Introducing finger foods is not going so well. Help!

My girls are 9.5 months (8 months adjusted age). I'm trying to start them on finger foods. I started with puffs cut in half. They really like them and seem to do ok. Today I tried putting tiny pieces of peaches in their oatmeal. Olivia made the most awful face and was gagging until she threw up. I'm not sure if it was the texture or the taste. She likes the pureed peaches from Gerber. Do you have any advice on starting finger foods? What can I try next that won't make her gag? I want to give them cheese, pasta, ground turkey, etc. but I'm afraid they will gag and puke again!

Thanks!

 

Kelly,
We are still working on finger foods too. My girls are going to be eating stage 2 until they start school. They tolerate puffs, will gnaw on Zwieback toast and biter biscuits so those are ok. But as far as anything chunky. They gag too. I got the stage 3 Gerber Broccoli cheese & carrots. There are bits of carrots in it and everything they would get that, they would gag. I found myself trying to pick those out, which isn't the concept at all I don't think they will ever be ready for cheese or pieces of green beans

 

The only advice I have is to keep trying. At every meal, offer some food with texture to it for the practice. They will get it.

 

I agree with becky5 . . . keep trying. My DS has loved most everything I have given and DD gagged with the first few jars of Stage 3. However, after continued practice both are eating whole puffs, cheerios, cheese, peaches, pears, bananas, beans, ravoli, mac & cheese, grilled cheese sandwich, toast, corn, chicken, etc. All of these items are chunks of adult foods . . . not baby food. Just keep practicing and they'll pick it up. Good luck!

 

I'm in same boat as many of you. My son/daughter are almost 10 months, 8.5 adjusted and I feel like they'll be eating pureed food and drinking out of bottles till they are 5 years old. My son is making a little progress. I have to feed it to him but now he at least chews it. They both won't pick it up and put the food in their mouth and my daughter still gags a lot!

 

We had much better luck with dry finger foods -- puffs, cheerios, bits of crackers. One of our daycare teachers said that sometimes babies have trouble with foods that are a mixture of smooth & chunky (like peaches in oatmeal -- or most of the stage 3 jarred foods). They don't know whether to chew it or not. This was definitely the case with Sarah (Amy less so) -- to this day, she spits out any bits of fruit that she finds in her yogurt.

Once they were good with dry foods, I started giving them veggies (peas, cut up bits of carrot, etc.) and fruits. But always just plain chunks, not mixed in with anything. That seemed to work pretty well. Then we moved on to cheese, tofu, and black beans. I've tried meat, but they're just not into it.

It is a long process. At about 12 months I was despairing that Sarah would ever eat real food. It just takes some babies a long time to get from puffs to table food -- like months. Try not to get frustrated, and if they still want mostly purees, keep giving them that, but keep offering the finger foods too. IMO, it's just not realistic to expect babies to be eating mostly table foods by their first birthday (even though some babies do). Eventually they will get it -- they won't be eating baby food in kindergarten.

 

Just keep trying, they'll eventually get it.

 

definately keep trying. You might just try the peaches alone. Our OT said it's hard for some babies to manage two different textures at one time. Anthony had this issue (still does to an extent) and so he couldn't ever manage things like stage three meals or the cereal with little fruit bits in there.