10.5 mo finger food ideas for main meals

[lilisuze]

Hi

We have hit the dreaded spoon refusal time!!

He will eat breakfast ok as long as he is hungry from a spoon but dinners over the last 2 weeks have been hideous because he will not eat from a spoon unless its puree!

He will eat sandwiches and corn crisps (organix finger foods), rice cakes and will pick up bits of fruit and veg some of which go in and some do not:

will: strawberries
      blueberries
      broccoli
      cauliflower

sometimes: banana
                ham/chicken

will not try: pea (but he will eat peas if we are having them for dinner and they come from someones plate)


He is on a milk limited diet still (on soy milk for MPI) but now has philadelphia and after a puking issue with a fromage frais 2 weeks ago (that lasted for 5 days!) i have not tried anything else so I cam a bit stuck really.

He doesnt like jars of baby food, but will normally eat puree fruit pots. Main dinners he will eat are ones i have made that are pureed with a few lumps or sandwich type meals. At nursery (obviously) he will eat anything they offer him!

Where do i go from here?

TIA

Lili xx

[We Three]

Umm......french toast?  My dd loves these waffles I buy...organic wheat blueberry waffles made by "earth's best"...they are marketed for kids....Sesame Street characters on the box.  They would be fun if you cut them up small!

Do you make meat-loaf?  That's crumbly enough for him to pick up, I think.  Pasta?

[Mashi]

Had an MSPI boy as well, I know how hard it can be! (I kept him gluten free until 10 months, too, so REALLY hard!)

*Toast or bread with whatever you use as butter - I'm in the UK, so if it helps, we bought "sure" and they do a milk free and a milk/soy free spread
*Sweetcorn
*"the famous sausages" http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=102407.0
*sweet potatoes cut into sticks and baked (cut into french fry sized sticks, drizzle some olive oil on them, put into a little square tinfoil packet and bake for 30ish minutes
*squash cubes done the same way
*pears cut up into manageable chunks - if they are slippery roll them in baby rice cereal, wheat germ, crushed cheerios, etc to make them easy to pick up
*cheerios
*scrambled eggs (i mixed a bit of formula in the egg instead of milk)
*cooked green beans
*mini hamburgers
*any fruit at all DS ate....

I found that as long as the majority of the meal was finger foods, I could get him so into picking up little pieces of corn that he would just open his mouth and let me feed him from a spoon without even noticing or caring what was going on.  I also put a lot of different things in front of DS that i knew he wouldn't like, just kept offering them and not caring when he threw them, every now and again he WOULD eat them!  I just tried not to stress about it, only put two or three things in front of him at once (any more and he just got overwhelmed) and let him eat what he would and eat the rest myself....surprising what he would eat when he thought it was MINE and not for him!!

[lilisuze]

thanks for your replies! isnt it amazing what they will have if its yours and not for them!

Mashi what did you do with scrambled egg? Just cook it and put it warm on the high chair tray in a big blob?

Amelia, what is meat loaf? is it made with mince? for some reason pasta is spat right back out. He will try it, but wont swallow it!!!

Lili xx

[Mashi]

We have the same issue with pasta - will NOT eat it.

Meat loaf is really an American dish - mince, some tomato sauce or tomatoes, spices, bread crumbs, etc, all put into a loaf pan and baked.  Some people love it, others loathe it!

Scrambled eggs, well, when I scramble them, they naturally turn into little penny sized chunks, perhaps because of the Nutramigen in it or perhaps because it is fried in dairy free/soy free spread and I put them one (or two) at a time on DS's high chair tray once it had cooled.

[*Liz*]

Omlette cut into cubes might be easier. If your lo doesn't like slimy things then do a spanish omlette with slices of potato in to make it a little firmer.

My lo doesn't like spoon feeding either and is also a recovering MPI.

Try some soy yoghurt instead - J is happy to eat this even though it has bits in. Just do smaller amounts as a whole pot is a lot for a lo. Alpro Soy make them in the UK.

Hmmm.... I make little muffins to hide veggies in - so sweetcorn muffins, carrot muffins. You can do the same with little scones. I add a bit of grated cheese to these (J seems to manage a bit of chedder) but you could do spinach or tomato.

Fish fingers? You can get Salmon fingers as well now.

Jacob has shown some interest in dipping things and putting bits of bread into soup then eating it.

[lilisuze]

thanks liz. he likes dipping things too! maybe i will try fish fingers. think they also make fish nuggets too??

Have you gone back to wotk yet liz? if so hows it going?

[*Liz*]

Yeah - I went back 2 weeks ago working mon, tues and wed. Going fine but I'm sure I will be grumbling when I have to do a whole weekend  .