8 Month Girl and No More Baby Food- What to Feed

sounds like you are doing well. Think outside of the box with the other foods. Why not make her a small lasagna without cheese. Kids love it. Bake the noodles, sauce and veggies with out dairy! Then you will have some left over for another day too. Alternate the same foods. She doesn't need that much variety. Remember that her stomach is very small. I also make smoothies for my kids, banana, strawberries, and soy milk are the base, you can add anything. We like the strawberries frozen so the smoothie is thick and cold. Get one of those teething mesh bags on a ring so you can put cold or frozen foods in them for her to gnaw on, like cold apple or frozen blueberries.
Megan

My son is 11 months now and has been done with baby food for 2 months because it no longer satisfied him. At 6 months I got into this routine:
Breakfast: Yogurt
Lunch: Fruit
Dinner: Veggie

As he got older and able to handle solids, I added cheese at lunch with the fruit and meat at dinner with the veggie. He gets goldfish, teddy grahams, cheerios, between meals for snacks.

www.wholesometoddlerfood.com is a great website with recipes and meal ideas for babies/toddlers.

We had the same thing, but our daughter refused baby food from the beginning -- I think we got a total of 6 jars of food in her body her whole life! We finally turned to mushy self-feed solids. Here were some of our reliable foods that were soft enough for her to gum yet solid enough to pick up with her hands: avocado, cooked sweet potato, cooked acorn or butternut squash, cooked frozen chopped broccoli, very ripe bananas, large curd cottage cheese (so more of it ended up in her mouth than regular small curd), cooked apple chunks, tofu, lentil soup (the only thing she let us feed her). I do agree with one person here that doctors recommend waiting until 12 months before eating strawberries. The good news about your daughter's refusal to be fed is that she will likely be an early confident and successful independent eater. After a frustrating couple of weeks, we settled into her eating, and our daughter was a completely independent eater (aside from soup) at 9 months!

You can give her so many things it's crazy. She doesn't have to eat the same thing as you at this point. I mean it helps to eat the same as her often but it's not necessary every meal. Me personally i wouldn't worry about the small amount of cheese in Lasagna but that's in purely up to you. What you could do in this case is while you are putting the lasagna together to put into the oven you could take the things in it on a separate plate for her minus what you don't want to offer her. You can just cook it and pile it in a bowl she can take it out on her own with her hands. AT this point being clean isn't the issue it's getting food that is safe to eat and she can eat. I gave my daughter at that age what ever i could. Each meal there was always something offered in a bowl with a spoon that she liked. Normally like mashed potatoes or apple sauce or yogurt with a spoon. She didn't have to eat it but i would attempt to feed one spoon of it it her by rubbing it on her mouth so she knew what it was normally after a few nights she would try it herself after i did that. Because she liked the taste. You could even try putting good tasting baby food. As far as how much at first i would start really small (normally if she still wants more you will know) but each evening i would give her a little more than before. Until you see she's consistently not finishing it. good luck

My little one never was much into the jars either, and really the only thing she'll take from a spoon is yogurt for some reason! It sounds like your daughter is doing great with the solids, but remember she's still very young. Most of her nutrition should still be coming from formula or breast milk until she's about a year old, at which point she should be able to handle most foods that you are eating too. Solids are for practice now, so if she just eats a little or a fairly limited variety that's OK! Some bits of fruit and Cheerios or small bits of bread should keep her happy while you enjoy that yummy sounding lasagna.

Also, I agree with the previous poster who mentioned that if you're concerned about allergies you should wait on berries a little longer. Citrus too, from what I've heard.

Enjoy your little ones!

My LO loves beans. Sometimes I warm up some rice, beans and a little frozen spinach (chopped real fine) for a quick meal if she doesn't want to or shouldn't eat what we're having. I make a lot of vegetable soups/stews (I also throw in beans and pasta or some other whole grain like rice or millet) too and freeze it in individual portions for her.
It takes a child an average of 17 times to accept new foods. So don't give up if she doesn't seem to like what you give her.
A baby's stomach is the size of her fist. So according to my pediatrician, that's how much she should eat at a meal just more often.

Check out Annabel Karmel. She is a british baby food cookbook author. I found her very helpful. We do cheese but no milk. Lightly cooked pears and apples. Bananas, peas, turkey hot dogs, grapes, blueberries, peaches, mangoes, broccoli, cauliflower, turkey and ham lunchmeat or regular...it takes some thinking but letting them stretch their independence is better than fighting with them. I found that I just get frustrated and she still wins.

Here are two good links that I used to get meal ideas and portion amounts.

http://www.babycenter.com/0_age-by-age-guide-to-feeding-y...

http://www.gerber.com/Nutrition_Feeding/Start_Healthy_Sta...

Good Luck!

my 2nd is the same way! i think he's watching his big bro and emulating him.

cold cuts are a good food. tofu also, and you can saute it into smaller pieces and flavor it as well, though he'll also eat it plain. he has always loved gnawing on pizza crusts, and pita bread pieces. beans are good -- i usually smush them a bit before handing them over, and/or slide them out of the skin. also, the frozen vegetable medley has been a great option -- peas, corn, limas, cut up carrots -- steam/microwave it till soft and give her those -- while she is concentrating on getting some of her own food into her mouth you shovel in jar food while she's distracted.

I would just give her exactly what you eat -- you may have to modify what you eat until she is old enough to have dairy. My daughter did the same thing at 10 months, so we just gave her what we ate. It was so much easier and I didn't have to bother with the baby food anymore.

When she stops eating, she's had enough. Babies are smart enough to stop when they are full.

FYI if allergies run in your family you might want to wait with strawberries until after she is a year. Strawberries are a high allergen. Have you tried to let her take over the spoon. Try with something thick like baby cereal (made really thick) and see if she will feed herself. As far as how much I would just let her eat until she is done (as long as there is no weight issue). Just make sure she is getting the daily requirements of formula and/or breastmilk. She is still getting most of her nutrients from formula and/or breastmilk.