Help with Getting 8 Mo Baby Girl to Eat Fruits and Veggies

At this age, her nutrition should mainly come from her formula/breastmilk. So, I wouldn't worry too much other than getting her used to the taste. Just keep offering them to her. But, if she knows you're pushing them on her, she might be resisting mainly out of spite. :-) Find something she really wants and only give it to her after she tries one pea, or one banana bite, etc.

Babies will do fine on breastmilk or formula alone for the first year. Solids in the first year are more for exploration than for actual nutrition. Let her set the pace. If she doesn't like something, don't force it on her. Try something else. Reintroduce that food a few weeks later. She won't starve!

When my oldest was 9 mos she suddenly refused to eat any and all baby foods. We were on a trip to NYC visiting family and tried buying every single brand of baby food out there but she wasn't having any of it. Finally in desperation we bought a bag of frozen tiny diced carrots and peas and steamed them and threw a few on the high chair tray. She gobbled them up. Never ate baby food again. 8 mos is a little young but you never know...if she has some teeth and a good pincer grasp, she might just be ready for finger foods. Good luck!

Hi L.,
I had a problem kind of like this one. My daughter would not eat the stage three foods, so I posted on question but nothing seemed to work. But I tried putting water and ceral with her food and for some reason she loved it. I haven't had a problem since. I slowly decreased the amount added and now she eats the foods without ceral. Hope this helps.

When my kids were little the pediatrician told me to hold off on anything but formula & rice cereal until a year. Said it would help avoid developing food allergies. Formula's pretty balanced for babies, and mine are in their 20s now...and I didn't fight that particular battle! (LOL) Rather than add sugar, maybe just hold off on veggiew until she can eat "people food"--I remember mine carefully picking up the little mushy green peas one by one. Anyway, good luck and hope this helped!

Try placing the baby food in her bottle with a little formula and see if she will drink it. Babies sometimes will eat food that way. You will have to make the hole in her nipples a little bigger if this works.

One of my boys was the same way when he was little. We ended up making "smoothies" with fruit & formula. SInce she will eat mashed potatoes, have you tried to hide the veggies in the potatoes?

As the others have said, babies don't "need" solid foods until around 12 months. From 6-12 months you are just experimenting and trying things. Don't force it or it will become an unpleasant experience for everyone. Just give the formula and continue to offer a variety of other foods to sample. It could be that she doesn't like the baby foods and wants "adult" food.

Look into baby-led weaning (here is one site, but you can google for more info: http://www.baby-led.com/) The idea is that you skip over the baby food and offer things that the baby can feed herself. I can't describe it well here, but the website should help. Also, talk to her pediatrician for advice.

Good luck and remember that introducing food should be fun!

i have notice that our son liked "beech nut" brand over gerber brand baby foods. also she could still be having some stomache troubles. I am sure you have heard that all babies do things at different times.

Y'all have gotten some really great advice! Just keep in mind the more you force something, the more the child will push back. Your job is to expose her to different healthy foods so later she will grow to enjoy them. It can take a child up to 20 times of being served a food before they are comfortable enough to accept it. That's 20 times with each food! Try soft finger foods (steamed veggies or ripe fruits). Some children just don't enjoy being fed or jarred baby food. I would really caution you against putting ANYTHING but milk in bottles. This can be a real choking hazard. Also, children are smarter than we think. She won't be fooled long and soon may begin to refuse ALL bottles. The same goes with hiding veggies in other foods. Yes you might get the child to eat her veggies today, but the goal is life-long healthy eating habits.
Best wishes!

I suggest only giving fresh. Start with bananas, *I know this isNOT what the peds say, which is start with vegs*. If she doesn't want it smashed then let her eat pieces. Don't force anything, but you can provide fresh fr/veg every single day and she will eventually do something with it (like eating it not throwing it HAHA) and you can prepare it very easily different ways. I was crying to my mother yrs ago about a finicky eater and she warmed up some frozen peas/carrots mix, buttered and salted it, and the finicky eater devoured it from then on, and I realized that maybe it just really didn't taste good to my kid rather than the issue of not liking the food; so maybe you could try different ways of making and serving the food. I was horrified my mother did this because I'd been doing everything from scratch, but it taught me that maybe my daughter just needed a change and a few meals of cheap frozen vegetables really wasn't that horrible for her health because it was short-term! 8 months old is incredibly young to me to worry about the kid not eating fr/veg, and I don't know if this has been going on like through 40+ meals (which would be about the time I'd get concerned at this age). Maybe if she's fingering Cheerios then it will make fruits taste even sweeter, if they're offered before formula is. Hmmmm Good luck! It will be ok!!

Have you tried cutting the fruit and veggies into very small pieces and adding it to her yogurt or cereal??? Some kids will also ONLY eat the yogurt if blended in with the cereal!!! Hope this helps you :)

Hi L.,
I would suggest not to rush her back into foods. It is a texture issue with her right now and she apparently does not like the texture of certain fruits and veggies- this will change and I would not worry about it too much- just maybe gradually add the fruit with her cereal and add the veggies later- possibly when she can use her fingers to feed herself- As long as she is happy and healthy let her decide when she is ready.
Good luck and blessings

try mixing it in her formula...you may have to make the hole bigger in the nipple...but by mixing it in her formula she will get a liking for the flavors also some babies will refuse jar food try making your own! good luck

Sometimes kids just aren't ready to eat solids at this age. 6 months is the EARLIEST you can introduce foods, it's certainly not a requirement. My three year old daughter was very uninterested in solids for a long time. She was close to a year when she started eating enough to constitute a meal, and still nursed almost exclusively until she was 13 months old (b/c she was willing to eat so few things).
Now she's a great eater! She really only WANTS to eat fruits and veggies. I wouldn't stress too much. Guidelines are just that: guidelines. There is no hard and fast rule about eating solids and it certainly will not harm her to get formula or breastmilk for a bit longer as it's very nutritionally sound and she should not even start the weaning process until she's 12 months old or older. Good luck!

I'm speaking from a breastfeeding point of view, but even with formula, eating solids is for the EXPERIENCE at this age. And if y'all force her to eat, what is her experience like? Not a very positive one. Just try the same things several times in a row (they say it can take MANY times before a child accepts a new food).

Also, my children hated baby food. Niether one of them "ate" until they could feed themselves. I delayed solids (didn't start with the first until 7 months, and the second was after 8 months), so mine were old enough for soft finger foods. Your granddaughter is as well. I started with avocado, as it's sweeter like breastmilk. Very well cooked and soft carrots, avocados, bananas, sweet potatoes, green beans.....if they are well cooked and soft, but diced small, she can pick them up herself. At 8 months she probably just wants the independence of self-feeding.

My children were both started on solids later (son was 7 months, daughter 8.5), yet neither one of them really ate until later. Son was 10 months old before he enjoyed food, and daughter was 11.5 (2 weeks from her first birthday) before either of them ate much more than a bite or two. THey were happily breastfed (and both continued breastfeeding well into their second year, self weaning when they were ready) and their weight was adequate. In fact, my first son was 20 lbs at 6 months old from breastmilk alone!

But remember, for the first year, breastmilk or formula is the main source of calories. Solids are for the experience of eating. Don't stress but offer her healthy finger foods.

Neither of my kids cared for baby foods or the pureed mushy stuff and don't really care for things that have that consistancy, like pudding. What I did was buy the little net bag things and put fresh fruits and veggies in it and let them eat it that way. They did not like being fed, and were very independent. So I would take the additional time and cut everything up into little bitty pieces and let them fend for themselves. I found if I fed them in between feedings I got better results. If I tried to do it while they were really hungry, then they just got frustrated and if I did it after the formula, then they weren't interested. At this point their nutrition is really coming from the formula anyway, so just relax and let them explore the food calmy with no pressure. It is best if they see you eating it too. So I would nibble the fruit and veggies too. Also the veggie and fruit that mommy ate most while baby was in utero, they tend to favor, I have found.

With my first daughter, I didn't even start solids until 6-7 mths and she didn't get finger foods until after 12 mths. I was freaky scraed of choking! My son got ahold of a Ritz peanut butter cracker at 3 months due to sneaky daughter and thank God didn't have a reaction or choke, but started him into finger foods like cheerios early at around 4-5 mths. They now are 3y & 4y and eat very well rounded meals. I actually had a man take a picture of my son at 2yrs old eating a salad with ranch dressing at the Rainforest Cafe! He said it was the craziest thing he had ever seen. I just laughed. My kids eat what we eat. I don't make special meals unless it is medically necessary, otherwise they eat or go hungry. Now we do have a dinner night where I let everyone choose their own food for the night, but not very often. My kids love it when I cook carrots, potatoes, and onions in a beef broth. She will not eat beef meat though and loves sausage & chicken. Go figure. I think my daughter ate about 3-4 cups before we rolled her from the table. Obviously not recommended for an 8 mth old. But point is that she will adapt to people food, but keep in mind it may be the food consistancy she doesn't like and not the food taste itself. Mine will drink yogurt, but won't take it from a spoon. They won't eat jello or pudding either. Kids are so weird! Hope this helps. Good luck.

Are you feeding her whole food or baby food? If you are feeding whole food try baby food again. The texture could be throwing her off.

Hide the food in mash potatoes. When my son wouldn't eat something besides yogurt I would first put the vegetable on the spoon and then yogurt. It would look like yogurt and the first taste is yogurt. He did become a pro at finding solid pieces and spitting them out but keeping in the yogurt. One thing that I learned over the past year is to keep offering your child different foods even if they don't touch it. It took three different offerings of food and then he would eat it.

Also - put some of the food on the babies tray and let her play in it. You would be amazed at what a baby decides to try on her own. My son wouldn't eat watermelon on a spoon or fork but liked the idea of picking it up himself.