Need Help Trying to Go from Baby Food to Table Food

I wrote this in respond to another request the other day:

I always introduce new foods that I think my daughter will reject by combining it with something she loves. She loves broccoli, for instance, and i know it's because of cheese sauce ;-) Now that she eats the broccoli, she doesn't need the cheese, but it got her eating it. She also wouldn't eat eggs, so I combined it with avocado (the one thing she could eat everyday and never, ever get sick of).

My daughter went off purees around 8 months. She wanted to feed herself. She has some issues with texture (like with the egg), so I try to combine the weird texture stuff with things she will eat.

Have you made homemade mac and cheese yet? It got my daughter eating pasta, and then beef. You might want to put some veggies in with the cheese and noodles and see what she does.

Try a cheese sauce on the veggies, and just expect three tries before she will really eat anything. What I've found with my daughter, though, is that I just have to keep putting it in front of her (ignoring all the food I throw out), and she will eventually eat it.

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How do you react when it goes straight to the floor?

Do you get upset, annoyed, or irritated (and, I'm not judging you...I'd get frustrated too!)? Do your emotions show? If this is the case, she just might be doing it to get a reaction out of you. She's probably not intentionally being a pain; she's just connecting a cause-effect relationship. "When I throw my food on the floor, mommy gets all excited and pays attention to it! Whee - let's try this again! Plunk - there goes another chunk of food and the reaction is even stronger this time! Woohoo!" If your reaction is visible and strong, then try your best to not let it bother you. Don't give her the audience she is seeking.

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My son Stephen (DOB 1/24/08)was the same way. He would not just spit out his food, sometimes when I would insist that he try a bite of something new he would actually throw up. I am positive it was a texture thing. I would try to mash things up and that just made it worse.
We went from the stage 2 puree type food to the stage 3. The attempt was to break him into eating small pieces of food gradually. The first couple times that he got a piece of pea or a noodle that was too big he would gag, but slowly he got over that. I almost always let him feed himself. The first couple times he got a green bean or something else that was new he'd spit it right out, but after a while he decided it was OK. It was almost like he woke up one day and said "I'm gonna eat table food today". And eat he does. He'll eat a whole container of the Gerber Graduates Pasta Pick Ups and some veggies too. We do give him toddler formula, just to try to make sure that he's getting enough nutrition. He still doesn't like to eat meat very much, but that's OK, when he's ready he'll do it. And until then we'll keep plenty of peanut butter on hand.
So my advice, just be patient and take baby steps, and be a little sneaky. If she'll eat pancakes great. Give her some pancakes then open up a jar of fruit and feed her that too. It seemed like the more I tried to push table food, the more he rejected it. Once in a while mix some pieces of green beans, peas, or what ever in with the baby food. Keep giving her the option to eat table food, but if she rejects it just go ahead and open the jar. Don't worry it'll happen, but not until she decides. Those darn babies seem to think they're in charge or something (LOL).

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Food texture issues can be tricky, but are very common. A couple of foods that I have found that work are sweet potatoes and avocados. For the sweet potatoes, get a whole sweet potato, cook it as instructed and then serve it in little clumps as a finger food or on a spoon like her baby food. The pieces are a little more solid then the baby food and it gradually introduces her to a more "sophisticated" texture. You can also try slicing the sweet potato into strips, wipe with olive oil and bake them to make sweet potato fries. They are more nutritious than regular fries and perhaps a texture/treat she will enjoy. Another thing I have found works well for texture sensitive kids is avocado. You can either squish it up into guacamole (don't add salsa or anything)which is a lumpier texture then baby food and makes a nice "gateway" into more solid foods. Finally, if you can't get her to eat either of those things try cooking some brown rice (white rice is fine too; just less nutritious) and mix a small amount into her baby food with each meal. Gradually increase the amount of rice mixed in with the baby food until she tolerates the texture. Most likely once she gets used to the baby food w/ rice texture, she will be more responsive to other foods with similar textures. Good luck!

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I think there was a study done that said that it takes like 6-10 times of introduction for a child to be okay with certain foods. So keep introducing, being okay if it is shoved away or if they see if gravity still works. If you are concerned about fruit and veggies getting into the mix, you said she loves pizza, add pureed veggies to the sauce, she gets the nutrients you want and the pizzs she wants. If she likes something like oatmeal, add fruit puree to that too. Add it to soup, brownies. There is a cookbook out there call deceptively delicious. We add alot of things to foods and then start adding the actual food a couple weeks later, it works for us.

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Hi H. A:

I have found that if you introduced small pieces of fruit in your daughter's pancake.. like blueberries, strawberries, bananas this might be to her liking. Same goes for chopped fine vegetables...carrots, zucchini,green beans (cooked) and put on her pizza (if you make your own pizza, these can be put on before the tomato sauce and cheese. She may not eat the veggies and fruit now.. but if you continue to introduce them as a side dish or make a smiling face on a platter along with a dip for the fruit or vegetables this might want her to eat what's there. Maybe when you go to the grocery store..ask her what she would like to pick out to "try" in the fruit line.. and next time in the vegetable . My grandson likes vegetables dipped in Ranch Dressing. They make small packets you can try. Maybe, if she likes apples, put creamy peanut butter on the side for her to dip. If not, try applesauce, cottage cheese with fruit, canned or fresh.
Good luck.. eventually she will love fruit and vegetables.

From a grandmother who knows. :)

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I would say to mash up the big people food with one of the food grinders, and what i did with my daugther was let her help me prepare it and then she was excited to try what she made. I had one of the most pickiest eaters and it worked for her. She is now turning 8 and it still works when she wont eat something i let her help prepare it. The baby food grinder will help it to look like what she is use to and then she can get use to the tastes and smells of things and before you know it she may just be eating food without grinding it up....good luck and hope it works for you...

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just keep offering real adult food every meal, before you give any jar food. Steam things that are tough to make them soft. I have all the daycare kids on table food by 12 mos old.

A good veggie is frozen peas, either frozen or slightly thawed. Canned veggies are good too because they are soft.