Weaning - snacks at 12 months

[JulietRom]

Hi,
Would really appreciate some help on weaning!

I also expected before we started to wean to take the baby lead weaning approach, however my son had other ideas and hated touching food so I just spoon fed him. He is now 11.5 months and I’m trying to introduce some snacks and less milk (he currently has 3 x 210ml a day) as he is getting hungry.

I’ve managed to get him to eat couscous and the ellas kitchens melty sticks by himself but he just plays around with his meals! He puts everything in his mouth apart from food 😂 even with encouragement and me showing him what to do etc.

I cook all his food from scratch and most is still whizzed / mashed and all fruit steamed he hasn’t tried toast /bread or pasta yet - I’m probably being overly cautious but I’m terrified of him choking (I’m a children’s nurse so a first aid trained). I’m planning on introducing these foods after he turns one.

So is anyone else in a similar situation or have experience in suitable softer snacks that I can feed him? I’m worried he might not be getting enough calories.

Many thanks 😀

[MangoM]

Perhaps you could try giving him small bitesized pieces of toast?

My little boy is 12 months old, and I was and still am terrified of him choking too. I've never given him the toast soldiers or carrot sticks, etc that they suggest for baby wed weaning, but the small pieces work really well. Even if your son doesn't yet know how to chew, the toast will go soggy in his mouth so it doesn't matter so much.

I've also found ripe kiwi fruit, ripe pear, banana, raspberries also are good for introducing lumps until he's got the hang of chewing properly.

Cheesy mash is also good.

[Ricekrispie22]

Matchsticks of cheese or grated cheese
Butter beans
Avocado
Petit filous
Scrambled/boiled egg or strips of omelette
Well-cooked new potatoes or potato wedges
Crab sticks
Tuna

When I first gave Dc snacks like oat cakes and rice cakes, I spread them with houmous or cream cheese to make them less dry and therefore easier to swallow.

[crazychemist]

How do you feel about shop-bought snacks? There are lots of different types of easy, dry finger food (my DD hated, and still does, getting food on her hands)

[Kitkat05]

@MangoM I was worried about carrot sticks and toast too but my 6 month old actually did quiet well. I was soo scared , only gave her the carrot when husband was around and I was suprised.

[Kitkat05]

As pp said toast actually just melts in the mouth, becomes soggy.

[Sayitagainwhydontyou]

DD has eaten toast, bread and pasta since 6 months. It's perfectly safe, and is in fact recommended as part of BLW. Puree just into going to be enough to fill and satisfy an active one year old.

[PrayingandHoping]

Finger sized pieces are a lot safer than bite sized..... until he is experienced at it I wouldn't give him anything smaller

Bread items were the first thing here that worked after the melty puffs. They just turn to mush

She much preferred garlic bread slices though to toast lol

[PrayingandHoping]

How's he doing with lumpy food? By 10 months you should be able to move on from
Puréed

[AncientRainbowABC]

I was similar to you, OP. My DD has a highly arched palate, so before she knew how to chew, she would just amass stuff in the roof of her mouth. I would sometimes take out grape-sized clumps out of her mouth that she’d created by ingesting lots of tiny pieces of stuff, one by one, and not swallowing them. It often looked like a papier-mâché creation. 😬

Various “melty” snacks by Ella really helped DD work out that you’re not meant to gather food up like a hamster. Then we moved on to toast soldiers. I was also very worried about choking but, as others have said, they went soggy pretty quickly and we never had any problems with them. Other early successes were cucumber sticks and very large pieces of boiled chicken breast. Both were popular to nibble on because they helped her teething gums and weren’t too messy to eat.

DD is now 14m and mostly snacks on cut up berries, baby rice cakes (can’t remember the brand but they’re just rice cakes really) and chopped up bananas. Sometimes toast or scrambled egg in big chunks, so she can pick them up.

Personally I found that her mouth control and chewing got a lot better when we introduced the 360 cup. Might have been a coincidence but no harm in trying.

[ScarMatty]

Scrambled eggs
Mashed avocado
Soft cheese
Homous and pitta
Soft mango and berries


Although in all honestly, DS didn't really properly enjoy food until 18 months or so. It really was hit and miss before then

[ScarMatty]

And please try not to worry.

There is a reason there is the saying "food before 1 is fun" and that's because some children just have no interest until they are a little bit older

[AncientRainbowABC]

I was also going to add don’t worry, and ignore all the “should be eating X by Y age”. I tied myself up in knots about texture and our slightly texture-sensitive DD not eating enough of the “right” sort of thing at 10, 11, 12 months. I honestly wish I hadn’t. She’s a good weight and is progressing at her own pace. They all do. Some days DD will eat pasta shells with mince and tomato sauce, other days she will struggle and hardly tolerate anything chopped into her yoghurt like a bit of banana. It sometimes just depends and I wouldn’t worry. I often think back on being pregnant and how hard it was to eat anything some days, and I wonder whether being a super-fast growing little one is a bit similar.

[katmarie]

You say he just plays around with his food, that's fine, let him play, he will get it into his mouth eventually, playing around with it is how they learn. DD is near enough 10 months and today she has had croissant and pieces of orange for breakfast, some bits of home made sausage her dad has been making, a lunch of ham, cucumber, tomato, babybel cheese, breadsticks, celery, and apple. There was a mid afternoon snack, can't remember what but it's usually fruit of some kind, or she likes the Ella's kitchen melty sticks. And then dinner was beans on toast with some veggies mixed in. She's also had three or four feeds (bf). She ate a good amount but plenty ended up on the floor/in the dog/on me. I try to give her different textures and colours, and a mix of flavours, as much to entertain her as to let her explore food. Anything like grapes that she could choke on gets chopped up, but other than that I make her food into chunks that she can grab with one hand. I did this with DS and so far neither of them have choked yet.

[JulietRom]

That's great everyone thank you. He does eat lumpy food but these meals are for lunch and dinner. It was the snacks i was struggling with, but lots of good ideas here for me to try. I bought some baby pasta so going to take the plunge and try him out! I never anticipated how stressful I would find weaning! 😂

[Waffle12]

I was going to.suggest the baby pasta OP. If you cook it till really soft then it's more like lumpy food anyway as it's so small.

Another idea that we have been using a lot this time round is banana pancakes. Basically egg whisked up with some mashed banana (or even chopped if the banana is really soft) and a pinch of nutmeg. Then fry little patties of it, and they are like thick, soft pancakes that break up in their mouths really easily. Versatile too as you can give baby bits of it to try and eat themself or break bits off to spoon feed so best of both worlds.