When to stop baby food

[kiersten's mom]

My DD is 14 months old and I would like to give her more table food then baby food from the Jar.   Does anyone know at what age we can stop giving him or her baby food? I should mention that she would not eat the toddler food from the jar as she thinks it is too chunky but she has no problem eating chicken, beef, potatoes, and vegetables if I cook it. Right now I am giving her baby food and then when we sit down for dinner what ever we are having.  I am just so confused about this as I am always concerned that she is not eating enough.

Also if anyone has any lunch ideas that would also be great.

Thanks

[tylersmommy]

You can stop the baby food any time you'd like. We kept it up after Tyler turned 1 because he liked it mixed in with his oatmeal in the morning, and it was a good way to make sure he was getting some veggies. If she's doing well with table food, there's not much reason to continue baby food unless you want to. When you start giving her only table food, it might seem like she's eating less, but she really isn't. Keep in mind that baby food contains a lot of water and table food doesn't, so it will take less to fill her up, but she's actually eating the same amount of food once you take water out of the equation. Does that make sense?

Lunch here is usually any of these things, and has been for about the last year:
- Yogurt
- Sandwich (peanut butter, grilled cheese, cream cheese, avocado...you name it, it's been in a sandwich)
- Fruit
- Veggies if there's some left over from dinner the night before

[Marisa's Mom]

We transitioned out of #3 jars when DD was clearly OK with that consistency (not gagging or choking) and was able to handle more "chunky" foods. We started giving her more table foods, cut up into small pieces, and less jar food. Don't know if it was more cost effective, but we felt better giving her our food than jar food. I mean, fresh foods has to be better than a jar that expires in 2007, right?

We eventually got a food processor to puree or grind up our dinner. We call it our "dinner mix", it contains a little bit of meat, a little bit of veggies, and a little bit of bread/pasta/starchy item. We keep cooked veggies, chopped into small pieces, on hand in the fridge. It's usually 2 or 3 different kinds of veggies. Lately it has been carrots, zucchini, and yellow squash. We add a little bit of each veggie (we call this the "veggie medley") to the "dinner mix" so she'll get veggies in her diet. We used to give her this "dinner mix" with baby cereal, but we've stopped doing baby cereal recently.  .... I should add that the only reason I am grinding up our dinner/meats is because our Pediatrician recommended continuing giving her pureed meats for now, since she was a late bloomer in the solids dept; she didn't start solids until her 10th month. I think she's actually OK with small bits of meat, she's nibbled off my hamburger with no problems at all. I'm slowly adjusting how ground up her dinner mix is, making it chunkier and chunkier.

I just make sure any of our food is soft enough & cut up into small pieces so that she doesn't choke.

We have been doing spaghetti for lunch lately. DD never tires of spaghetti sauce. I cook spaghetti, then cut it into small pieces. I cut tofu (for protein) into tiny cubes. Toss the tofu in with the spaghetti. Add sauce, and let this sit in the fridge. I think this helps the tofu "absorb" some of the sauce flavors. When I'm ready to feed DD, I scoop out some of the veggie medley I have on hand, add the spaghetti mixture, stir it up & heat it. DD inhales the stuff. 

Last week I did Asian noodles which were cooked in broth. I'd chop up the noodles, add diced tofu. When I'm ready to serve, I scoop out some veggie medley, add the noodles/tofu mix, and a few spoonfuls of chicken broth. Stir this up & heat this up. DD loved this too! And I love how I'm able to sneak in veggies into her meals...

Yesterday we had egg scramble with veggie medley. I scrambled 3 eggs (it was part her lunch and part my lunch), added the veggie medley, and just kept stiring it in the fry pan. DD loved this too, and she still got her veggies in. Next time I'll add some cheese.

Today I took a can of Cream Style Corn, heated it up, cracked an egg in and stirred it up. Continue heating & stirring until egg is cooked, or mixture is boiling. Cool slightly before feeding. DD likes it cuz it's on the sweet side. She had this with some toast, and finished with 1/3 ripe avocado.

Here are some of the foods we give DD (she's 13 mos right now, but only started eating solids at 10 mos), hopefully it'll give you some ideas. I'll list them by type:

BREAD GROUP
waffles, bread, baby cereal, cheerios, corn flakes, yam/sweet potato, spaghetti, ramen, noodles, mashed potatoes, pancakes, oatmeal, nutrigrain bars, crackers, french toast, rice cakes

FRUIT GROUP
bananas, peaches, applesauce, grapes, avocado (it's a fruit, right?)

VEGGIE GROUP
broccoli, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, bok choy, spinach, cauliflower, peas & carrots (frozen)

DAIRY GROUP
milk, yogurt, cheese, eggs

MEATS
tofu, baby food jars, hamburger, ground/pureed table food


I don't know about your daughter, but mine seems to be more interested in the foods I'm eating. So we'll sometimes share lunch, instead of having separate lunches. If I have a burrito, I'll let her nibble off of mine. She can do beans/rice OK, likes cheese, and can do really small tender meat chunks.  If I have canned soup for lunch, I'll let her have some too.  If I nuke a frozen entree, she gets to nibble off of my plate ... she really likes the Marie Callendar Meat Loaf entree.

[kiersten's mom]

Thanks for the advice and tips, I am going to try it and see what happens.

[Swirl]

I would love to stop baby food as well but he always gags whenever I try to
get him somethinig that is not textured. I know he can chew since he can chew
Cherrios no problem...Any suggestions?

[Marisa's Mom]

We had that period where DD would gag if something was too thick. We just let her set the pace with how thick/thin her foods should be, and gradually increased the thickness or chunkiness of it.

I was going to suggest something like Gerber Veggie Puffs as a transitional practice food, but I don't think you'll need them if he can chew on Cheerios without any problems.

What kinds of foods have you tried to give him?

Have you tried giving him well cooked soft veggies? Zucchini is a good choice since it's soft in the middle. When I first started out with the cooked veggies, I'd cut off the "hard" skins and give her the soft middle (zucchini, yellow squash). Cooked well, chopped into fine pieces. I gradually increased the sizes to small cubes/chunks. You can get a feel for what your child can handle. Sweet potato or yams are also good choices.

Can he eat soft ripe banana? Use a fork to mash it up into mush. Gradually mash it up less and less until he can eat small chunks. They use their gums to mash it anyways. After DD mastered banana, we added other fruit like canned peaches (chopped up) and grape (peeled & chopped up). Soft ripe melons are also good choices since they're easy to mash in the mouth. And of course, there's applesauce. DD inhales that stuff...

For a while, the only time we gave DD baby food jars was for dinner (#3 jars with meat). We gave her our foods at other times. Then I got a mini-prep food processor to puree our dinner/table food for her. I started out making it very fine, then gradually more coarse. I wish I had gotten one of these food processors earlier so I could have fed her our food earlier instead of giving her baby food jars.

[kiersten's mom]

I found that my DD liked stuff that melted in her mouth, like cheese and crackers I found it helped her get used to textures. Mashed stuff is great and shredded things to.