DS got self-feeding down, so I'd like to start introducing more finger foods. So far we've given him puffs, yogurt melts and pieces of bread.
Any other ideas? Also, when did you introduce eggs? Did you start with just egg yolks, or the whole egg?
TIA!
Re: Recommend good "starter" finger foods.
We did scrambled egg yolks up until after a year old. Otherwise other starter finger foods: overcooked peas, pasta, and carrots. I also cut up pieces of diced canned peaches, bananas, watermelon, edamame, cheese.
ETA: I'd also make some meatballs and break those up into bite size pieces for them.
(*sigh, I look at that list and wish that my boys would eat some of those foods again )
That stage was tough for us. DS didn't like bread if I remember correctly so it was tough to get him to eat stuff spread on it (which is an easy way to get them to eat avocado or cream cheese or something once they are self feeding).
Anyway, we just focused on foods in small pieces. He loved Costco rotisserie chicken in chunks, TJ's frozen mango chunks thawed out a bit but still really cold, and his everlasting love of TJ's party size meatballs started when he was just learning to self feed. Ah, true love! He would also eat a lot of buttered pasta, and slightly thawed peas. He got eggs, scrambled with cheese, around then too and LOVED them for a long time. It was his second favorite food for months and months. TJ's frozen french toast and a few blueberries on the side were also hits back then.
I also used to be able to get him to eat a cheese stick (cut into bite size pieces or else he'd shove the whole thing in). But alas, like E, Ds won't eat many of the things he loved then.
shredded cheese
turkey slices (lunchmeat)
waffle
banana
frozen blueberries
raspberries
Strawberries
DS is a big fan of berries - we do blueberries, raspberries and blackberries and now that he's a year we're going to try strawberries. When we first started I kind of squished the blueberries first because I was worried about him not being able to chew them. Now he eats them whole.
We also did raisins, sliced banana, rice checks, rice cakes, small pieces of cheese, pasta, overcooked veggies, small pieces of chicken.
Now he pretty much feeds himself anything we eat, it's messy but we're ok with that. If we're having stuff that has bigger pieces I just cut it down to bite sizes for him. As for eggs, we were told by our Pedi to wait until he was a year so we still haven't tried them because I haven't gotten around to it yet.
For first finger foods, Ichose stuff that didn't require a lot of chewing at first since she had a tendency to just gum a little and swallow mostly.
diced avocado
steamed and diced carrots or canned green beans
all kinds of diced soft fruits - bananas, berries, melons, mangoes, kiwi, orange slices (with pith and membranes removed), pears
toast - she loved to nom on dry toast that I would cut up in to "sticks"
really soft pasta (wheels and fusilli were the easiest to grab)
I did try giving her just yolks (hardboiled or scrambled) but she always seemed to gag and spit them out so we gave her bites of whatever eggs (eggs and whites) we were eating and she ate those up like nothing - scrambled and frittata were her faves. This was around 10 or 11 months. do so at your own risk of course