what finger food is your 10-12 month old eating?

[Anonymous]

My 10 month old has had a major surge in his ability to self-feed in the last week. I need ideas for what to give him! And please don't say - whatever you are eating. I need actual ideas!

[Anonymous]

Mine too! It happened all of a sudden. I am much better about giving this one finger food than my older child, I guess because I am so busy and it's easier to plop something down. For breakfast, instead of mashing a banana into soup, I fork mash until it is flat, then sort of cut that pancake into bites that he can pick up. Scrambled egg yolk with cheese. A half of a almond butter sandwich (with a little apple sauce to thin it out on whole grain bread. I make that in the morning and keep it in the fridge until lunch time and it gets a little mushie. I have torn it into bits or given him a quarter at a time to pick up himself. Puff and Num Nums of course. Little bits of chicken nuggets and fish sticks. Little bits of soft cooked carrot. Dr. Praeger's (sp?) broccoli things...they are broccoli and potato "nuggets," cut up. Little pieces of sweet potato french fries. Blueberries, quartered. Grapes, quartered. Sometimes if he is starving and I'm trying to prepare something, I'll pinch off little bits of the inside of a piece of whole grain bread and that makes him pretty happy.

[Anonymous]

Usually DD starts with some combo of the following to keep her busy while I prepare the rest of her meal: cheerios, halved blueberries, quartered grapes, banana, melon, peaches, bits of cheese (mozz or cheddar), navy beans, avocado.

That is followed by her "real meal", which usually includes a couple of the following: mac & cheese (I use ditalini pasta for her), cut up pieces of roast turkey, chicken, pork tenderloin, steamed veggies (zuchini, carrots, peas, sweet potato, squash), little clumps of pulled pork, pieces of meatball

She also gets to try whatever we eat

[Anonymous]

Whatever we're eating - she gets mad if she sees something on my plate that's not on hers

[Anonymous]

Similar to the above. I've found that my 11 month old really has no desire to eat baby food any longer. She eats what we eat, with some cheerios, crackers, fruit (cut up like the above posters), etc.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like 13:29 and I have the same child! The Dr. Preager's things are great. We found them at Whole Foods and she really likes both the broccoli and spinach ones. I also give her the Ditalini (sp?) pasta from Barilla. I put butter and parm cheese on it and she loves it. Lots of fruit cut up in small pieces. Cheese sticks cut up. Recently we just started the graham cracker goldfish and they are a hit. The cheddar ones were not! (she is 12 months). The potato pancakes from Trader Joe's are also really good.

[Anonymous]

She likes all kinds of dips-- pieces of bread with hummus, guacamole, nut butters are all favorites. She also loves mac and cheese, or curly pasta like rotini. She has been starting to get into veggies like butternut squash cubes and green beans. Cut up bananas, crackers, and cheerios are staples.

[Anonymous]

banana
peaches
apple
cheese
blueberries
ground turkey
chicken
hummus
puffs
bread
chickpeas
peas
green beans
cottage cheese

[Anonymous]

Beans of any kind....mine especially loves chick peas. Also, depends on how many teeth your lil one has as well. Ours had all 4 molars by her 11th month with all other teeth. She loved ground meats (lamb, turkey, beef) meatballs.

[Anonymous]

The Dr. Praeger's california burgers are great and my almost-11-month old loves them. I cut them into small pieces for her. We also give her cut up and peeled fruits (banana, grapes, melon, cooked apple, cooked peaches).

We also buy frozen veggies, steam, cut up and let her feed herself. Ones that work well (butternut squash, sweet potato, veggie medley that has carrots, green beans & corn, peas are a huge hit, cut up broccoli, summer squash). And steamed fresh spinach is also a fave.

Cous cous, rice, and lentil dishes are also easy for her to feed herself.

[Anonymous]

I have a toothless nearly 10 month old. No idea what she really can/should be eating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a toothless nearly 10 month old. No idea what she really can/should be eating.

early finger foods shouldn't require teeth; they should be soft enough that they can just gum them.

my 11 month old loves: pieces of banana, cherrios, pieces of strawberry (fresh & freeze-dried), chicken/other meat, partially mashed beans, chunks of very soft cooked veg (carrots, potato, sweet potato, etc), overcooked pasta, pieces of tomato, scrambled eggs...

basically just modifications (over cooking or cutting into smaller pieces) of what we're eating.

[Anonymous]

OP here, I love these suggestions. Keep them coming.

When did folks introduce whole eggs? Did you do just egg yolks until a year?

Curious also about couscous and lentils as finger food? How is there anything they can grab?

[Anonymous]

The same thing happened when DS was about 10 months. It was so much fun. I started looking at food differently - I felt challenged to find good food that he could eat on his own. Here are some of our favorites.

Any fruit. Blueberries are bananas are easiest right now. DS loves red grapes. I used to peel the skin, but probably didn't need to. I just cut them in half now.
shelled edemame.
Gnochi from Whole Foods (spinach gnochi and sweet potato gnochi were by DS's fave)
Steamed or boiled carrots broken into pieces.
Peas
Beans, but especially garbanzo beans.
Shredded chicken (I bought rotisserie chicken from the grocery stores - huge hit)
Falafel
Tofu (we don't eat tofu, but DS loves it)
Salmon (breaks apart perfectly for baby)
homemade mac-n-cheese
diced meat lasagna (super messy, but also entertaining)
scrambled eggs. I cook them real slow so that you get one big egg patty thing. Then you can cut it into the right size pieces.

I did lentils with other foods, like lentils with little pasta noodles, garbanzo beans and a little tom sauce. It really only worked well if DS would eat from a spoon. He doesn't always like using a spoon though.

[Anonymous]

I'm guilty of thinking of DS (a poor second child ) as "the baby" and so am very behind in getting him started on finger foods. he's 10m and has 2 teeth. When i read all these suggestions I worry about him choking, i can't imagine giving him blueberries, even cut up, and having him mush them in his mouth enough to swallow.

did you guys work from smooth baby food (we do homemade, but pureed really fine) to chunky to baby food, or did your little ones just figure it out? I'm scared that there's really only one way to know if he's ready - and it involves giving it to him & seeing if he chokes!!!

I have given him whole peices of soft fruit (mango, pear, banana) and peices of bread, and he did ok - but i suspect that's mainly because he gummed it so much before getting peices off that it was a non issue......but as i said, he's a 2nd, so i didnt sit and watch/document it.....