10 Month Old Won't Eat Baby Food, What Can I Feed Her?

Switch to the Gerber Graduates. Thats what I did for my son. He won't eat anything that's mushy except potatoes. Also try overcooked small pasta or Spagetti O's

M.,
There is a great website that tells you which table foods to introduce and when and also gives some really good recipes as well. The website is www.wholesomebabyfoods.com

It depends on how many teeth she has. My son had almost all his teeth by 10 months and basically was eating whatever we ate -just cut into very small pieces and with some exceptions like no nuts or other hard things that could easily choke him. Any slightly mashed or cubed soft fruit, vegetables and meats that are cut in very small pieces (IF she has a bunch of teeth) are great -so are whole grain cereals in milk, oatmeal, etc. Avocados are fantastic, and if she doesn't like them plain, try mixing with different salad dressings or seasoning blends. My son has always loved spicy foods and LOVES the milder Cajun blend seasoning on everything! Just watch the sodium in seasonings.

Assuming no allergies: try yogurt (YoBaby is yummy), cooked whole wheat macaroni, ham or turkey torn into tiny bites, meatloaf, chicken cut tiny, cheerios, kix, scrambled eggs, cooked peas, carrots, a banana, peaches, soft and ripe pears, melon. Does she have any teeth?

BTW, babies don't need "baby food." I mean what did moms do before blenders? They mashed up table food so it was small enough to gum and swallow. Just feed her regular food by small.

you can mash up bannanas and peaches. also, my daughter likes the mott's natural applesauce, it is so much tastier than baby food. she is probably just ready to transition to table foods. also, you can melt cheese slices on bread, and overcook the mac and cheese, and she will like that too. canned green beans are soft and cream of corn in the can is very yummy. is she eating any puffs or anything to learn how to chew?

hope this helps!!
S. m

She can eat anything you don't have to chew a lot. Stay away from steak, nuts, and anything that runs as an allergy in your family. Don't do too much dairy, but some cheese is fine unless your pediatrician says otherwise. My daughter would do little bites of lasagne; little pieces of chicken, rice grains, and lima beans or green beans cut up; little bits of avocado, ground turkey, and shredded cheese when we had tacos, etc, etc. The fall season coming up is a great time to look into different types of hard squashes that you can cook and cube, cooked/cubed sweet potatoes are super. This is a fantastic time to expose her to lots of different foods, and it will help to delay that inevitable picky stage they all go through. Don't be afraid to feed her anything your common sense says is okay. If you have a question, just call your pediatrician's office and ask a nurse.

Here are some foods we did:
cubed rotisserie chicken
cubed deli turkey (only a high-end brand with no preservatives)
pulled pork (bbq without sauce)
rice, brown and white (stay away from corn - it's a little hard on tummies)
pasta (mac n cheese, lasagne, rotini)
soft fruits cubed (grapes quartered, blueberries/cherries halved)
cubed cucumber, peeled
cooked carrots, sliced and halved
cubed oven "fried" sweet or white potatoes
cereal
cubed tofu
apples cooked in the microwave then cubed, allowed to cool

and so many more! this is a great time for you! :)

By 10 months if she has teeth she should be able to eat "adult" foods. Try cooking veggies until they are soft and cutting them into small pieces. Don't season them and stay away from salt. My kids love Ms. Dash seasonings! According to my DR adding butter at that age was fine because they still need extra fat for their growing brain but don't over do it. Fruits (fresh or canned) cut into bite size pieces are a great snack or side dish but make sure you cut them small enough as they are more slippery if canned and aer much easier swallowed without chewing which is a choking hazard. Make sure you cut everything into baby bite size pieces for her and avoid foods that are most likely to be allergens (eggs, peanuts, peanut butter, etc.). Try making the food look fun. Another Mom gave me a great tip when my daughter was around 1, she said to get small cookie cutters and cut sandwiches or other foods into shapes. My daughter loved it and I still use that trick and she's almost 4! Try cutting cooked baby carrots so that they are round disks and call them carrot candy or call brocolli trees or drop a dab of food coloring or beet juice into mashed potatoes to give it a fun color. Hopefully something will help encourage her to eat and you will feel better knowing she is still eating healthy foods. Good luck!

You could feed her potatoes, bananas, rice, cheese, apple sauce, fruite and vegetables, etc Maybe she is trying to let you know she is almos ready for the grown up foods

There are many reasons that our country is plagued with obesity, infant and toddler nutrition is definitely at the top of the list. There is no reason why your 10month old can't eat almost everything that you eat. Feed her the food off your plate so that she learns to eat a variety of foods and textures. Textures, believe it or not, is actually the reason for so many "picky eater" at the toddler age. We are feeding them strained everything and they are not learning the proper chewing methods. I'll get off my soap box and give you the suggestions you asked for, sorry, I'm passionate! :) Remember nothing that is allergic (i.e. nuts, peanut, strawberries, egg whites, honey, shellfish etc)

Veggies- fresh is good but frozen and canned with no added salt are also good, cooked just long enough for her to chew
Fruits- fresh is best but you can get frozen and canned with no added sugar
Protein- chicken, deli meats, egg yolks, soy alternatives by Morningstar Farms, tilapia (Walmart offers individually frozen fillets for $6.42 for about 8 fillets and they are very good), Frozen edemame (soybeans)
Carbs- You are covered on bread, just remember that the whole wheat variety is the best and if she hasn't had white then she won't know the difference. Pasta, rice, etc.
Dairy- yogurt (low sugar), formula, cheese

It is hard to change your eating habits but so worth it for your children. Another bit of advice from my pedi. is that it takes 10-15 tries before a child knows if they like or dislike a food. Keep trying it can be a very frustrating stage but you have already gotten through the first stage. You are doing a great job in recognizing that your little girl is done with the baby food, so many just don't realize what their children are telling them. Good luck!

Apologies if you got these suggestions already -- didn't have time to read through all the responses. I posted similar info a while back to a feeding question here on Mamasource (you might want to check it out for more ideas -- http://www.mamasource.com/request/12602129287517044737 ), so I am copying/pasting here:

We skipped stage 3 foods and moved on to "real" food around 10-11 months as well. We started with regular applesauce, mac & cheese (cut up tiny), potatoes (inside of a baked potato, or mashed potatoes), soft green beans, peas, Gerber fruit puffs (they dissolve), cheerios, oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, breads, etc. Basically most side dishes or veggies you'd have with a regular meal can be used if they are soft enough or small enough.

I must confess we also eat out a lot, so in those cases, she loved rice and sweet carrots (think of the kind you typically get with Chinese food, but you might want to pick out the eggs), plus stuff at the pizza/salad buffet like the little ham chunks, pineapples, peaches, shredded cheese or chunks of cheese, cottage cheese....

Also helpful for fruits is a mesh feeder (like this http://www.munchkin.com/products/detail.html?pID=37) Baby can chew on it and get the juices and pulp but you don't have to worry about choking. I guess you could put other stuff in it too. Our daughter loves strawberries, apples, blueberries and those little mandarin oranges. And bananas.

We also gave her yogurt starting around 11 months, when we started the transition from breast milk to regular milk.

Hope that's helpful.

my dd stopped eating baby food at 8 months and she also stopped letting me feed her, so finding stuff was hard. some things tried and true, chicken nuggets
grilled cheese
chicken (any kind)
hotdogs (yes!)
all the veggies, esp broccoli
all the fruits only recently apple
ham/turkey
lasagna
yogurt

she is 11 months now and we pretty well feed her from the table and she only just now has 4 teeth, we just cut everything up, especially the hotdog into small pieces.

try the gerber graduates jarred fruits and veggies--they have apples, pears, peaches, carrots and green beans--they are very soft and, apparently, yummy--my daughter loved them. Almost any cooked veggie, cut very small, will work. Applesauce, yogurt, bananas, pears, cooked beans etc is also great. Try to stay away from chicken nuggets and junkier food until you absolutely run out of other things. There will come a day when she demands food like that--put it off as long as possible and give her the healthiest start you can! Good luck!

At 10 months, she should be eating more regular food. You can certainly mix the baby food IN with regular food. Try soft veggies and fruit cut up in small pick up sizes. Speak with your doctor and she what he/she recommends. But it's possible your daughter is telling you she's ready to try other types of foods. Just make sure she's in her high chair and you're close by while she experiments with new foods (duh...I know you probably know that, but just in case!!) My daughter loved those puffs and little crunchies by Gerber (they melt) and any type of fruit...try well cooked peas and corn and carrots cut up small. TINY pieces of cheese and hotdog (careful with the hotdog...it's gotta be really small) As long as she's chewing, those should be fine. You be the judge. Good lucK!

She can eat pretty much anything you can eat just in smaller pieces. small pieces of cheese, meat, veggies, and fruits, cooked noodles. But stay away from nuts, peanut butter.

My daughter hated baby food. I used to give her stuff like mashed potatoes, oatmeal, cream of wheat. She started teething early so by 10 months she was able to eat the cut up string beans and fruit.

Both of my kids were on table food by 10 months and they only had three teeth. I did various lunch meats, mac and cheese, cheese slices, cracker, applesauce, veggies finely chopped, any pasta, etc. Things they could easily mash up with their gums.

Hello M. C,

Try the stage three infant foods from Gerber and BeechNut mixed with the food that you prepare for yourself... I remember an article in a parent magazine that advised that the enzymes in an infant's saliva will assist with breaking down chunks of food for digestion so baby will not have trouble eating. You can also try the self feeding toddler meals.

Best Wishes,
N. S.

Hey M.

Have you tried noodles or mac and cheese? That may be a start! Good luck.

My son loved to eat oatmeal, instant grits, and the little lunch buckets. I think they are sold near the soups. He liked the rice and chicken with veggies and the mac and cheese. These were just some of the things we gave him. I also would give him soggy cereal and he would eat it sometimes. Depends on your child and if she's picky. My son loved bread too!

Hi M.! My baby is 19 months old now, but he didn't want to eat the baby food either around 12 months. First, let me tell you this, if I put the baby food in a plate, he ate it, but if he saw it in the baby food jar, then he didn't want it, funny ah????? Second, he looooved and still does, macaroni and cheese, he can pick it up with his fingers, also, long french fries that he can hold and take bites, kind of soft, don't cook them too much. He liked pizza too, he will take pieces of cheese with his fingers, chew on the pizza, work it and well, it was gone!!! Maybe your little one is like mine, thay are independent and like to do stuff by themselves. Cut pieces of fruits small and give it to her, bananas, peaches, grapes, you have to cut them in three pieces, not whole grapes please!!!!! plums. I hope this helps!!!!!!!!!!!

You know, they make these little mesh baggies with handles for solids for little ones who are begining eaters. I bought one at babysrus for around 6 bucks. We put bananas and other soft things in that my little guy could try. It helped eliminate the chocking hazard because he had to chew/suck on the food through the net. You might try one of these...

otherwise it sounds like she is ready for some new flavors... maybe a bite of what you're having? mashed taters, small veggies, bannana, etc. My little one really loved chicken at this age but... okay, I know this is tmi- I would have to chew it up or grind it up really well for him before he could eat it. He didnt have any teeth yet!

Have you ever heard of baby led solids? I know you've been feeding purees, but there's really no need to cut up or puree baby food. If your baby isn't happy with purees anymore you might want to try it.

http://babyledweaning.blogware.com/

My son stopped eating baby food around 9 or 10 months as well. He is now 15 months. Ask your pediatrician what he/she recommends but our pediatrician said he could eat almost anything we ate- just cut up in small sizes. Bananas are good because they are soft. Blueberries (mash them or cut in half), yogurt (yo baby is good), cut up plums and nectarines (ripe ones so they were soft), broccoli, chicken, deli turkey, cheese (torn up slices of American at first, now he eats little cubes of cheddar) are all things our son liked/likes. As you probably know, you should wait 2-3 days before introducing a new food so that you can isolate which food caused an allergy if that were to happen. Also, hold off on Strawberries and peanut butter until she is two because of high allergic potential.

My 2 year old would eat bread ALL DAY LONG if I let him. I know she's young but what I would do was tell him he had to eat such and such or so many bites and then he could have bread. As she gets older this may work for you. Bribery is a great thing!

Babies under a year still get nearly all their nutrition from breastmilk or formula, so if bread is all your baby will eat right now- that's okay. Just keep offering a variety of foods and eventually she'll try some.

She can eat anything that is bite size and soft. Easy for her to chew and swallow. Cereal, pieces of pancake, waffle, french toast, eggs (as long as not allergic). For lunch and dinner I would put chopped chicken breast that I cooked for dinner in the food chopper with some veggies and that was my son's dinner and lunch for the next day!! My son was the same way at 10 months old, if it looked like baby food, he wouldn't touch it!! Unless it was the desserts of course! lol

Good luck!
S.

My grand daughter is 1 year old and she stopped eating baby food about 2 months ago and she won't eat anything but bread, biscuits, and crackers and whole milk but that's not enough nutritional value for a baby. So please respond.
Thanks,