My precious little guy has picked up squawking at a very high and loud pitch when he is not being fed fast enough. I am not sure how to curb this behavior seeing how I literally shovel the jarred food into his mouth and its just not fast enough. His pediatrician brought to my attention at his 9 mo. appt. (before the squawking began)that he could eat stage 3 foods and that, if I gave him more solid food, he could feed himself therefore ending the tedious "shoveling." As of current i've tried toast, rice rusks, peach slices, banana, yogurt drops, cucumber, and crackers. He likes all of these things and will be quite while busy with them but they are not healthy enough to be giving him exclusively and I don't know what other foods would be safe for him to self-feed. Also he has an allergy to oats (oatmeal, oat flour etc.) and is very sensitive to chemicals we found out (after his face got stop-sign red when we gave him a couple licks of *****'s soft serve icecream and broke out in an all-over rash from the cheese in cheese on wheat crackers) which limits what foods we can give him. Any suggestions would be great! Also i've noticed that very few foods are made in the stage 3 consistency and he goes through it like applesauce (absolutely no effort needed to eat it), so the shoveling continues and now the obnoxious squawking too. So I am wondering if he can eat what the rest of us eat? So far I have fed him yogurt, cottage cheese, and mashed potatoes. We've tried finely chopped raw carrot but he chokes on it.
You can give him cooked vegetables. Cook a sweet potato and cut it up into small cubes. Cut up an avocado into small pieces. Mashed potatoes. Cut up meats into small pieces.
Remember the faster you shovel the more you reinforce the
sqwaking. Our tendency is to speed up and try to quickly provide what our child is asking for. This gives them the message that when they make a loud and aweful sound they get what they want quickly. The more effective approach is to slow down. Tell him that you hear him and he will get the food he needs.
Try some filling foods like avocado, cooked carrots, cooked apple, cooked pear, scrambled eggs, tofu,
etc. Cut up pieces of any fruit or vegetable and steam them or par boil. Have these on the tray available as finger food while you are feeding him.
Best!
E.
Just a quick one. My little girl loved eating scrambled eggs with very small pieces of ham mixed in it. Just use only the yolk till he's a little older. Its a great food for protein, etc.
Yes, absolutely give him what you're eating! Just watch out for his sensitivities, and no egg white or peanut butter yet. But other than that, just cut up what the rest of the family is eating and let him feed himself. Have fun! (especially with clean up...lol)
by 10 months you should be able to generally feed him what you eat, chopped really small, provided that they are not too hard (like raw carrot). When my daughter was 10 months we were giving her whole canned beans (you can also cook dried if you're worried about ingredients), small chunks of apple, plum, bell pepper, cooked carrots, cucumber, tomato, avacado, peach, pear, strawberry, grapes (cut in half usually) blueberries (one of her favorites!), peas (warmed forzen peas), cheese, small dices of chicken or other meats, cheerios or those baby finged foor fruit puffs, toast, rice, eggs (no need to serve only the yolks), pasta (she liked, and still likes tortellini in addition to plain pastas)... she basically ate what we were eating. At this age she also started finger feeding herself breakfast cereals (she loved the sweeted puffed wheat). You can either chop small before eating, or invest in a little hand baby food mill that would grind things up to a good size for him.
Be wary of peels when giving chunks of fruit... little teeth with no molars can't grind them well. =) Good luck. Food is an adventure at this age.
If you cook the carrots and they will be soft enough for him with out choking. You could do some on the stove top, or in the microwave with some water.
Same with sweet potatoes from the produce section.
We used a magic bullet to blend up the foods at the beginning and just slowly changed from smooth to bigger pieces.
My son loved string cheese cut up, and my nephew loves the little veina sausages cut up.
If he eats some by him self maybe he will not seem as impatient when you feed him. Or give him snacks a little earlier than he has been eating so his stomach will not be as empty?
It sounds like you are doing your best, just keep it up and enjoy the time you have with him as they grow so fast.
S.
mother to Kai
www.HomeWithKai.com
I don't really care for the commercially prepared stage 3 foods because they start adding all kinds of processed sugars and preservatives. Keep experimenting with finger foods (green beans, peas, cut grapes, pears, cheerios, avocado), but you may need to keep spoon-feeding him other stuff to get enough of the right kinds of food in him. I still use the stage 2 fruits and veggies with my 13-month old, because they have nothing added and the kiddo will eat them. It's getting harder now because he wants to feed himself with the spoon!
Squawking is a talking thing. Instead of rewarding him with faster food, stop feeding him and squawk back. Copy him. Then, after a few minutes of that say, "can you say more? Mmmmmmmmmo, mmmmmmmmmo, mmmmmmmo"
Then say more or mmmmmmmmmo or whatever he says that's closest to more BEFORE you give him each bite of food. He'll learn to communicate in a more pleasing manner.
Everyone worries about their boys not talking soon enough. This squawking he does when he wants food is a huge first step. You should be really pleased :)
Check out the consistancy of the Stage 3 foods, serve him table foods & grind his up for a few seconds in the blender to get that same consistancy. Plus, you control his nutrition that way-no preservatives in what Mom makes. While you're feeding him the spooned foods, give him a cracker or something he can self-feed while you're "reloading" if he doesn't want to wait that long.
You might try pasta with a little tomato sauce, avocado and banana diced up, cooked diced carrots, gently cooked veggies of any kind--green beans and zucchini were favorites of my little one. Also, you should be able to do beans--black beans, kidney beans, etc... and rice. You can do all sorts of things that have that softish consistency. Those were the ones that came to mind right away--and there are a ton of great fruits right now that are in season. My daughter liked melon at that age. Good luck! Oh--you can cube baked sweet potatoes as well, and those are great--or mash them.
Here is an idea, I did it with my older two and plan on doing it with my third when he is old enough. I remember going through the same problem with my older two. So I went to the store bought a blender or food proceser if you would perfer. But what I cooked for lunch or dinner they also got. Just chop it up, to the point he cant choke on it, its not any different then #3 foods. My kids loved it alot better then jared food and it safes you alot of money in the long wrong. And you can find out what your son does and doesn't like. I would put thier food in a bowl, I gave them more then they would normaly eat, and let them hand feed themselves. It was a big mess, but it helped them learn to feed themselves and such. Sorry about all the spelling, I very much suck at spelling. I wish you luck on finding something that works for you, and your child.
A couple thoughts come to mind. If he is wanting to eat faster, perhaps he needs to eat more often. Baby bellies are smaller than adult bellies, and a small "meal" every couple hours or so may allow him to eat without the starving factor, hence less squawking.
As far as finger food, I have always fed my older babies pieces of whatever we were eating. For example, if you make stew or soup, pull out some soft veggies for him to nibble on. This helped eliminate buying a separate line of food for the baby, and helped the baby learn to enjoy what he was smelling cooking. GOod luck!
My son LOVED avocado at that age - really good for them and super easy for them to eat.
S.,
At 10 months my daughter was eating any cooked veggies, such as carrots, broccoli, peas, squash, green beans, etc. I would just cook them a little softer than usual. She also ate a lot of watermelon, peaches, nectarines, any softer fruit. Small pieces of whole grain breads and pasta. Even soft shreds of chicken or other meats that will cook soft such as pot roast. My pediatrician recommended no dairy until well after her first birthday so I would stay away from cheeses, ice creams, anad yogurt. Especially since you have noticed reactions. Other than that, most things you eat, a child that age can have too as long as it is smaller and softer. It takes a while for them to get used to all of the new textures. So just keep introducing new things. Even if he gags once on something, try it again in a few weeks. They change so fast at that age. They say it takes at least 10-20 exposures for a child to like a new food or texture.
Take care,
B.
