BabyWhispererForums.com
EAT => Eating For Toddlers => Topic started by: Sarah˛ on August 23, 2005, 18:09:36 pm
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Henry still has pureed baby food three times a day. He has baby oatmeal mixed with fruit and milk for breakfast, a jar of veggies for lunch, and baby oatmeal mixed with veggies for dinner. He can feed himself (sort of) with a spoon although I usually do the bulk of it. He absolutely refuses purees with texture - if I give him a puree with lumps in it, he gags and throws up. Not pretty.
BUT he will eat diced fruit but will not eat diced veggies. If I didn't feed him the pureed stuff, he would eat fruit, crackers and cheese all day long. Oh - and french fries. Henry LOVES french fries :roll:
I don't really mind feeding him the pureed stuff considering he has a very balanced diet and eats a lot of veggies that way but I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I'd like to get him off the purees at some point before he's two but worry that he won't eat as well if/when I do.
Any thoughts or advice? TIA!
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Hi Sarah,
Sorry I can't actually help you as I am in the same situation with my dd who is younger though. For the last 5 months I have unsucessfully been trying to introduce finger foods and to date the only thing she will touch is toast and every now and then a milup wholewheat biscuit. She will not even put any other food near her mouth. I have also tried to mash her veg, almost mashed to puree and she will not eat it. So we are pureeing, and I am getting tired of it and think she will never eat normally. She eats an ok selection of veg, carrots, sweet potato, sweet corn, bnsquash, brocoli, peas and aspargus but only seems to eat prune puree at the moment with apricot and mango the odd time, she was better on fruit. She also eats small amounts of chicken and meat which have been cooked with veg, then its 2 cubes of that mixed with her regular veg. She doesn't drink any milk so am loathe to stop the puree seeing as she needs her veg so much, she doesnt drink water or juice either, so in all she takes in about 2 oz of liquid( milk) during the day.
Sorry have rambled on....... will be watching to see what advise you get,
Take care,
Fiona
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Sarah,
Nathan actually still eats stage 3 fruits, since it's the only way I can get him to eat them! He also eats toddler meals that I spoon to him, when he's accepting the spoon from mommy :shock:
I've worried too that he should be eating more of what we eat, but then I backed off trying so hard. Baby food (at least Gerber's) is free from Preservatives, and artifical colors and flavors. I think it's much healthier for them, and I'm happy to feed him some baby food as long as he'll accept it!
Just my take on it!
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I think I stopped pureed veggies too soon... she moved to finger foods really quickly, so now dd won't take them, chunky or pureed. With that said, I wouldn't eliminate pureed until he takes them as tender chunks.
Have you tried mixing the soft fruits (pears, peaches, etc) in with his purees? Does he eat meat? What about toast with cream cheese, that softens up the toast nicely... I spread it on both sides and cut into very small squares. What about pasta (we do the mini sea shells) in a cheese sauce, or mixed with a fruit puree?
HTH
Trish
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He actually eats a lot of finger foods - waffles, bread, crackers, cereals, pasta, cheese, fruits . . . He'll eat pretty much any finger foods I give him, other than veggies! I'm not concerned about his finger foods intake, just his veggies intake. KWIM?
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We're in the same boat...Tyler won't eat any veggies other than puree, except the occasional broccoli and cheese sauce. It's weird, because when he refused the spoon from 9-12 mo, he loved veggie chunks. He'll eat basically the same finger foods that Henry does, just not veggies, no matter how well disguised. I feel like I'm treating him like a baby, but on the other hand, at least he's getting veggies. I also do most of the spoon feeding here...he'll do the first bite by himself then hand me the spoon and say "mommy do." Sigh. No advice here, I'm in the same boat. I'm interested to see what folks have to say...
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Sarah, Yes, IKWYM. DD refuses veggie chunks too. I would just keep up the purees until he decides he's done with them... I wish I had kept going with them! I now give her a liquid vitamin every other day, just to make sure she's getting what she needs. She will eat peas and corn, have you tried those? I can also get her to eat little chunks of green beans in a fruit puree. Actually she will lots of different chunks of things in a fruit puree, mostly soft stuff that she can mash, but also little chicken chunks. Oh, sometimes I sneak shreaded squash or zuchinni into her grilled cheese sandwiches, but not enough so that she'll notice!
She gets a little lazy... and would also rather have Mommy do it...but she knows how to feed herself too, so I just plan on plugging along. Once she has the fine motor skills and patience to manage a spoon, I think she'll take over.
GL
Trish
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I also have some difficulty getting dd to eat veggies in a non-pureed form. I don't think it's a big deal to continue, but here are some ideas for more "grown-up" food:
Toss her pasta with a tomato sauce mixed with pureed or finely chopped cooked veggies. Use a pasta that hangs onto the suace, like shells or rotelle. This is the only way my girl will eat spinach. Oh, that and curried (Curried! Who would have thought?)
Make "grown-up" foods that involve pureed veggies, like pureed soups (butternut squash and spinach and potato (with cheese, especially) are great) or mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes (add some carrots to your mashed potatoes for more nutrition and a nice flavor)
Try putting an casserole you make through a baby food mill, or mashing it with a fork
Make baked sweet potato fries: coat sweet potatoes sliced into sticks, put on a cookie sheet in one layer and roast at about 400 until tender in the center and crispy outside. If you like, sprinkle with a little cinnamon sugar. Or not. They're tasty plain, too.
Make mini pizzas with tomato sauce mixed with minced cook veggies. My girl loves pizzas!
With any of these ideas, you can take out a portion before you salt it. Personally, I don't worry too much about the salt in my food when I cook it myself, since I use much less than is in processed food.
HTH!