9 month old - not interested in finger foods

[Anonymous]

DD is not interested in touching or eating finger foods (I've tried puffs, teethers, and very small pieces of watermelon). She's eating pureed food that has a little bit of texture. Should I keep offering finger foods until she's interested or just work on progressively change the texture of her food? For those of you whose babies were "late" in wanting finger foods, how long did you have to wait? Thank you.

[Anonymous]

I would keep offering but not worry about it. I had one who would only feed himself finger foods and rejected purées, one who would only eat purées, and one in between. They are all fine now. My one that wouldn’t try finger foods is a perfectionist and doesn’t like to do things until he is sure to be good at them. Just a personality trait.

[Anonymous]

Just keep offering. The pincer grasp developing.

Let your kid also play with a spoon.

[Anonymous]

Keep offering. And spoon feeding us so much cleaner. My oldest never really liked finger foods so we only did dry things for that like bread and puffs and she had no pincer grip issues. She loved being spoon fed and transitioned from that to using a spoon. And had no issues. Ate a wide variety. Still doesn't like to ge their hands messy and likes spoons and forks at 5 . It was a nice clean mealtime most of the time.
I have a 11 month old now who just decided she hates spoons and will only do finger foods. So much harder to feed her, messier and takes longer. But she wants that independence.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, DS wasn’t either at that age and a bit later. He’d actually tap my hand to pick something up off his tray and feed him. One day I left a rice cracker on his tray and went to get the rest of his lunch and he, I guess, decided he didn’t want to wait for me and finally picked it up and fed himself.

By about 14 months he was completely self feeding with forks and spoons.

[Anonymous]

Keep on trying different finger foods.

My 11 month old DD never liked puffs or cheerios, but loves bits of smoked salmon and baked fresh salmon (flakey chunks come right off).
She also loves cut up pieces of strawberry and cherry, blueberries that I smush between my fingers.
Shaved corn off the cob

She doesn’t use the pincer, but grabs as much as she can with her whole palm and “tries” to get it in her mouth. 80% accuracy. lol.

It’s time consuming to cut or rip up bits of food to small bits, but I love seeing her enjoyment while self feeding

[Anonymous]

Keep offering. My son wouldn't feed himself until we tried yogurt melts and Bamba. I cannsee why he didn't like puffs, they're super dry.

[Anonymous]

Give it time . 9m is on the early side of normal.