When Can Baby Eat Finger Foods/ Teething Cookies?

I wouldn't give Ritz crackers, or at least not a lot. Nutritional foods are better right now.

Sweet potatoes in chunk sizes they can pick up, they much right inside their mouths.
Peas
salmon (great for iron)
egg yolks (also great for iron, some wait til a year, but 11 months seems close enough to me!)
Ripe pear (peel half of it, and let him gnaw on it, whatever pieces he gets will be soft)
Rice (brown rice works too)
carrots cooked very well, soft
potatos, white
banana
avacado
ground beef, small bits
pot roast (beef, potato, carrots, green beans)
avacado soft
broccoli soft (let him hold it and eat the top)

My son is 6 1/2 months old and has been on solids since 4 months. He occasionally gets a baby mum-mum. The only place I've seen them so far is at Wal-Mart. They come in plain and veggie flavor. They dissolve very easily and taste GREAT! My little boy LOVES them!!! He is so proud of himself when he eats on his own! He has a hard time getting the puffs into his mouth, still ... but he likes to try! We are waiting until he has teeth to try cheerios!

I started my daughter with cherrios at 6 months. I cut them in half just to be on the safe side and at 9 months started her on other finger foods. Mum Mums are great. She loved them and were very easily dissolved in her mouth. You can buy them at Whole Foods. Its a large cracker you can break into smaller pieces for now.

I have tried Cheerios and the Gerber puffs and my kids loved them both. My kids are big eaters since infancy so I would buy those mini bagels and leave them opened on the counter to dry them out (for maybe a day). Then I'd have a hard but edible teething ring! They can gnaw on it for a long time but by the time they'd get anything off of it it would be mush. You can also freeze them after they are dry if your son likes cold on his gums. My kids loved these and it was a great way to have something on hand when their teeth were really hurting - they never liked the water-filled teethers. Just beware, the bagels can get fairly messy and I wouldn't choose blueberry ;) Hope that helps!

they say that when bay can sit up by himself they can start finger foods. teething buiscuts are nice but usually near the end they run out of buscut to hold and are left with a choking hazard so take it away at that point. another idea is one of those mesh things a baby holds and you put veggies or fruit in and he cant chew it and get the juics out without choking. the puffs are an excellant finger food though. they are as small as a cheerio but melt in your mouth like cotton candy and come in a large amount of flavors. they come in star shapes from gerber i believe and walmart makes a geeric brand in the shape of A's. there are many things in the baby food isle that you can try my kids loved most all of them.

My son was a preemie and started the baby Mum Mums and teething biscuits at 7 1/2 - 8mos. He is now 9 1/2mos and eating gerber puffs, wagon wheels, diced fruit, diced carrots, etc...

You can start him on baby crackers after he starts eating baby food anytime. When he can pick up small pieces and put to his mouth is when you can start feeding him very soft veggies and things like that. If you are worried about him choking just stay with him and keep him in a straight upright position. I started both my children on Earth's Best Barley Teething Biscuits. They have different flavors. Just continue to only introduce one new food/flavor a week until he is a year old. Good Luck!

My son was eating ritz crackers and other soft disolvable foods by 6 months and most of what we eat by 8-9 months. I waited to start my daughter until very late because I was afraid of choking with no teeth (late teethers both of them). That was a mistake as we have battled trying foods for 4 yrs now. My son is a great eater. They can mash foods very good with their gums. Just watch him closely when he tries new foods. Also be aware that they sometimes gag from new textures, not necessarily because they are choking. good luck.

gerber.com is a wonderful place for this kind of information ev ery time my son turns another month old I go to their website to seewhat stage he should be in and what food he can eat. rremember every child is different though so a little trial and error never hurts.

The first finger food I gave mine was those gerber puffs. (little x's) They melt really quickly so I felt most comfortable with that as far as choking hazards go. I moved on to cheerios next. (much more cost effective) I didn't care for the zwieback toast, the first one my oldest had broke off a huge chunk in his mouth and I had to fish it out w/my pinky. That scared me off of them. My husband and I are both paranoid about them choking though so I'm sure this may sound extreme to some. We did do the wagon wheels though. They got to be a little bit of a sticky mess but if you go into it knowing that, it isn't so bad. Good luck and enjoy. This time really flies.

Anything "melty" like Ritz crackers or those little Gerber puffs.

I think the sooner you get started the better. My son is 12 months and we still struggle with finger foods. I was afraid of the choking since my child has a strong gag reflex but wish I introduced finger foods much earlier than I did at 10 months. I have really enjoyed all of the Gerbers Graduates foods in the grocery store. They are much lower in sodium and sugar than regular products and usually contain whole grains. Good luck!

My son is exactly the same age and I have the same question so please let me know what you find out. Thanks.

My daughter was not allowed to start teething crackers until later than most because she had a cleft palate. However, once she healed from her repair at 10 months, she adored the Earth's Best Wheat Teething Biscuits. I also found that they made a lot less mess than the Zweibacks.