Ideas for Foods for a 9 Month Old

My ten month old daugther eats the foods you mentioned plus a few others. You could try these finger foods...peas, pieces of avocado, corn, and grapes cut up into small pieces. I also cook sweet potatoes and butternut squash and give her small pieces as finger foods.

We buy veggies in the small cube size (they sell them in "individual" servings that last two meals for little ones) and then as her teeth came in we added things like different kinds of meat sticks that we cut up (you can buy the Gerber brand, but they are just fancy vienna sausages, which are 50 cents a can and last three meals). She also loves oatmeal (berry kind) or plain oatmeal w/ applesauce. Hope that helps.

Sweet potatoes,mashed potatoes, squash, sweet peas, oatmeal-anything you can mush or has that consistency. One of my daughter's favorites at that age was when I made a pot roast. I would mash the potatoes and carrots together, but they had the meat flavor since they were all cooked in the crock pot. She also loved chicken and dumplings and macaroni and cheese(although you are avoiding dairy right now). Flavored rice is still a favorite and baked french fries should work, too. Good luck!

she could be doing a lot more table foods t 9 months. anything you eat except for steak, nuts, dairy, etc.

try little cubes of extra firm tofu, little cubes of avocado, and try deli meat. i used to go to my publix, who serves boar's head brand, which doesn't have a lot of the additives other deli meats have. i would get them to slice an extra thick slice of turkey, then i would bring it home and cut it into little cubes. if you live near earthfare or whole foods their deli meat would be safe.

we also started trying all kinds of different fruits we don't have in our household all the time, like starfruit, persimmon, papaya, mango, etc. and let her determine which she liked. just for the variety.

Any kind of soft cooked veggie in small pieces will work, at 9 months you might as well just stick to finger foods, if shes doing fine with them. veggies like carrot slices , peas, green beans, pieces of avacado ( never like them my self ) , potatoes , broccoli pieces, pieces of roll / bread the possiblities are endless, anything you can eat she can too just in smaller pieces , ground beef cooked and cooled, ham slices cut into little squares.

D.,
Looks like you have gotten tons of ideas. I will add that you can buy the mini raviolis (someone else mentioned) dry in bags at Trader Joes. My older son loves them, but figure your little one would too. They are very tiny and would be perfect for little fingers. However, I think they are stuffed with cheese. Also, when my son was a baby, he loved all the veggies that everyone mentioned. I used to buy cans of Veg-all (I think that is the name) because it has pretty good-sized pieces of veggies and potatoes, and they are pretty soft. Not as great as making them fresh, but they are good finger food in a pinch. I always struggled with feeding our older son table food because I love to make very seasoned and spicy foods! I appreciate you asking this question, I am taking notes for feeding my two-month old when we get to that point.

By 10 months old, my son wouldn't eat a thing that looked like baby food!! So I started to just feeding him what I cooked us. Say I cooked chicken breast on the grill. I'd cut some up and put it in the food chopper along with the veggies for dinner and vola-dinner for the baby!! I would make enough so he could eat it for lunch the next day or so as well. I know you said you were trying to hold off on yogurt, but my son loved the stuff and still does and he's 2!!! Don't forget, cut up pancakes, waffles, french toast (no syrup if you don't want the added sugar) is all easy for them to chomp on too!!

Good luck!
S.

I always gave my kids avocado smashed or in little pieces. They all love guacamole now. You could do soy yogurt plain and then add stuff to it like sweet potatoes. I would cook them and then process them, add a little water if necessary then add the yogurt.
Hope this helps a little.

When Bailey was that age she loved green beans. She also would eat green peas, small soft pieces of potatoes and carrot's and other soft vegetables and fruits. She loved vieanna sausages (I bought them because the baby food type was so expensive). Her pediatrician said they were fine but try to stay with the low salt and chicken kind so that is what we did and she still loved them.

I loved this website for food ideas: http://wholesomebabyfood.com/

I love your attitude! My hubby abd I are the same way and as a result our almost 2 year old can go with flow pretty easily. On the food question, mini ravioli's are good and you can put anything in them (veggies, meats, etc) and you can make them easily out of wonton wrappers. Also, there is a cook book by Jerry Seinfields wife (of course I can't remember the name at the moment) that includes purees into any food so you know your child is getting veggies, but its hidden. There may be some ideas in there as well. Oh - my daughter loves tofu also. I cut it into small cubes and marinate it, then sautee it. She also likes various beans (garbanzos, peas, etc). Have fun!

I make our own 'baby food'. All I did was, for example, cook carrots and then puree them with a hand mixer and then spooned them in ice cube trays and put in freezer. Once frozen, I would take them out and put them in a gallon ziploc freezer bag. I labeled each one that I did. I did broccoli, mashed potatoes (I usually did that from left overs), butternut squash (can get at publix in the frozen section, boxed, already pureed), green beans, peas, sweet potatoes, etc. Once my child could eat soft veggies without me mixing them up, I would still do the same thing, cook, but skip the puree, and just put them in the ice cube trays, etc.

Another food that I love to give my kids are avacado. I would actually add some garlic, salt and a bit of cayenne once they were older and a little bit of salsa. But for starters, I would do it plain for a new eater (which yours is not) and then eventually I'd add a little salt and then on and on as they got older.

I have made baby food for my children. It was really easy - I have a magic bullet and just put all veggies in there. Once they were doing good with all the individual veggies, I would make all kinds of combination of veggies. Then, I would just take what we were eating for dinner that night and put it in the bullet. My girls got use to my cooking and they still doing great at eating veggies. One of the favorite in my house are sweet potatoes. I bake them in the oven (400 for about an hr) and only put a little butter on them. I have also have a book called Super Baby Foods and it has lots of great ideas on feeding babies. Another idea - soup!!! Good luck! Blessings to you and your family.

Hi D.,
I have a 15 month old daughter. I made her food from the beginning so I have quite a few recipes up my sleeve. HAve you ever tried quinoa or cous cous? I use either, quinoa is very nutritous and my daughter LOVES it and has loved it for sometime. I cook the grain and dice up some carrot, squash or any veggie really ( cut really small so your baby can eat it) then I cook the veggies in a small pot till they are very soft. I put them in the cooked quinoa or cous cous, Sprinkle on some nutritional yeast, makes it taste butterey, and some Braggs liquid amino's, veggie protein ( you can find these at any health food store). My daughter loves this dish. Tofu is also great, dairy free, and easy for little eaters to chew. I have a cookbook called the organic baby and toddler cookbook by Lizzie Vann, I got it at Whole foods. Even if your not into organic foods it is a great resource. The recipes are so good sometimes I make a bigger portion for my husband and I.
I also like to make a variety of soups and chop them in a cusinart for my daughter, she loves turkey stew and veggie soup. In a hurry I cut up a veggie burger, from the freezer section, she loves them.
Another favorite at our house is fruit smoothies. we take a banana, any ther fruit, ususlly frozen berries, whole milk yogurt, which you can use soy yogurt, flax seed, crushed, some 100% pom juice and a little whole milk or soy milk and blend, yummy! Good way to get all your fruit in for the day!
I hope my ideas were helpful. Good luck!
G. Holt

This might be a good idea for you. I did this with my babies (I had 4 that were very close in age so the baby food got expensive). I used veggies like peas, carrots, beans, etc mixed with rice (usually I took our dinner and just mixed it up - like chicken,veggies,carbs) and mix it up. Consistency can vary based on what your baby can handle. keep it bland. Then, put the mixed food in ice cube trays, cover and freeze. Then you can nuke them when you're ready to use and have more for a later time. This works with the applesauce, etc. also. I hope this helps. It was nice for me. :) L.

I have a 7 month old. I have only made his food instead of buying jarred food. I joined cafemom and they have a great homemade babyfoods group. also try www.wholesomebabyfood.com and www.weelicious.com. Personally I love making chicken and avacado for my son. We mix avacado with alot of different stuff. It is great. Good luck and happy babyfood making! It is sooo much fun coming up with different combos.

S.

Hi D.!

I made all of my baby food for our twins and understand needing new ideas!! I would bake chicken and give them shredded pieces. At first they did not know what to think, but figured it out pretty quick. I also would give them ground turkey. As much as I hated to do it, they loved french fries. I would bake some for lunch or dinner. It always felt good on their gums. If I can recall correctly, at 9mths I started to feed them whatever my husband and I were having for dinner. I avoided spices on our food and tried to make baby friendly dinners. A lot of pastas (even with small amounts of sauce from time to time) I offered a lot of steamed vegetables. I also cut the foods in long strips to avoid choking on small circular pieces. If some vegetables were too hard to eat, I would puree them and feed them by spoon. Good luck!! I remember my mom telling me, "M., how do you know they can eat something if you do not let them try. They will begin to choke and that is natural. Just help them when they need it."

My son nevre did eat babyfood veggies. We had to make his food and freeze it. By 9 months old he was eating a lot of what we ate. He loved squash, sweet potatoes and speghetti. We tried a lot of other veggies like beans, mixed veggies and peas but, he is very picky. Ziploc freezer bowls work great to make them for the week and freeze it. They are easy to thaw and transport to restraunts, etc. too. My dr, recommended yogurt for my son early on. He did well with it and also loves grilled cheese sandwiches broken into bite size pieces. Good lucj. It sounds like you really have it going on for a healthy diet already.