What Do I Feed an 11-Month-old ?

Hi K.,
My son is 16 months now but when he turned one it was like a switch went on and he refused to eat baby food anymore. It is hard to make sure they are getting everything they need when they can't eat everything. What I did was tried to give him whatever we made for dinner cut up small. I would cook some vegatables until they were very soft.(broccoli florets) I would also give him alternatives to what we were eating incase he didn't like something or had difficulty with it. I always kept shredded cheese, yogurt, apple sauce, and bananas in the house. You can also try bread with jam on it cut up, graham crackers, apples peeled and sliced as thin as possible, cut up kidney beans (you don's have to cook them) spaghetti noodles cut up (you don't always need spaghetti sauce on it), tortilla bread-I would spread jam or puree some dinner and spread it on the tortilla and break it in small pieces for him. I would puree anything I thought he would have trouble with but leave some chunks in it so that he could get use to different textures. I hope this helps.

My son only had 2 teeth when he was 11 months old, and I was qite surprised at what all he could eat. I gave him lima beans, corn, peas, cooked diced carrots, cut up brocoli (cooked well so it was softer). Banana's and cut up peaches are good too. I just would take a bite first, and if it was hard for me to chew I knew it would be too hard for him. If it was soft enough, I would cut it up very small, and he learned to chew/tongue/gum whatever the food was. Now, at 14 months he only has 3 full teeth and 2 slightly coming in and he can pretty much eat anything as long as I cut it up in small peices.

Fish is an excellent gummable food, along with peas. My son, who didn't get his molars particularly early, ate lots of all of the veggies. Cooked carrots are super. For variety, don't mash the cut up potatoes after you cook them, but put a little butter and parsley flakes on them for a different flavor. Parsley potatoes are still a staple around here, and he's 23.

My son never choked on anything his entire childhood, so I have no idea about how much risk the peas give, but they do mash up well and are soft enough for your son to gum to his heart's content as is.

Hi K.,
My son was the same way. He got his two bottom teeth around 9 mo. and didn't get any more until the day after his first b-day (last week)! Our pedi always said "you don't need teeth to chew" I found this to be true. Some things that our son loved (and was able to eat just fine) were/are: cut up fresh/canned fruits (kiwi, strawberries, bananas, mandarin oranges, pineapple, pears), fresh veggies (cut and steamed very well- not mushy, but just a little softer than adults might like them), pasta (with or without sauce) along those same lines he loves the refrigerated or frozen tortellini and/or ravioli- can find them filled with ALL sorts of things too (meats, veggies, cheeses), cut up chicken breasts, frozen turkey meatballs (cut up),baked Purdue chicken tenders, sweet potato fries (frozen or homemade), the list goes on! A friend just told me about the Gerber website (www.gerber.com) where there are weekly meal ideas. My son never cared for any of the Gerber Graduate meals (I don't think they had enough seasoning for him)so we usually just try something and see how he does. HTH!

Hopefully a few more teeth have come in by now. If not, try blueberries(cut in half), canned peas or carrots(low sodium or organic) overcooked pastina with veggie babyfood as a sauce, big kid applesauce with a bit of texture, lentils,greek yogurt, canned pumpkin. Hope this helps.