Sample Diet for 11 Month Old

Hi S.
(soy beans)Edemame(frozen and shelled) are a great choice. It's yummy and nutritious and kids usually like picking it up with there fingers.
Also cut up sweet potatos like french fries and bake them with some olive oil in either an oven or toaster oven. Pureed soups are a yummy way to get the veggies in. (butternut squash-tomato-split pea-carrot etc.)
flax oil is the best-you can put it in anything and they don't know it's there. It's extremely nutritious and is good for BM's. Never cook with it and always refridgerate. You can also do plain potatos in the oven as french fries.
Avacados are good in yogurt or mashed or in chunks. Raw almond butter(trader joe's has it for $5 a jar). Soy milk instead of milk...earth balance(butter) or soy garden instead of butter-it's very good. Food for Life(Ezekiel 4:9) makes great breads and tortilla wraps that are made with sprouted grain flour. There's 16 grams of protien in them. They're easy to warm up and make a dairy free pizza with. Also good with raw almond butter spread on top. I usually warm them in toaster oven-short time for soft and a little longer for crispy. Anyway I know this was long but I hope it's helpful.
S. S

Hmmmm. My (soy allergic) daughter's diet at 11 months was 90-95% Breast-milk. We would offer her whatever we were eating and she would play with it and taste it, but hardly ate anything until she was well over a year old. Even then the first meal that interested her was a spicy Indian dish.

We never gave her baby food or any "toddler friendly" foods, just what we normally eat at home (everything from ol'fashioned down home cookin' to French, Middle Eastern, Indian and East Asian cuisines :D). Now, at 19 months, she won't refuse any thing unless she's sick or having an allergic reaction--loves experimenting with new flavors--her favorites at the moment are curry, sushi and kimchee :D

Food before 1 year is all for experimentation and not nutrition. If your son is reacting badly to dairy, I would remove it completely from his diet as well as yours if you are breast-feeding. FWIW, many people find that when foods that are the cause of a sensitivity or allergy are removed completely from the diet, the child (or adult) become much less picky and more adventurous with new foods/flavors.

When you offer your son a meal put a wide variety of nutrient rich items with different textures on his plate and let him experiment with them. Also, try offering things like veggies in 2 or 3 forms at the same time (ie. creamed, steamed, raw, fermented and/or sauted). You may discover you son is a veggie snob. My niece and nephews are (well my whole family actually). In our houses, any vegetables HAVE to be fresh--no more than 1 hour from garden to gut :P --and organic.

Good luck and don't stress too much about your son's diet yet.

Hi Shelly.
Please do yourself a big favor and continue to give that little boy veggies of all kinds!!! I have 2 boys who are both the pickiest little eaters and they drive me nuts!!! Well, my oldest who is now 5 is FINALLY eating more things and even experimenting (which before was absolutely unheard of) but before this it was such stress. My second was a great eater until he was around a year to a year and a half when he would hear his brother crying about food and then decided he would join in. Anyway, I just want to encourage you before it gets more difficult to make sure you offer your son veggies and fruits of all kinds so he gets used to different textures. I know they need to be given some food like 10 times before they'll like them, so don't give up. Take it from a mom who managed to do the same dumb mistakes TWICE...I promised myself that I would be an advocate for good eating from the beginning because it has been such a struggle...but through perseverance getting better.

Anyway, I hope that helped...on some level. :)

S.

He should now be eating more solids. How about trying some of the Gerber graduate finger foods. My DD used to LOVE bread broke up into pieces, crackers, cheerios, fruit, etc. I am sure other moms have more ideas, but those are some to get started. How about scrambled eggs? Soft foods he can pick up and eat himself are great. Hope that helps.

J.

I must say, the recipes in the Deceptively Delicious book by Seinfeld is a great way to sneak in veggies!!
Also, I cut sweet potatoes in circles and throw them around olive oil but then sprinkle them with a bit of cinnamon and brown sugar and the kids FIGHT for the last piece!! I did see someone post edamame which my son loves-but he likes to see them come out of the pod for some reason!! I fear them as a choking hazard so I hover over him if he east that. It is a great protein source! I also have a recipe book made for infants/toddlers that was easy and great to use!! I can look up the name if you want!!