What to Feed 10 Mo. Old to Transition from Pureed Foods to Teach Him to Chew?

I did the same with my son -- made all of his food. At that age, his favorite thing in the world was the Baby Pancakes recipe from wholesomebabyfoods.com. (If the recipe is not at the web site anymore, let me know and I'll type it in.) It uses all healthy ingredients and is flexible to add other things you want. I made up a batch on the weekend and froze them, taking out a few each night for the next day.

My son would cry if a meal ended without them! Good luck.

When my son, now 3, started eating solids, the pediatrician told me to give him Cheerios. I thought it was crazy until he explained that my son would not choke on the Cheerios. They'd either become mushy enough to swallow while he rolled them in his mouth, or if he swallowed them whole, there's a hole in the middle - he wouldn't choke.
As my son developed the ability to chew (you can see them starting the process even if they don't have teeth by the way they manipulate food in their mouth) I added the cereal puffs from Gerber that dissolve quickly, soft veggies etc. And away we went.

Small chunks of ripe fruit. Small chunks of overcooked veggies. Carrots are great. Baked Potato chunks. Chunks of baked squash. Bites of bread, waffles, pancakes, ect. Don't use syrup on them they like them plain now until they learn otherwise. Gerber sells organic pasta pickups and they are pretty good. Really soft. Gerber also sells the veggies ready to go but they are not organic. Good luck he will get it.

Hey R.,
Going through the same thing... Mine is a bit older (13mos), but here are some ideas. He has to get used to different textures before he can really see that he needs to chew. I say "bite" and have a big cheer for him when he takes appropriate sized bites (of organic crackers, which he has to chew a bit...don't do those yet, start with things that melt easier like Gerber puffs or Cheerios so he doesn't have to bite) and I overexaggerate my chewing and say "yummm chew".

Here is a typical day for us:
Breakfast
cooked oatmeal with a touch of cinnamon
(cook it longer so that is is a little mushier)
1/2 of a bannana... sliced into thin discs, then break into its natural thirds...let me know if that doesn't make sense. Or other fruit cut into small pieces (peaches, pears, cooked apples, blueberries) the only fruits we have not done are strawberries, blackberries, rasberries, and grapes)
1 cup of milk

Snack
1/2 apple juice 1/2 water
1/4 cup of cheerios

Lunch
Avocado and rest of am banana cut into small pieces
1/2 grilled cheese sandwhich (with the crust sut off of course! :) )
1 cup of milk

a few more cheerios to tide him over for dinner...maybe

Dinner
homemade meatloaf (regular family recipe, but Gerber has a cute one to try)
squash
yogurt for desert
any veggie cut in small pieces... we are now into lima and butter beans that my husband cooks for 2 days!

Here are a couple of sites. Hope he enjoys!
http://www.gerber.com/promos/fpindex?promoid=155
http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/

K.

I agree with many of the previous posts. You can get organic versions of cheerios as well (cascadian farms makes "purely o's" which are whole grains).

I also did the step of slowly puree-ing less and less so that the texture got chunkier over time. it's pretty easy to do this with sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash, parsnips (my son LOVES parsnips!). Then eventually I would just give him the FINELY diced steamed veggies to self-feed once he had the pincer grasp. also introduced peas at this stage, i'd just get the frozen organic ones and warm up a couple spoonfuls worth. we also did shredded cheddar cheese, moving up to finely diced chunks.

for many months, breakfast every day was 1/2 a banana mashed up some, with some infant oatmeal mixed in (to add iron, whole grains, fiber) and then also a defrosted cube of one other fruit puree (blueberry, pear, peach, etc.) and finally a pinch or two of ground flaxseed for the DHA.

depending on your caution w/ allergies - we started also doing scrambled egg yolks before 1 yr, then i'd slowly get less and less careful about separating out the whites, lol, until we did full-on scrambled eggs. many folks recommend avoiding the whites until 1 yr, though.

I know a lot of people are saying the same thing, but in my opinion the best place to start is with bananas and Cheerios. And don't be afraid to let your baby explore many different kinds and textures of food. As long as you are right there watching and you know how to rescue him if he starts choking, he will learn much better and faster if you are not scared to let him try lots of things. Good luck!

Hi, R.
My name is M.. Although my children are grown, I have a 23 month old granddaughter. I encouraged my daughter to feed her baby fresh veggies. Since your son is just learning to "chew", you can steam them or boil them until they are soft enough for small bites. He will get the hang of chewing his food. Try greenbeans, broccoli florets, cauliflower, carrots, rice, etc. Start with the "bland" foods (cauliflower, rice). Don't worry, he will get the hang of it!

What about pieces of avocado? Toast? Banana? Canned or baked peaches, apples pears. They are soft, but could help him learn chewing skills before you start on something harder.

My daughter is 10 1/2 months now. We started with the evening meal first with what I call REAL solids. (With working during the day it was our easiest transition.)

Cheerios are so great. I was eating them one day and decided to plop some on her tray being they were soggy. She eat them so well. This also helps children to work on fine motor skills by using fingers to pick up food off the tray. The next best thing is to cute up watermelon, cantelope, grapes *must be cut in at least halves*, blueberries (without the skin if you have time), pears, and peaches, etc. Bananans are so easy but they are harder to pick up being so slick. My daughter is even doing canned green beans cut in half and is able to chew them. Good luck, it is tough at first b/c you are so scared they will choke, but actually the majority of chocking cases are from NON food items believe it or not. Good job for nursing so long too! ;)

Blessings,
Amanda

Hi R.,

I have always given my children the food we eat and have found that quartered banana slices, avacado, steamed carrots, green beans or peas all work well. I'm certain there were others but none are coming to mind...it's early here.

Peace,
J.

with my two boys, i started with dicing up foods. fruits veggies, sandwiches, pasta, chicken, anything you can cut up really tiny, like you would see diced tomatoes in a restaurant b/c they use that itty bitty dicer. dont be scared, just jump in to it youwould be suprised what your child can handle. my kids were on table food by ten months b/c they would eyeball my plate and scream wanting wha ti had. lol.. but seriously girl feed him whatever you want diced up really small, then cut them bigger after a while. hope it helps

Hey I made all my baby food for my last one. Try this site. They have recipies for younger babies, toddlers, even older toddlers. www.wholesomebabyfood.com. I hope this helps. THere is recipies for making even your own yogurut. My baby loved these.

I had great luck with baked pears, apples, winter squash and sweet potatoes, plus well steamed carrots and small red potatoes...of course they were all cut up into teeny tiny little pieces! Pears were very easy because if they are well baked they just smoosh in their mouth. I like the red pears the best because they are a smoother texture. Also try spaghetti squash, they love to play with it and feed it to themselves and it's relatively mushy when well cooked.

Cheerios! They dissolve easily so babies can chew on them a little first. Any kind of bread would work, as well as peas, cut up fruits and veggies, crackers, little pieces of meat (if you eat it), etc.

You can start him on peas, carrots and corn mixture. I prefer the steamers that you get in the frozen section over the canned. Less sodium and healthier! They are usually cut up small enough for their little fingers to pick up, and if they swallow them whole, they are small enough not to get choked on. You can also start giving him what you eat-chicken, veggies, sweet potatoes,etc. Just cut it small enough so if he does swallow it whole he won't choke (about the size of a kernnel of corn)

Hi R.,

I also have a 10 month old. I have given her the graduates cheese puff doodle snacks and so on. They are really good, safe because they allow some chewing before they melt in the mouth and I do not think they are junky and fattening food. (I taste test everything before allowing her to eat it to make sure it is safe. This way I know the texture and if it is too much for her.) My daughter loves them and chews her little head off. As a result, we have begun to allow her to eat some table food when we are at dinner. We pull her high chair up to the table and give her some things we may be eating like green beans, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, pasta, stuffing, etc. She really enjoys these foods and sometimes prefers this over her baby food. Oh, recently, I have made cereal and allowed it to get a little mushy and she will eat that (no sugar).

Hope this helped even a little.

A.

Hi R.~
He may not be ready for stage 2-3 foods yet. My son didn't like the texture of stage 2-3 foods until later, almost a year. One thing you can try is little melt in the mouth puffs. That will help him with grasping with the pincer fingers and beginning to use those teeth. Some babies don't tolerate more textured foods until their older. Listen to your baby. Good luck!
P.

they make teething crackers to help infants gums. however, they also work great to teach them to chew. they bite a little piece off, and they pretty much melt in the mouth. also, if you want to stick to homemde meals, i found pasta work great. its soft and easy to chew. this is what i started my kids out on and they did great. ravioli works good as well as spaghetti (without big chunks of meat.

Hi. I would still give him all the foods that you have been giving him but just don't puree them as much. As long as the food is still soft enough for him to swallow plus chew it should be fine. A little bit of chunks in his food woun't hurt.

Check out this MOST amazing book called Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. It tells you everything (and I mean everything) you need to know about making food from day 1 to year 4, Month by month when/how to introduce different fruits and vegetables and how to make everything yourself. Great info, great tips, esp. if you're into making your own food. As to chewing and eating - a 10 months digestive system is practically the same as an adults - aside from allergy cautions you can feed him pretty much anything that's soft. Cooked elbows are great, cut up bananas, avocado, skinned and diced grapes, cooked sweet potatoes, cooked chicken, toast, the possibilities are endless!! Check out the book! It's just what you're looking for.

My 9 month old has two teeth and prefers to feed herself solids. She will eat pureed food occasionally, but once we started solids, she loved them and meal time was so much better. I give her diced peaches, bananas, pears (sometimes I do canned). Gerber has graduate foods that aren't sugary.
Last night she had avocado, cheese that I cubed really small, lean ground beef, peaches. For lunch she had chicken, canned no-salt green beans.
Sometimes I give her whole strands of pasta and she has a blast playing with it. It takes forever for her to eat it so it keeps her occupied longer. haha
Cut up cooked pasta.
Your son has more than enough teeth to eat a lot of foods. Have fun with this and take advantage of it!

R. - I would start your son off with food items like Cheerios, cheetos and small cut up pieces of vegetables from your plate (green beans, peas, corn, etc.) Mashed potatoes are good to introduce at this age too. The teething biscuits that you have introduced will dissolve, but in case he does get choked, just clear it out of his mouth.

At this age, he could start eating the same type things that you are, just in smaller, easy to chew bites.

GOOD LUCK and GOD BLESS !!

R.

When my daughter was about the same age, a friend of mine visited with her three kids (her son was the same age as my daughter.) I was astounded that she gave her 10 month old just about everything she gave her older ones... she just cut the pieces really small and let her son pincer grasp them on his own. He was happy, she was happy and I learned a lot! I got the guts to do the same, although I introduced things a little more slowly in case of food allergies (which I later didn't worry about with my next kids... you are always the most cautious with the first!!!)

I thought cutting up apple chunks and microwaving them until very soft was a quick favorite (cool for a long time and then smush them with a fork so they are solid, but not easily choked.) You can do the same with carrots or many veggies. My kids liked to chew, but make sure yours is tolerating it well before going semi-solid. I HATED biter biscuits... ALL my kids have choked on pieces (you'd think I would have learned with my first experience, but they just seem like they are meant for kids!) Good luck!

The only suggestion I have would be bananas cut into bite size pieces.

Hi! For a long time I was pureeing whatever we ate for dinner and offering it to my son along with his usual pureed foods (like you, I pureed most of his 1st foods at home rather than buying the ones at the store). I gradually pureed our stuff less and less, while still offering him the other stuff, so he could make the choice.

Check out: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ for some really great ideas!
A.

My son is 10 months as well now, and he eats EVERYTHING.... Anything I eat is what he wants. He has just cut his first tooth and still eats whatever. We started him on mashed potatoes ... then worked our way up... the baby food grinders grind it up just enough for there to be little peices to teach them to chew but normally its a natural process... I was shocked to see mine eat what he does but he is as healthy as can be and loves to try new things. I would say whatever makes you feel comfortable.. but I would start with mashed potatoes since they seem to be a little thicker urging the chewing motion.

I too made my own food. I got suckered into buying a Thunderstick 2000 (or something like that) I was tired, and the infomercial seemed really cool. I am glad I did though. I made all food for both my kids. Anyway, when you puree, or grind up his food, leave some chunck in it. The better he gets with them, leave them bigger.
I do not know how you are pureeing his food.. BUT when i did it. I steamed the veggies on the stove (I do not use microwaves.. I dont trust them) then put the veggies in a cup, and grinded them up with that Thunderstick. Then I poured it into ice trays. When frozen I put them in Ziploc bags which I labeled, so I could do many varieties of veggies at a seconds notice. When the kids were big enough where I didnt have to puree the food, I would cut it up into pieces that they could handle.. and still freeze it in the icetrays. Made it very convienient.

Good luck. He will do fine :)