Seeking Finger Food Advice for 9 1/2 Month Old

Do bite size peices of avacado, cherrios dissolve quickly too. tiny peices of waffle and pancake...really,really cooked carrots-tiny pieces. wholesomebabyfood.com is good for making baby food and other recipes

Food can be very funny, I know how scarry it can be but you can do it! And so can your child.
I started giving my daughter Bannanas and carrots ( extra soft boiled( when she was 7 months old. They were soft enough and didn't require a lot of chewing to disolve.
The juice was very scary for me so I give her a chew net first with fruit in it until she got the suck/swallowing piece down.
Then I descided that my fears needed to subside and let her learn how to process on her own.
It was really hard but very easy.
I too love the Baby Mum Mums. We still eat them with cottage cheese or soup.

Have fun and relax. Maybe have Dad try it first while you are doing something else to distract you but stay in the room and listen to you child's instantenous happiness.
Good luck
G.

I was very hesitant and unsure what to feed at this stage as well - my little one is now 22 months old already! Anyway, the very first "solid" food we did was organic O's - like Cheerios but they are organic and there's no sugar. Then it was ripe pear. I would peal it and cut into small pieces just big enough for her to grasp. She loved them. I also used the mesh baggies you can buy at Target in packs of two - you can put anything in there and they suck on it without fear of choking. Good for banana. Avocado (very ripe) was another early food. I didn't do any meats (jarred or otherwise) for quite awhile but that was my own choice - even now she only gets chicken and fish sparingly.

As for whole crackers, I've only recently started giving her whole crackers so I am a bit conservative!

Eating table food is as much about developing motor skills and the pincher grasp as it is baout the food itself. I also have a 9 month old and you have gotten many great suggestions already so I won't repeat but I will add a few.
WE give whole cheese sticks, I know this sounds scary but they actually soften up into mush almost as soon as tehy put it in their mouths. We also do mini bagels, both frozen for teething and soft for snacking. Tofu has been great for us and was a perfect starter food. We buy extra firm (which is still very soft) and cut it up into bite size pieces. While it is scary when they first eat table food it is a very important developmental milestone and it makes it very hard for them if you cut up the pieces to small.
Good luck.

I've tried soft fruit pieces for my 9month old and also the crusty end of Italian bread. Good luck!

little pieces of well-cooked mushy rice and chopped up fine chicken that he can pick up and put in mouth that he doesn't really have to chew up. well-cooked vegies like carrots, green beans, etc, cut up very small that will practically fall apart in his mouth. couscous and very small pasta noodles. My son liked shredded cheese. It really depends on your son if he can handle bigger whole crackers. Some kids stuff the whole thing in their mouth, some babies take the tiniest bites (my son was the tiny bite eater), while my nephews would stuff the whole thing in their mouths. I would just give him something and teach him while he is eating it that he can only take small bites. See what happens and be there to control it. Don't take your eyes off of him. Just try new things and see what he is comfortable with. Most kids will spit things out if they are not comfortable with something in their mouth yet. Good luck!

HI there,
I wrote this awhile ago to another mother in the same situation.....I remember needing ideas too. Hope it helps!

I have a 9 month old and have been going through the same transition. Some great finger foods I've introduced are pieces of banana (if it sticks to the tray, dust the pieces with a little dry oatmeal cereal), avacado, overcooked noodles (I use casserole elbows and cut them in half), melon (honeydew/watermelon), kiwi, very small steamed broccoli trees. I also cooked up a sweet potato and cubed that as well. It's messy, but good. Toast triangles are good, pieces of bagel, biter biscuits (just be careful of her getting a small piece off in her mouth). There is a great invention that is a net mounted on a ring. You can put a biscuit or a piece of frozen banana (or anything!) in it without the fear of choking. I also invested in a baby food mill (babies r us). I used this when I started chicken (the jarred meats creep my out a bit!). The food mill is great for fresh fruits (pear, apple) eliminating having to cook them first. So, if my kiddo has gone to town on the finger foods, I cut the portion of cereal and puree and down a bit (also, if he has had, lets say, watermelon on his tray, I would eliminate the pureed fruit altogether and just give him a pureed veggie and cereal. If you are able to pump for the cereal more power to you! If not, mix up some formula for her cereal. I also give him a little formula in a cup with meals (again, if you have pumped milk, even better). With that being said, I nurse him between meals and at bedtime. As far as when to introduce new foods, follow the same rules as you did with the cereal and puree..4 days inbetween just in case. I hope this helped. I am always looking for suggestions, too!! Good luck!

I definitly recommend getting a bamboo steamer. Keeps the nutrients in the veggies and will cook in 5-7 minutes. Most veggies. For this age I started with steamed zucchini, I would take the skin off after cooked then cube. Summer squash, carrots, califlower, broccolli flower, sweet potatoes are also good options. Obviously cook the harder veggies longer. Shredded cheese. Homemade meatballs. Beans (my son preferred black beans). At that age I would squish them slightly with my fingers before he got a hold of them. I'm not into tofu, but an idea. Boiled chicken, shredded. All kinds of fruit. All peeled and cubes... Kiwi, plums, grapes(peeled and sliced), banana, avacado, mango, paupaya, ripe pear... The list goes on... Another idea for the slippery fruit is to crush cheerios into a powder and shake the fruit in it for a nice coating, also prevents from browning for some time.

My daughter always loved the frozen vegetable mix (peas, diced carrots, corn, chopped green beans). I overcooked them a bit so they'd be extra soft. All the pieces are small enough so they're not a choking hazard, but big enough for her to pick up. And they're healthy!

Here is a list my mom sent me for my son. Obviously a bit old school with the eggs and peanut butter which are now recommended to wait til age 1, but for what it's worth:

Breakfast:
Cheerios, of course
Those mild microwave sausages, cut into bits
Various fruits (micro the apples for a few minutes to soften)
The little dollar sized pancakes
Hard boiled eggs
French toast (also available in microwave form)
Lunch:
Grilled cheese sandwich
Really any tiny pieces of lunch meat with some bread
Don't know if you're ready to try peanut butter sandwiches
chunks of cheeses, raisins, for snacks
Vegies for a side dish...(canned are fine and soft enough already) green beans, carrots, asparagus tips, peas if you want to watch him chase them!
Dinner:
You've discovered the meatballs already
Meat loaf
pork loin
chicken
pasta
Cut up boiled or baked potato (don't forget a little butter for the fat)
Vegies again, zucchini comes canned, also individual frozen servings are available now
More fruit for dessert
Again, these are the finger foods so when you want to sit and feed him, you also have soups, rice , mashed potato, applesauce, oatmeal, stews etc.

I think the answer depends in part on your baby. My first son was not good with chunks at all and would choke and throw up any even small chunks (such as pieces of corn in chicken purees or even very small pieces of shredded chicken in a soup) well into his first year, whereas my second son could handle crackers by 9 months and carrot sticks shortly after his first birthday. I was really nervous about giving finger foods to my first son, and I don't know whether that was because of his refusal to actually chew or whether my not giving him more finger foods caused him to be unfamiliar with how to deal with them! Anyway, it sounds like you've gotten some good suggestions, but one additional thing I liked to give my kids was freeze-dried fruits such as mangos, strawberries, bananas, and blueberries. You can find these at Trader Joe's for reasonable prices (well, unless you plan to snack on them yourself, but for a baby they last quite a while!). There are also Snap-Pea crisps, which they have at Trader Joe's but also at regular supermarkets, usually near the produce aisle (the idea is that you put them on salads). All of these come in larger sizes than the baby puffs but will also dissolve in your baby's mouth, so you don't need to worry about choking. As you see that your baby is biting off pieces rather than sticking the whole thing in his mouth and as you see that he is actually chewing, then I think you can start giving him things like whole crackers, and just watch very carefully at first to make sure he knows what to do with them.