How Do You Feed Your Baby Table Food?

cut it into small pieces and put it on their trays for them to put it in their mouths and eat it. I never mashed or blended or chew it for them.
Babies can chew up things with out teeth.

We started my 10 month old on solids when he was 6 months. He just got teeth this past month, so he was toothless, and not very interested in food. He REALLY did not like to eat pureed food, so we just started cutting things up really small. Once he was able to, he loved picking them up and feeding himself. To this day, he does not take food from a spoon well, but LOVES to feed himself. If the pieces are tiny, and they can pick them up, they can eat them.
On a side note, I do not recommend chewing food for your baby! It's gross, and you will be sharing the germs in your mouth with your baby. When you kiss your baby's mouth, or "clean" their paci in your mouth, or share food with them, you are populating your germs in their mouth, which means you may be giving them the bacteria that cause cavities directly from your mouth. My sister is a dentist and shared that info with me.

T.
Barefoot Books Ambassador
www.ReadandGrow.com

Once we were past purees I just cut stuff up really small and they fed themselves. My kids weren't really into me feeding them, so I just made it work. My son is still getting a ton of teeth at 18 months and has been solely on table food since 10 months, so teeth are certainly not a requirement. Their jaws are really strong, it's amazing the things they can mash up on their own!

I smushed up whatever was on my plate with my fork (and/or cut it into teeny-tiny pieces). I just didn't have the patience to clean all the little parts of the baby food mill every meal...

I made baby food in batches. Large batches in the blender or the Magic Bullet blender for smaller batches. Freeze in ice cube trays overnight and transfer to freezer zippy bags for storage up to a few months. Then I can take out one or a few cubes at a time and it will defrost w/in a day in a bowl in the fridge. I used the take 'n toss bowls with lids (reuse them, don't toss!) so it was sooooo easy! As baby got older, I just pureed whatever adult table foods we had in the small cup for Magic Bullet and served immediately (I even did hamburger).

I did mash banana by hand once but it was tiring and I couldn't get it smooth enough for a 5 month old.

I used homemade at home and jar food when going out just to keep things simple.

I always prepped the food in a way that he could eat it properly, I never put food in front of him that is not ready for him to eat. If I need to cut it up for him (4) or need it to cool before he eats it etc, if it is not ready to put into his mouth then it does not go in front of him.

i feed my DD all the ways you've mentioned. she is 6 months and 2 weeks she eats everything except pork, beef, sea foods... i bought her a mashing plate...

My DD only has 4 teeth, and she gets whole chunks of table foods. She can chew (Gum?) through pretty much anything!!! I just cut it into appropriate sized chunks (about the size of the first knuckle on my thumb is what she can handle.) I just supervise her closely so she doesn't choke.

I didn't really have this problem, since my son had 6 teeth by 6 months. We always gave my son food we were eating cut up very small. We never did baby food, cereal, or purees.

My kids ate homemade baby food from the start (at 6mos) and I always used a food processor to blend the foods. By 9mos I was chopping the food into little bits with a fork or knife and letting baby feed himself. I always put their food on a plate and gave them a toddler fork and spoon as well.

Cut it in small pieces and put in on their high chair tray or table. If they needed help, I would pick it up with my fingers and feed it to them. If it's something like applesauce, I would use a spoon to feed them.

I have a cousin that did the chew it before giving it to them thing. It's kind of gross. But, I do bite grapes in half and give my daughter the half that wasn't in my mouth. I guess that's kind of gross too :)

Hi D.,
For me, it was different for each child. My first son was eating mashed banana at only 8 weeks old. He was HUGE (and is now 6'2" tall at 17 years old) and was always eating. After the mashed bananas, he went into rice cereal. By the age of 4 months old, he was gnawing on cheerios until they disintegrated in his mouth. At a year old, he was eating everything...even the things we didn't want him to eat! The next child was eating salads (he adored anything green...and still does) by the age of 9 months old; that one just amazed me! From there, we had a child who loved his food blended. By the time I got to the 8th child, the other kids were feeding her their leftovers and she loved it! With all their separate likes and dislikes, they're all healthy and rarely getting sick...so I feel as though I did what came naturally for each child. I hope this helps! Good luck!
D.