XP: Finger foods and sippy cup questions

Cajun_gal

When did you start offering finger foods?  We give D purees (stage 2) and mum mums now.  What did you offer first?  I'm so nervous to have his choke on something, but I know we have to start at some point.  I'm just not sure when.

What about a sippy cup?  When did you really start offering it consistently and when did your baby understand it?  D basically chews on sippy cups now and if liquid comes out, he generally spits it out.  He seems to do better drinking from my water bottle of if I give him some water with a straw.  Do I just need to remove the valves from the sippy cups?  Am I worried about this too soon?

Thanks!

april16

We started offering finger foods at around 8 months. We started with puffs and yogurt melts and then recently offered biter biscuits and cheerios.

 

LisaK2b

For DD1, I gave like a few grains of rice and very small piece of chicken at 7 months (I put it in her mouth versus her feeding herself).  Around 7.5 months, I gave her cheerios and she put them in her mouth herself.  Around 8 months, I started giving her a bunch of table food (veggies, chicken, rice, cheese, etc..) Everything was pea size or smaller. 

For sippy cups, we started at 4 months and she made a big mess, but kept with it.  She eventually got the hang of it around 7 months or so.  I remember by 9 months, she was a pro and even drank from a straw. 

All kids are different, because Ally is no where close to doing this right now at 6 months. 

Karey08

I think I started Aidan way early compared to most - I bought the puffs that mush to nothing and would put those on his tray around 6 months old and let him start trying to grab them.  He did not have the fine motor skills yet for pinching that is the clue to start finger foods, but he could grab them in his fist and work them into his mouth very quickly after we started offering them. 

Karey08

Forgot the sippie cup part!  Aidan was also drinking from one at 6 months but he was doing a lot of chewing on the straw and handles too.  If you don't have these, I would highly recommend them:

It was after a year old that I started buying the cups that he needed to tilt up to drink, by that time we were starting to have him drink from a regular cup anyway.

kat.in.the.hat

some babies get straws better than sippies, but I don't think we started really transitioning her until closer to 11 months when she was on milk full time.

Finger foods, we started very early compared to most.  We always offered the real food in addition to our own baby food starting at six months.  Banana and avocado are always good choices.

mom2ll

Finger foods and sippy cups at 6 months....  We took the bottle away completely from Luca at 11 months and Lila at 10...  Lila took to the finger foods more quickly.  She's been on 100% table food since 8 months..  Luca was more like 10-11....  I didn't mess with a ton of kid foods (puffs, gerber things, etc).  I went for dry cereal and things in our fridge...  I found the specialty toddler foods really expensive and full of sugar.

RaeAnt

We haven't started the sippy cup yet but plan to in the next couple of weeks. So far the only "finger food" we given has been cooked swwet potato that Dh cut into small pc for DS. They were really soft and mushy so if he got one in his mouth he could kinda mash it around and swallow it. it became about the same consistency as his puree of the same thing. YOu could do that with banana and cooked apples as well.