Best food for babies/toddlers
 

Ideas please! My son is 8 months and we are doing baby-led weaning, meaning he eats straight off our plates (no jars, nothing pureed, whole foods) and I'm just looking for some ideas.

My favourite so far:
Green mashed potatoes (boiled potato blended with steamed broccoli)
Chicken fingers (chicken breast rolled in panko)

Can you share? He isn't able to use a spoon properly yet but I can pre-load it.

My DD is 8 months and we're doing BLW as well. We do yogurt, guacamole, butternut squash, banana, apple or pear slices, potato, sweet potato, any kind of steamed vegetable really, any kind of meat, etc. Basically we do everything we're having except for grains which is a personal decision because Dh has so many allergies and we're trying to lessen that for DD. We'll be introducing those when she's a year.

What do you mean by "nothing pureed"? For my son, I cooked everything, put it in the food processor and he would eat it. I tried everything I could get my hands on - beets, broccolli, beans, rice, quinoa, barley, mushrooms, spinach, every kind of fruit, every kind of veggie. If I could cook it, mash it and put it on a spoon - he would eat it. I even tried some different herbs/spices - he loved it all.

He just turned two... now he won't eat a darn thing. ~sigh~

Mashed sweet potatoes, boiled carrots, mashed banana. Rice...cooked soft?? Green beans cooked soft. Very ripe fruit.

Great! Mine was born June 8th. Are you making meals or offering it separate?

I just don't puree it before he eats it (ie. I give him slices of apple or the whole piece of broccoli, whole banana, when we go out for dinner, a whole avocado sushi roll or sunomono). Sorry to hear he is picky :( Sounds like a definite 2 year old though!! Beets sounds like a nice one.

Thanks :)

She was born May 19- almost 9 months... It's so hard for me to write that! I seriously can't believe it, Lol. It depends, though, on what I have prepared. Most of the time I will make lunch/ dinner and just give her whatever we're having (minus the grains) but if we're having something like pizza I will just chop up and saute some veggies for her (along with a little bit of cheese or whatever from the pizza). But we don't eat pizza very often though. I guess I'm pretty laid back with it. DD is still nursing a lot and does a lot of tasting and chewing but not a ton is actually being swallowed at this point, although that is increasing every week. The Point is for them to be doing a lot of exploring right now. Have you read the BLW book? It was really helpful to me in figuring out a lot of things, plus helping me not to worry that DD was still more interested in BF at this point.

When my kids were starting solids, we just gave them pretty much whatever we were eating - a big favorite for my DD, who was my only young eater (the boys didn't want food until they were well over a year old) was broccoli florets - either steamed or raw. She also liked avocado, sweet potatoes, beets, pretty much any fruit or veggie or meat we were eating. A lot of it didn't end up going down her throat - but she sure had fun chomping on it.

Banana
soft cooked carrots
Broccoli
green beans
I would let her gnaw on a whole apple - that was her favorite!

I started BLW at 6 months, and she took off great with it. I steamed a lot of vegetables for her. She also loved gumming hard, cold fruit (think the apple or pear) when she was teething. Just be sure you are always nearby, and that he doesn't get big chunks off. We would use a harder apple type (Gala, Pink Lady) as opposed to any of the softer apple varieties.

Papaya
Avocado
Baked apples with little cinnamon
Cold celery (peeled) - great for teething
Mashed chickpeas
Steamed butternut squash
Baked sweet potatoes

Now at 18 months they love very steamed baby carrots as they are soft and sweet. Also, soy beans, chickpeas and many other fruits and veggies.