Help on 9 Month Old's Diet

There are Puffs at the grocery store in the baby food section. Kids love them and they just melt in their mouths. Also you can do mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cheerios, applesauce, cheese, tiny bits of bread, etc I started my son and daughter on more around 10 mos. Each kid is different.

W.

My best advice is to eat healthy for yourself and feed her just what you eat. You may have to mash it with a fork, but she will love it.
Snacks: any fruit, and gerber has a wide variety of snacks in boxes to choose from.

Hi L.
the website www.wholesomebabyfood.com is a great site that I used when my LO was that age. When your LO is older there is also a toddler food website as well. There are lots of ideas and recipes.
Good luck
P.

hi L.!
there's a great book called 'super baby food' that tells you the timeline of what a baby should eat and how to puree foods yourself-if you have a food processor. veggies, fruits, and whole grains-like brown rice.
here is a list of fruits and veggies it suggests that you can introduce:
spinach, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, beans or legumes ground to a powder and cooked or cooked and mashed with skins removed, greens, kale, eggplant, cooked turnips, finely chopped parsley, pineapple...
i suggest introducing a food for a few days before introducing another-this way you can tell if your baby has any kind of reaction to the new food...like gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, lack of sleep, irritability, rashes...
anyways, hope that helps! if you need anything else, don't hesitate!!
B.
www.healingpointnc.com

Whatever you feed her that she'll eat is her 'diet'! LOL

Really, just follow your own instincts and her desires. Think of all the babies in the world who have ever lived and what they have (or don't have) to eat.

Even if she doesn't have teeth, she can eat green beans, cooked carrots, dry cereal, etc (finger foods), mashed potatoes (sweet AND white), bread, applesauce. . . . just about anything you eat. Just be sure not to add a lot of salt, sugar, and fats. I think I still fed mine baby food meats til they could chew a little better (they're 20, 23, 28, and 31, now!)

A mini-chopper is a wonderful way to let her eat anything you eat.

Hi L., I was wondering if you were still giving her formula or breast milk? My dr was telling us at my daughter's 9mo appointment to continue formula until 12mos, my dr also had us put my daughter on liquid vitamins because she was only drinking 14oz of formula a day. Anything bigger than the tip of her finger can choke her so just make sure everything is really small. When I started my daughter on table foods I took small steps on the new foods so I could easily pick out food alergy's.
Trust your instincts and good luck!!

Good Morning L.,

I am a mother of two(26 & 30) and a grandmother of three (11,5 & 13 months). I have read all the comments below and you have received wonderful information. At that age mine were eating almost anything that we had for dinner. You can cut up (tiny) or mash almost anything and they love it....I rarely cook with salt, so that was and is a plus. Easy on sauces and pork and beans will gas them. Good Luck, you are doing wonderful!

K.

Hi L., My little guy is 10 month old and he went on a baby food strike about two months ago. So I had to introduce all kinds of stuff and so far so good. You know NO eggs, honey, milk, seafood, citrus or nuts until after a year old. I still haven't introduced red meat or white flour or sugar added stuff. I'm trying to make life easier for us all by not starting with all the bad(yummy) stuff like mac n cheese, pizza, anything fried, etc... This morning he started with dry cereal (O's) and shredded pineapple. Last night he had chicken, zucchini, yellow squash, shallots and tomatoes, diced very small and sauteed in a bit of canola/olive oil on medium heat til very soft. He loves it. I do tend to blanch all of the harder veggies then sautee them til soft(no seasoning, yet-no salt). So far there is nothing he won't eat. If you are going to feed cheese start with mild cheddar or swiss and shredd it so she can pick it up and it will dissolve easier for her. My LO loves feeding himself and I, of course, help him out by feeding him with a spoon every 3rd bite or so. It is very messy, but it is so worth it. He eats 4 full meals a day plus 2 snacks and still about 4-5 bottles a day. Trying to make the transition from the bottle to the sippy cup, but he still doesn't quite have a grasp on that. well, this is too much information.. sorry. The point is she will probably make a face, but don't let that discourage you... mine makes a face every single time he takes the first bite. If you find that she really doesn't like something try again in a couple of weeks. She just might not be ready. Also, we have a tendency to not try things that we don't like.. like my husband hates prunes and beets so he won't fix them, but our son loves them both. Anyway, thanks for reading. Good luck and don't worry... no one has a manual.

She can eat whatever you can mash up. Soaghetti is a good food, take a fork and a little ghetti, and mash it, bet she will love it. Any veggie that is cooked can be mashed, Boil some chicken and make it soft, cut it very tiny. If you have a food processor or a ricer, anything can be done.
Start getting out of the house. Go for drives and explore, go for walks. You will feel better.

I think you can go to Gerber.com for help- they try to base a diet on where your baby is developmentally (sitting, crawling, toddling) instead of how old she is. I have a big boy but this is kinda how my meals go:

breakfast: 6 ounces formula and one jar Gerber 2nd foods- usually some kind of cereal with fruit

lunch: 5-6 ounces formula, then a few ounces fruit mixed with cereal and a little protein- maybe a little chicken or turkey puree

snack: watered down juice, finger foods like biter biscuits or puffs

dinner: a second foods jarred dinner, and then i usually mix another veggie with some cereal. sometimes i give a 5 oz bottle with dinner and sometimes i wait until closer to bedtime and give a 7 oz bottle

hope this helps- you can also talk to your pediatrician- i think there is a minimum daily requirement for formula/fluids, and i think it's about 20 ounces

THis is a great opportunity to introduce her to healthy foods. Advocados-contain lots of healthy fat
steamed squash, sweet potatoes, . In just a few months she'll be ready for chicken, soy beans are very popular with this age and are healthy and have protein. At 1 yr you can do anything minus peanut butter and it's all about texture I hear. That's all I can remember right now. My daughter is 3 and eats great, salmon, salads, broccoli oatmeal etc. Good Luck and hope this was helpful.

At 9 months, they can eat anything that they really don't have to chew...macaroni & cheese, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pudding, beans. The Puffs and Cheerios are great, too, since it helps them learn dexterity/fine motor skills. I think we were also giving very small bites of fish at that point, too.

As one of the other ladies said, it's really important that they still get breastmilk/formula until they're 12 months. Also, the American Pediatric Association recommends no peanut butter or honey until 1 year.

You got great responses so far, and I would just add that they can not have milk until they are at least 1 year old, but they CAN have cheese and yogurt before then (the milk protein is already partially digested in yogurt and cheese, which is why babies can have it before they are 1).

I saw in your profile that you don't know anyone in your area. You might try "TheMommiesNetwork.org." It looks like they have a group in Knoxville - which is I'm sure a long ways away from you, but they might include quite a large area, and if you were interested enough, you could start your own group where you live. The web address for the Knoxville group is www.KnoxvilleMommies.org. I really enjoy the group here. I'm a SAHM also, so it gives me a chance to interact with other moms in my area on-line (and also go to playdates, etc.). Hope this helps you. Blessings.

The most important thing until she is 12 months is breast milk or formula. Food items that are often allergenic should be avoided until she is 12 months, and then introduced one at a time, so that if she does have a reaction to something, you know what it is. Common allergenic foods are milk, wheat, peanuts, nuts, shellfish, strawberries, etc. There are websites that you can subscribe to that have articles about everything baby. There are also magazines that are free for the first year (then you can cancel) that are all about baby care. Try babytalk.com. There are a lot of other sites with more info

Until 1 yr most of her nutrition should still come from formula or breastmilk. Although most babies have been introduced to all types of baby food by this age and are probably up to 3 meals a day not includding bottles/nursing. Both mine started table food around 10mths or so because they only wanted to self feed and jarred baby food is just too messy for that. At this age I started them with the Gerber Graduates line of foods. The jarred fruit chunks, jarred veggies chunks, and jarred meat sticks (which I cut up). Around 12 months we started the tv-dinner looking graduates and small simplified versions of what the grownups were having for dinner.