Feeding a 8 Month Old!

A.,
My daughter was able to almost any food, as long as I cut it in small enough pieces since she didn't have enough teeth to chew the food up. Tiny little pieces of pasta are easy, mashed potatoes, bread in small pieces. The key is just don't feed hot dogs, grapes, etc. They can choke very easily on that. Gerber has first foods out, those are great! Town house crackers are also a great food item since they break easily. Hope this helps! L.

I started out with steemed veggies and fresh fruits that I smashed. I never took my children off baby food till they had teeth and could chew really good. I did and still do every now and then give chopped up hot dogs and mixed them with mac-n-cheese. I cut up the noodles till the kids were able to chew really good. And my kids are healthy and not over weight. I also had it as a child and I weigh 105lbs so its not that those foods cause big kids its always giving them junk foods and never good foods. You can give her anything you want just try to do veggies first because they will more likly eat the veggies easier if thats what they are use to. My kids love most veggies. Good luck

I've never heard of taking a baby off of baby food by 9 months. My son is 9 months and still on baby food. My niece is a year old and still gets baby food at times. I see no problem with continuing it. However, you can start introducing mild "table foods". Crackers (ritz are good because they get mushy quick) and toast are great starters. Other good items are bananas (cut into small pieces for baby to chew without choking), yogurt (plain), and egg yolks (shouldn't have the whites until after a year old). Don't forget the infant cereals, too. You can use the infant mixed grain or oatmeal mixed with baby fruit. Don't worry if your baby doesn't have teeth, yet either. My 9 month old doesn't have any teeth yet, but I have been giving him crackers and toast. Even if he doesn't actually "eat" much of it, he is practicing chewing. Another idea is to over-cook pasta and then finely chop it in the blender. You can then mix it with baby food (like a veggie or meat), to add a little texture, but it doesn't pose a choking hazard. Cottage cheese and applesauce are good ones too. I make all of Ben's foods for him. I puree everything in the blender. Then I know what he's getting. I can't believe some of the responses of feeding an 8 month old hot dogs, mac & cheese, etc. Those contain no nutritional value whatsoever and are not appropriate at this age. It's no wonder there's such a childhood obesity problem in America if this is what parents are feeding their babies. If you start teaching your children good food nutrition right off the bat, they will be less likely to develop weight problems, later. I hope some of the ideas I gave you helps.

My son is 9 months and we do a combo of foods. For example if you are having something spicy like tacos, then we give him the jar of foods. The food will fill her up...not to worry. Trust your child's reaction to the food. Know that it is something that we all have to transition to. You will find that she will be excited to eat real food and will look forward to dinner and gradually stray away from the jars. I belive what your dr. meant by soft food was jello, smashed veggies, bread, cereals (cheerios), ground meat, etc. If you are eating the food then it should be healthy right? I mean you wouldn't/shouldn't eat something you would give your little one. Good luck!

Wow, the girls gave you lots of good information! I like the toddler foods they sell plus I give her some of our food depending on what it is. My daughter is 10 mos. so right now she's eating a piece of cinnamon toast broken up into small pieces,yesteday I broke up a mini pancake for her. Bananas, cheerios, peas, green beans, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes. I only give her one bottle of juice a day for fear she'll get the runs. LOL! Hope some of those ideas helped!

S.

First of all I don't think it is necessary to take her off the jar foods. My daughter will be 1 next week and I still feed her jar foods bc otherwise there would be nothing for me to feed her. I do give her what we eat like mashed potatoes, peas, and anything elses I can mash up that she wont choke on. I do give her those Gerber Graduate meals and she loves those esp. the mac n cheese. I will give her a banana cut up very small, but still give her jar foods so she gets enough nutrition. I think you should introduce the table food to her, but don't take jars away until you have enough table food that she is capable of eating. This is just my suggestion and if you would rather follow the doctors orders I totally understand, but I will say my pediatrician has never told me to do this with any of my kids and I have 3. It takes time for them to figure out table food. Good luck!

My daughter wouldn't take jarred food, so here's what we did for her... I cut up a sweet potato into "chips" and baked it at 350 degrees until it was soft. I also did that with apples and pears, just so they'd be soft enough for her to chew. She also liked all kinds of vegetables, so I got one of those stove top steamers and steamed all of them until they were soft. At that age, my daughter liked anything she could pick up, so we did Cheerios and other types of bread, banannas, and sliced up avacado. Since they're still learning what the taste of vegetables are, there's no need to season too much. She can also eat whatever healty you've got on your plate!

I agree with all the other responses. I don't think it is necessary for your baby to be off jar foods by the time of 9 months. Both of my boys ate it until well past a year. I started off by steaming vegetables and pureeing them. I would put that in ice cube trays and freezing it. If you do several vegetables and fruits at a time, you have a good supply for about 1 1/2 -2 weeks. With my first son, my doctor told me it was okay to add meat at 8 months, but I had been giving him baby food for about 3-4 months. This was my routine every 1-2 weeks: I would buy a bag of peas, couple cans of green beans and carrots, a large sweet potato, and or butternut squash, a large can of peaches (in light syrup), large can of pears (light syrup), a bag of apples, etc. You can get whatever you want to try. I would spend about two days pureeing everything and freezing in trays. Put each different thing into ziploc freezer bags and label. Depending onhow big of an eater your baby is, depends on how many cubes you give her. After she has been eating for a while, you can start to mix veggies once you know she isn't allergic. I know it is a lot of work, but if you are short on cash, and you have the time, it is really economical. With my second son, I didn't have as much time so I did jar food as well, but still continued to do my own as time allowed. I don't know if you have ever seen a baby food grinder or not. After I had been feeding them this for a while, I started grinding up what we were eating. That helps them get accustomed to the tastes and textures of table food. I know that both of my sons were still eating baby food by their first birthday along with samples of big people food. They will let you know when baby food is not enough any more.

http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/baby/babyfeeding/1400680...

Check out that website. It has everything you eed to know =)

GIVE HER THINGS THAT SHE CAN MUSH IN HER MOUTH LIKE POTOTAS,NOODLES,ICE CREAM,MASHED VEGS, MASHED FRUIT, APPLE SAUSE JUST CONTROL HER INTAKE AND SEE HOW IT GOES
P. S

hey A. i have 2 girls 7 and 2 at that age i fed both my girls gerber graduates they have all sorts of food and our food like any cooked veggie ,mashed potatoes, rice, cut up hot dogs, mac and cheese, fruits, finger foods basically. hope this helped.
V.

I think that depends on if you are breastfeeding. If you are, you don't really need solid foods for up to a year. In that case, just sampling off what you're eating here and there is okay. Of course avoid foods high in sugar and white flour.

If you're formula feeding, she might start to need food more at this point. Give her healthy non-dairy foods until she's a year old. If she has enough teeth and can chew, you won't have to piece things off so small or mash them as much.

Healthy foods are usually fresh. Avoid things with lots of preservatives like hot dogs (and they can be a choking hazard). Do as many fresh fruits and veggies as possible. You may need to slice them up, soften them like through cooking, or mash them depedning on how well your baby chews. It's best when your baby can pick things up herself. Canned veggies and fruits are not as good as fresh because they are preserved and sometimes contain extra salt and syrups your baby doesn't need. Also these syrups and such make things extra slippery and most of it ends up on the floor.

My 10 month old has 4 teeth on the bottom and 3 on the top. She likes Cherios, little pieces of banana, the beans out of edamame (they are soft, but could be a choking hazard if your baby doesn't have enough teeth), pieces of scrambled egg, and sometimes little pieces of chicken. She doesn't seem to prefer meat though. She likes veggies the best. Her favorite thing is her sippy cup with water in it. She can do it herself and seems very proud of it.

I really like the idea of giving babies table food. I also breastfeed until past 2 years. I never use jarred food or rice cereal. I go straight to table food once they get teeth and start reaching for it. For my 10 month old, that wasn't until a couple months ago. Until then she was strictly breastfed and had some tastes of things. The reason I like letting my kids feed themselves is that they can self regulate and this is a good habit for the future. They will just stop when full instead of letting me shovel it in because she gets a positive response from the one feeding her.

My son is now 4, so I hope my memory serves me right here!

- We did the oatmeal/rice warm cereal for breakfast with bananas or scrambled eggs, etc.
- Then for lunches and dinners we pretty much mashed up whatever we were eating. I distinctly remember doing this transition slowly. For instance, I would feed him a jar of meat baby food along with cubed cucumber and tomato and bits of cheese. Then eventually I would give him shredded chicken breast or fish or turkey that I had baked instead of the canned meat. Then, I eventually added in lettuce and other vegetables to the cucumber and tomato. Avacado, mashed or cubed potato, reallly cooked cubed carrot, and reallly cooked broccoli were other ones that worked well. Veg All (canned veggies) were also fun for him to pick up as they were his size and different colors and shapes.

I also started him on real fruit smoothies around this time - just a few ounces per day.

Hope this helps!

T.

Hello. Its very easy. When I started to feed my children reg food, I started with the basics, around the age of 6 or 7 months old. Mashed pots, with gravy, or sour cream, cottage cheese, apple sauce, mac& cheese (noodles cooked well), and then cut up into small peices, hot cereal ( thinned down with milk), spag with a little bit of sauce (once again noodles cooked well, cut up into little peices), spag-o's, pudding, jell-o, if i think of anything else.

A. H.
Go to Wal~Mart or where ever and buy a small food grinder. I bought one years ago (9) for about $10. you then can make anything and grind it up to the consistency for your child. My youngest son (9) ate all of our food earily too. And he is so very healthy. You can make veggies and then process them to be soft and smooth. Even meat like liver mixed with mashed potatoes is good. There is a book called "The Natural Baby Food Cookbook" by Margaret Elizabeth Kenda and Phyllis S. Williams. It is a wonderful book full of recipes and tips to help parents.
Good luck and I hope this helped.
C.

Here are a few suggestions.
Vegetables - canned, no salt added, carrots, peas, green beans, potatoes, etc. these are already soft because of the canning - you can use fresh or frozen but you'll have to cook them for a lot longer to get them soft. Mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes are good too, these I'd recommend fresh and mash them yourself with little or nothing added. Fruit - soft fruits like peaches, kiwi, and avocado you can just dice them up small, other fruits you can buy canned (fruit cups) and Gerber Graduates has jars of diced fruits like apples. My daughter really liked shredded or crumbled cheese and the Gerber meat sticks (kind of like little hotdogs but much softer).There was a really good article in Parents magazine a few months ago that had lots of ideas for this in between phase.

Here's an excellent chart which gives lots of healthy, simple ideas based on the age of your baby (7-9 months old):L
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T030600.asp

And this chart addresses birth-24 months:
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T030500.asp

Keep in mind that 8 months old is still young and it's important to know how to spot a potential reaction to a new food (http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/T041800.asp#T041803) & to avoid the highly allergenic foods (cow's milk, peanuts & tree nuts, fish, wheat, eggs, etc.).

You can also make your own baby food, which is really quite easy, saves money, and is often fresher and better tasting than canned baby food:
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T032300.asp

Just watch your daughter for signs of her being ready and follow her cues - she may not be that interested in eating large quantities and instead just want to socially participate in meal times. And that's OK! She'll be very obvious about wanting to eat as soon as she's ready. Happy eating!

It can be things that of course your child isn't allergic to already. I gave my daughter things like cottage cheese and applesauce, breakfast bars and Gerber makes a great line of soft foods that are even a good size so it makes it easier on you. Good Luck.

Hi A.,
My son is also 8 months old and he has been eating table food for a couple of months now. My ped is not into the whold baby food thing he said to just mash up whatever we were eating. I give him all kinds of vegetable and fruits. You just have to cook them till they are soft. For instance I bought baby carrots and I put them in tupperware in the microwave with a little water for a couple minutes. That is if we are not eating a regular meal. If we are eating a regular dinner then I just feed him whatever we have. Mash potatoes are great and really easy but you can even kind of smash meats up a little so they are soft. Rylan has had chicken, beef, and pork. Club crackers and Graham cracker sticks are good things they can feed themselves and they both get soft pretty easy, especially with all the slobber. For convience I have gotten fruit cups. I just smash the pieces a little bit to make them a easier to eat and I even use the juice from them to mix up his cereal. Just watch out for anything really tough/hard or round like grapes, need to make sure to cut them up. And of course good old Cherrios are great to throw on their tray. Most of all have fun and enjoy watching her try all the new flavors and textures.
Enjoy, A.

HI A...
If I can give you any advice..invest in a majic bullet or anything like it..even a small food processor. When my kids were little I would just puree fruit and veggies in it and serve-you don't have to boil things first..they can eat them raw..then as they get older..you just use it to chop food instead of puree. It works great. Any I have always fed my kiddos whatever we eat. If we eat tacos..I set aside a little meat with no seasoning and throw in some cheese, if we eat chicken I just chop it up, soup-take out the broth..But if you are planning on having any more please consider investing in a processor of some sort..they are great.

grilled cheese, mac and cheese, hot dogs (cut up so they are not round), applesauce, canned fruit and veggies, there are alot of toddler foods out there now too.