Looking for First Fingered Foods Ideas

I don't know if you've seen this little gadget before, but I think they're great. The name of it escapes me, but it's small feeder that looks like a plastic ring (about the size of a soothie binky) attached to a net. You put food in the net & the baby chews on the outside of the net. The net prevents chunks of food that are big enough to choke on from getting into your baby's mouth. I have used it with my kids & they loved it. I have put banana slices, watermelon, other types of melon, potatoes, mashed cooked vegetables, etc. in this feeder. You can really put anything in it that will get a little mushy with chewing.

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Hi, S.,

When my children are old enough for finger foods, I generally take a Saturday and steam a bunch of Veggies and cut up a bunch of fruits and freeze them. Babies are not supposed to have wheat until 1 year, so alot of the over-the-counter baby finger foods are not appropriate for him. Here are some of my childrens favorites: steamed, cubed yams; steamed, cubed winter squash; steamed cubed potatoes, zuccini, broccoli, cauliflower, and other veggies taht will get soft enough for baby. I cube mangoes; soft pears, blueberries, bananas, and other soft fruits. For protein , I usually try quartered hard boiled eggs, loose cooked beans...just sprinkle a few black beans, pinto beans or other beans on their tray, or at this age, I often start to encourage them to dip things in yogurt, or I make a bean dip by grinding beans with a touch of olive oil, garlic salt and water to make it smooth enough. I use black beans, or pinto, or garbanzo beans. YOu can also add a splash of lemon juice. For carbs, I usually start them on a whole grain cereal without wheat at this age, one that has a bit more texture than rice cereal. Oat bran hot cereal, oatmeal ground up in blender before cooking, or other smallish, whole grain cereal sold in the grocery store. I mix it with bananas, blueberries, applesauce, or something else that baby likes. There are two excellent books I highly recommend that you can get from the library...Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron and The Family Nutrition Book by Dr. William Sears. I also highly recommend the baby cookies that are maple or vanilla flavored that are sold in the health food stores. They are very dense and my children loved them...they are wheat free and last for hours. Good luck! T.

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Good Morning Stacey,
My children loved Avocados, they are the perfect food or them to self feed. My oldest at about 8 months refused to let me feed her so I had to get creative. I purchased a wonderful book called Super Baby food, it has wonderful ideas. Also, Steaming extra veggies when you make dinner and cutting them up is also great. I also used the net food holder and found it worked well for teething, both my kids loved frozen watermelon in it. I forget the name but you can find it at target.I hope this helps.

I always have a hard time trying to come up with different ideas also...but I have been cutting up grapes, strawberries and blueberries. If you roll them in rice cereal (dry) or crushed graham cracker crumbs they are not so slippery. S.

Amen to the avocado suggestion! Just make sure that you treat their clothes right away. I use Dawn dish soap and oxy-clean spray. back to the question! I started feeding my daughter sweet potatoes that I peeled, diced and boiled until soft. Then cut them into little baby sized chunks and sprinkle with a tiny dash of sea salt. Yummy!
Also, bananas; soft, moist baked chicken; soft pears; strips of toast; cooked apples; cooked lentils or bean that are mashed(they can still pick it up). Good luck and get pictures of his cute face all messy!

I usually give my kids cheerios, they are easy to pick up and sog. But they also have some great choices in the baby food asile. They have those pasta pick-ups or something like that, they are also now doing diced veggies and fruits. But anything that sogs really well is what he needs, until he gets used to having to chew things.

I think its Gerber that has cereal puffs..my daughter loved htem./.they are either fruit or veggie based and they kind of melt in their mouths. So they get to practice eating, but dont have to do a ton of chewing and i never worried about her choking!
You can also try, cooked green beans, sliced peaches, pears, cooked carrots, potatoes.

my kids loved

*tortallini
*shrimp
*chopped cheese and brocolli in a cresent roll
*kiwi-any fruit
*I also would spread baby food meat on bread--they loved it

What a fun stage!!!

Cheerios are good, also, those gerber puffs melt real easy. If you think your little one is ready, you could try steaming small pieces of butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots- if you steam them to the point of being really soft, baby can pick them up but they mash super easy in the mouth. You can make large batches then freeze in ice cube trays and cover, then you just pop out a cube, defrost it in the microwave. Avacado was also a favorite, canned pears or peaches in juice not syrup are also pretty soft, just cut them small. Peeled and quartered grapes. Basically, any food cut into pieces smaller in diameter than your pinkie and soft enough you could mash it with your tongue against the roof of your mouth- that's what I used as a guideline.

Have you ever seen those little Vienna weinies in the can? Myself, I can't stand them. But my son loved them. They're very easily mashed against the roof of the mouth. I cut each one length-wise in quarters. Then diced the quarters. They were about pea size when I gave them to him. Same with about any soft fruit. As he got a little older and was able to handle bits of food in his mouth w/o gagging or choking, I didn't buy much baby food. To save some $$ I would buy vegetable beef soup and chicken noodle soup, then thicken it with instant mashed potatoes. For the price of a jar of baby food, I could get 3 meals or more out of a can of soup. He even liked split pea with ham. Also the Dinty Moore beef stew was good if I ran it through my chopper.