How to Get Infant Accustomed to Textures

Our oldest was a breast feed baby and my doctor suggested not to give him any food until he was 1 year old. It worked great and he is not 20 and 6'4" tall so even though his Grandparents were sure it would stunt his growth I guess thank God it did or he would be 7 foot tall. That being said he may not be ready for food yet and cheerios would not be my first choice. Good luck and remember if he is on breast milk or formula that should really provide all of the necessary things for a balanced diet in an infant. Good luck.

my childrens house Baylor

Give him a bit of time, he should come around. Remember, food the first year is just for experimentation and not really for nutrition. He should be getting the bulk of his nutrition either from you or from formula. He may be a late bloomer like my son was. Mine didn't eat solids until 8 months. The first food he liked were those Gerber baby snacks. You might try those if you haven't already. They all eventually eat. Some take longer than others and that's ok in the scheme of things. Good luck.

Our almost 9 month old granddaughter has similar issues with finger food. She LOVES baby food ... ANY kind ... but she does make faces when she encounters a new texture.

I recently bought some corn puff toddler treats at Big Lots that melt in her mouth and she loves. She just doesn't have the muscle coordination to her tongue and jaw yet to be able to chew and swallow. She also hasn't got any erupted teeth.

She did like the Stage 3 meals like spaghetti that had teeny bits of noodles in it. Nothing big enough to choke her, but it gives her mouth the feel of texture.

She's been snuck a French fry here and there and she'll suck it and spit it out unless you tear off a tiny piece and feed it to her. She ate about a 1/2 inch piece of corn dog last week when "someone" tore off teeny bits at a time and put it in her mouth.

With my 29 year old, I went a bit crazy on the finger food stuff. She loved it and I loved putting a pile of food in front of her so she could feed herself. Unfortunately, she still loves to pick her food apart with her fingers to this day ... I guess that's not such a big consequence, but it sure was annoying at the dinner table when she was a teen!

Just keep trying. It can take many, many tries for a child to "like" a food. He will eventually eat!

I'm a feeding therapist at A Therapy Connection in Richardson.
Cheerios aren't a good first food for a 9 month old. Gerber Stage 3 foods aren't either. It is too difficult for most 9 month old to manage a puree mixed with chunks of the stage 3 (and table food that is like a stage 3. Cheerios aren't good because the dont dissolve and they shatter when chewed rather than crush. They used to be better, but a few years ago the recipe changed and they are now coated which makes them even more resistant to melting (stays crispier in milk longer, though).
Will he eat the meltables that Gerber has? The meltable yogurt bites are good and so are all the puff varieties. Most of their meltables are very good at giving him practice eating. Stick with baby food for nutrition, but these teach him how to eat. It is a skill he is learning...just like walking. Once he learns to handle those meltables with no problems, you can begin adding real food to his food inventory. Just dont quit the babyfood cold-turkey. Let him experiment with meltables until he learns to chew, then safe chewables and you will be able to start knocking off some purees as you add solids one by one.
The best way to teach a child is to show him. Eating at the table with your child helps teach them to eat...and enjoy eating! A lot of kids we see at the clinic view eating as a chore, like brushing their teeth, and not the social and enjoyable event it is for adults. For these kids, we have to teach them that its fun!

Keep offering them, maybe even as you offer the baby food. My first child was slower to take to the solids but then all of a sudden she was eating them. I just put some on her tray and fed her the baby food at the same time. If she picked a solid food up, I waited to give her a bite to see what she would do. As soon as she was done I offered the baby food. Gradually she just started eating the solid food. I noticed even with stage 3 foods she would 'gag' when she was 10 months old, but by 11 months she was eating stage 3 and some solid.....it is amazing the changes in just a month. Hang in there.