I posted a similar question a while back, but I am hoping that I will get some more input by reasking. My 11 month old son does not like finger food except for cheerios, puffs, and crunchies by gerber. He has no problem picking these foods up and popping them in his mouth! When it comes time to eat meals, he refuses to eat anything except pureed foods. I have been making most of the baby food so I am able to control the consistency, and I try to make them thick or chunky so he can get used to texture in his mouth. When I offer finger foods, he used to just stare at them, graduated to poking at them, and now picks them up and drops them over the side of his high chair! He will not eat them at all. He has let me occasionally place a piece of food in his mouth but just makes a face and either wont chew it up or will push it out with his tongue. I have been offering him all of his favorite foods as finger foods- sweet potatoes, peas, bananas, green beans, broccoli, pears etc. (he has even eaten a very ripe pear by taking bites right off of the pear by scraping his teeth along the neat of the pear, but he refuses to eat pieces fo pair if they are cut up). He is a really great eater with pureed foods and I am not sure what to do about finger foods. I know that it is time that he starts self feeding his meals. I have thought about only offering him finger foods, but he has been walking all over the place and has been extra hungry (to the point where he wants an extra bottle on some days), and I know that if I stop the pureed foods, he would be so hungry that his sleep would be disrupted. Also, I do not think that he has any developmental issues as he is right on track with everything and he is able to feed himself (he just chooses not to). If it makes a difference, he has 6 teeth now- 4 on top and 2 on bottom.
Do you have any tips or tricks to help my son start self feeding? We have been trying for months now!
I'm old school. Stop the pureed foods & keep offering the finger foods. Don't supplement with extra bottles.....& he'll get over it. :) & you're right - if he can pick up the snack foods, then he's fully capable of picking up & eating the real food! & honestly, if he can pick up the food & deliberately choose to drop it over the side....then he's making a choice not to eat.
It sounds like he's not ready to self feed yet. Why not hold off for a few weeks and then reintroduce finger foods? There's no hard and fast rule that babies need to self feed by a year - in some cultures parents feed their children until they're 2 or 3. All you're doing now is frustrating yourself...
Have you tried mashing up the foods in front of him? You said you tried to feed him him favorite foods in finger food form.
For example, put a stick or two of cooked sweet potato, some peas, and some pears on his plate. Put the plate down in front of him. Let him watch you mash the foods more into a consistency he prefers. See if he'll start there.
Once he sees that these mashed up/pureed foods he's been eating are the same thing as the finger foods, he might be more willing to try them less and less mashed up.
He should still be able to feed himself the mashed up foods. Pureed is definitely not really possible for self-feeding, but mashed normally has a consistency that allows them to pick up small amounts and get it to their mouths.
I'm not sure what other responses you've gotten, but have you tried the mesh bags? A couple of companies have them now - we used the Kroger brand of them, I think. They're little mesh baggies that you can put a peice of food in that they can hold and suck on to get a more pureed consistency through the mesh.
They were great when my daughter was teething and first learning to self-feed. I put a slice of frozen peach in there and she went to town! Bananas, graham crackers - anything that would break down a bit with some saliva.
