with whatever you are introducing. Caleb is now eating stuff without but for a while he was gagging and not wanting to eat anything that wasn't gerber. Since we added rice cereal, he has tried everything I cook. He loves my food and like I said,he eats it now without the cereal for the most part.

Hi there,
what I've learned about introducing solids to babies, is that gagging can be a normal response to a new texture. Their little throats are still learning how to swollow different things. Also, it can take up to a dozen offerings of a food for the baby to get used to a new flavor/texture. keep offering the healthy foods, even if he just spits it out. I made the mistake of slacking off giving my son the foods I thought he didn't like, and now at almost 3 I can hardly remember the last time a vegetable passed his lips!
also, if he loves the bananas, mix them in with everything so he thinks he's eating bananas. :)

Hi H.,

I agree with you that fresh is best but in the event that he is not eating anything I would try to give him store bought baby food - so that he can get a variety of nutrients not just banana. My daughter hated all baby food - weather I made it or it was store bought - tried every brand. She had 7 teeth by the time she was 9 months so I just started giving her very small pieces of regular food so she could pick it up and put it in her own mouth. She immediately started eating more when I did that - She is now 15 months and it takes her approximately 5-10 times of trying something before she will eat it as a main component of a meal.

I would sugest just making very smooth . very blended and not to thick good luck S.

I'll put in a vote for self feeding too. He's old enough to pick up and eat cheerios, puffed rice, small pieces of soft fruits or cooked veggies, crackers that dissolve easily in the mouth, etc.. My babies weren't interested in purees or baby cereal at the start, so we pretty much started with self feeding from 6 months on. It is at least a time to play and learn about food.

My son's Greatgrandmother had excellent advice. She said when she had this problem she simple put the food the baby liked and the font of the spoon so the baby got that first. And slowly the baby will start to take the other foods without the "bananas" or whatever the baby likes best. Good Luck!

No worries! Just keep offering different things in different ways and show NO reaction when he makes a face. Just let it go and offer again some other time. He'll get used to things slowly.

Pretty soon he'll get interested in eating whatever you are eating. You can use that to motivate yourself to put more fresh veggies on your own plate! Plop the baby in the highchair and start eating. When he looks longingly at whatever you are eating, put a little piece on his tray. Babies are great imitators, so this is a fine way to teach him. Talking about food, in my opinion, is the worst way. If he takes a bite and makes a face and you say, "Oh, you don't like that, Honey?" you've just taught him how to drive you crazy when he is a preschooler...."Mommy, I don't liiiiiiiiiike it!" Be quiet, patient and clever! That's my advice!

try mashing some avocado into the banana next time. This will give him another food with good fats! Try mashing sweet potatoes. Babies usually love them. I got a Kidco mill and Baby Cube freezer cubes/tray and pureed fresh food in batches then froze it. Annabel Karmel has some good recipes in her book "Baby's First Purees" and "100 Top Baby Purees".

If you go to Babies R Us - you can get these little net things that you can put food in and your baby can gnaw at it until it gets gummed up enough to fit through the net and they can eat it. They are with the bottles, and little bowls and spoons and stuff! Hope that helps!

Hi H.,
My son was a late eater too. He really showed no interest in food until 10 mo. I know what you mean by fresh foods, but sometimes we are swamped. I found that Earths Best is a reliable brand. I always tasted the food to make sure it was good, if it was yucky to me, then probably he wouldn't like it either (i love all foods).
Anyway, definitely start mixing rice cereals in with the bananas, and other yummy foods, like avocado, peaches, even chicken. Also don't give up on one thing. sometimes they like it and sometimes they don't. i found my son preferred roasted mashed veggies over steamed. And he really preffered seasoned foods, with herbs and oils. by the time they are 9 mo they can eat meats too. I gave my son organic ground beef seasoned with just salt and pepper and he loved it (Safeway sells organic, and so does Whole Foods of course). It seemed the more complex the flavors the more he was into it.
At this point keep in mind food allergy prevention, but introduce new things. Many mamas say to introduce 7 times before you quit.
Have fun!

I have a baby food grinder that I'll mail to you if you contact me. Helped us. I second the sweet potato idea but we also ate avocados mashed up. Very nutrient dense.

Hi H., you could easily mash up sweet potatoes, avocados too. Also, if you get fresh or fresh/frozen veggies, you could steam them or microwave them and then mash them and see how he does with those. If he really won't take anything except bananas (they are nice and sweet!), yhou could probably mash and hide seomthing in the bananas . . . I gave my daughter banana with some plain yogurt (not too much) mixed in and she loved it. Oh, a GREAT one is ripe pears. Ripe pears are super soft and sweet. Good luck!