Posted by
crj
18 yrs ago
Strange one...
What age did your baby start eating finger food?
Did your baby have at least one tooth?
Have you ever heard of a connection between teeth and finger food?
Our baby is 8 months, eats loads, love to sit and have us shovel it in his mouth, but not interested in any finger food.
Friends with babies who do eat finger food, seem to have babies with teeth. Just wondering if this is a coincidence, and thought would ask a larger population here.
(of course, I know the teeth initially would not help with the eating, that is why this is a strange question!)
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crj,
I missed out the puree stage with my LO and started straight onto finger food - it's a method called Baby Led Weaning (BLW) and is becoming increasingly popular and is being intensively researched as part of a Unicef led initiative.
My LO did not have any teeth when we started - at 25 weeks - and still doesn't at 7 1/2 months and we've had a relative degree of success with it until recently when she has a cold and I think she has the first tooth coming through.
As for what she ate - we mostly steam foods until soft - sticks of carrot, corgette, cauliflower, brocolli (she loves brocolli), banana, toast, recently cheese and avocado - anything they can grab at. I've not really tried purees but the idea is that they child gets used to foods in their more natural state and learns to accept a greater range of foods and textures. She will take some foods like yoghurt from a spoon though (mostly tries herself!)
We shall see if it works long term but I am very keen for her to be able to accept a wide range of foods early on as we live in such a cosmopolitan society being expats so was quite happy to try a different method.
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crj
18 yrs ago
Well, spicegal, you certrainly answered my question!
Your post is very interesting... It makes sense and seem to be working for you and baby. Mealtimes must be interesting!!
Anyway, we will keep trying - I guess just a coincidence with my friend's baby then.
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If things are soft (rather than out and out floppy) then babies canhold them and "gum" through them - actually I forgot to mention sweet potato, that's a good one as when steamed it stays firm but breaks quite easily when baby chomps with gums.
I am a little concerned that it's made my LO too independent though as she won't take food from me at all and insists on feeding herself... at 7 1/2 months - so now that she's going through a "non-eating" phase I'm somewhat anxious as I can't get food into her myself!! We'll see how it goes anyway.... think maybe I just have a little madam on my hands!!! (Yes, which can make mealtimes interesting!)
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spicegal,
your post on baby-led weaning is v interesting..i often wonder if my baby will actually take the ingredients on their own next time without milk/baby rice/sweet root veges that hide the bitterness of stronger vegetables. i would like to feed him the veges as their own but because his milk intake is low, part of the reason why we introduced solids is to up his milk intake (as advised by pd) by mashing his food up with milk.
crj, not sure if i am right about this but one way to see if your baby is ready for finger food is when he acquires the pincher grip of something, that he can pick small items such as raisins with his thumb and finger...i guess it shows he is ready to feed himself. perhaps some other mums can advise as i am curious to know when i can introduce finger foods too!
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crj
18 yrs ago
Wheelymate - this is the odd thing - he can pick them up, he just has no interest - not even if I put things in his mouth! Anyway, not complaining as he is a great eater - just curious :)
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the baseline for introducing finger foods (not withstanding Spicegal's interesting discussion of BLW) is-
can your baby sit independently without any help
Does he lift his belly up off the ground to crawl
does he have the "pincer" mechanism
my younger already has two bottom teeth but she doesn't have any of the other signs so I've not been really pushing finger foods. Korea has these really nice puffed rice cake - and they melt when touched with water. I let her play with it and she can sometimes manage to ram it into her mouth and suck on it for a bit.
i've seen plenty of toothless babies sucking on baby food. (currently on clipshack.com there is this one woman who posts EVERYTHING her son eats - no teeth and he's shoved a bunch of things into his mouth.) i'm not sure necesssarily there is a connection. Your son may not be interested right now so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
But I remember he likes yogurt - perhaps a really well steamed piece of carrot with some yogurt drizzled on top might entice him?
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I think that you have to encourage your little one to eat finger foods and be willing for it to take a while. One thing I notice with my boy is that he does things in baby steps, 2 steps forward, one back. For example, he's nearly 1 and not that interested in feeding himself. However I started off with leaving some finger foods on his highchair table. He spent a couple of days playing, mashing and throwing it around. Next he picked it up and tried to get it into his mouth, but failed. Now he's able to put 1 inch pieces of bread and feed himself, but not always successful. Each day he gets a little better. It's the same with walking. I think it's going to take him 0-30 times to grasp it, now he's at about 20. Practise makes perfect. I don't think your baby will suddenly wake up one day and be able to perfect knife and fork skills, I think you have to encourage, sit back and be prepared for a couple of weeks/ months learning of the skill.
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crj
18 yrs ago
THanks for the additional responses.
He loves sitting, crawling, standing, grabbing and using pincer grasp to pick up small things.
He just isn't into finger food yet - but we keep offering him something every day just to see.
He puts everything else in his mouth, just not food :)
I think Mrs Miggins is right - just put something out and wait for him to go for it...
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yes crj, i think it takes time with such stuff! e.g. with sippy cup...earlier this week he looked at it funny and sucked it lying down like normal bottle feeding. but since yesterday, i would hold it for him but he would take it from his high chair, not lying down or anything...i hope he holds it himself to drink eventually!
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crj, mine put everything into her mouth except food for a while but once they start they really take off - she now shoves whole brocoli florrets in there!
hkchoichoi the signs you said are right - even trying BLW I would not have given her finger food until she could sit up for long periods of time unaided - had we got to 6 months and she still couldn't do that we would prehaps have tried another weaning method - the risk of choking would be too stressful.
Mine doesn't quite have the pincer grasp yet but can grab "chip" shaped veggies in her fist and chomp from the end. She then tries to chomp her fist to try to get at what's in there as she can't quite work it out. It's kinda funny to watch.
I think finger food is less messy too... although today I gave mine some lentil dhal and that was a bit messy as finger food!! Hmmm...!!
They do everything at their own pace though - I've found the whole introduction of food thing hugely frustrating and lots of fun in roughly similar measures!!
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cd
18 yrs ago
Mine all started finger foods around 6-7 months, and by 10 months were eating the same foods as us, albeit mashed. You don't need teeth to have finger foods, gums are pretty hard.
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