Sugar or Spice ???

A child who enjoys sweets? Shocking, lol. What are you feeding her that is sweet? The only thing sweet she should be getting is fruit. I can't imagine anything else that a child that young be eating that is sweet. You offer her a balanced diet every meal with a morning and afternoon snack inbetween. If she doesn't eat one meal she waits until the next. She will eat if she's truly hungry. It's not like you're feeding her liver and onions. She's being picky and you're allowing her to be. Take control back and give her only healthy foods. She'll get used to it.

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

Think about the babies in places like India. They are eating spiced curries and all kinds of very tasty foods as soon as they are ready to try solids. Your baby does not need sugar yet and lots of fruits are sweet enough. But try feeding her bits of exactly what you are eating. That is what I did with my daughter and she loved it. I never bought jars of baby food. They taste terrible anyway. As long as it is soft enough and in a small enough pieces she should be fine. Or mash up some of what you are eating. I would simply not offer sweet things for a while.

No honey until after 1! I made all of my own babyfood (not sure if you are making or buying) but i often mixed fruits and veggies and both my kids loved them. Usually sweet potatoes are sweeter and sweet peas as well (ironic that they both have sweet in the name! lol). I also added some spices to my baby's food, but never salt. Most kids shy away from veggies at first too but they say it takes 10 times for them to actually eat something so keep trying! she'll eat eventually and she won't starve if she skips her veggie :)

If she is hungry, she will eat. She will not let herself go hungry for too long. If you keep providing the sweet stuff, then she will know if she does not eat the bland stuff, she will get what she wants.

When I was introducing solids to my daughter, I asked an Indian friend of mine "when do Indians introduce the spices to their children". She said not right away. When they cook, before adding the spices, they remove some of the food for the child. As the children get older, then the spices are introduced slowly.

Once our kids started on solids, we fed them whatever we were eating, just blended up. If my husband and I were having jambalaya, or stir-fry, or spaghetti...so were the kids. At least in small amounts, and then we would augment with veggies/milk/formula. Have you tried mashing up some cooked carrots or sweet potatoes? We tried not to introduce the fruity-type stuff early, because we had heard that once they get a taste for the sugar, it's difficult to get them to try other things.
Sometimes the simplest rule is the best, and in my experience...she will eat when she is hungry.
And Shan is correct, you should avoid giving her honey until she is at least a year old.
Good luck and have fun with your baby!

The only sweetner I would use, would be Stevia. NO WHITE SUGAR! Stevia is natural, and it does not raise the blood sugar. Use only pure Stevia.

Yup, honey is worse than the sugar. And NO, NO, NO to the sugar substitutes, too! Spices, and even a small sprinkle of sugar is okay. But more often than not, you just need to put the food out in front of her several times without the sugar in it and let her NOT get used to the sweet factor.

Honey is not pasteurized So your not supposed to give to infants. Just keep trying the veggies and not as sweet stuff eventually you will find more stuff she likes. For now she doesn't have to have an extreme variety in her diet. Try having someone else feed her the new food. My daughter will eat any veggie for her grand mom, good luck

I haven't heard that you shouldn't season foods. In fact, once a food has been cleared regarding allergies, it's better to use whatever spices or herbs you use for the rest of the family's food.

The one exception is raw honey. It contains a form of botulin toxin (botulism) that can be hard for babies to process, and it can make them very sick. So it's not such a bad thing she wouldn't eat it.

I never did add sweeteners to my kids' foods. There is a natural tendency toward sweeter foods, though. My kids all loved yams, for example. I just roasted them to make soft and they loved 'em.

Fruits and vegetables (like carrots, peas, winter squashes and sweet potatoes) have enough natural sugars in them that you can use them as "sweet" foods to mix with things like cereal or plain yogurt. Added sweeteners should not be something you consider right now (except when giving a bite of a treat - my kids probably tasted "real" desserts like ice cream or pie or a cookie before they were a year old but it was just a little taste). You're not supposed to give honey to babies under a year old.

As for seasoning, my youngest kids started out on mashed up versions of the "real" food I was feeding my family so they tasted things like herbs and spices, pepper, and yes, probably some salt (I cook with it but don't have it on the table) from the beginning. They are my best eaters, way better than the older kids who got processed baby food. So I would definitely season up the food a bit with herbs and spices - cinnamon and nutmeg, garlic, savory herbs like thyme, parsley, paprika, black pepper etc. are all things that I cook with regularly so my kids were eating those from a young age.

Don't give her honey until she turns 1!! It's very dangerous.