When to start 'finger food'?

[Nicshev]

Hi..

My girl is 7 months old and is now happily enjoying 3 meals a day! I have never had any problems with her eating or trying new things :) she loves her food!!

I was just looking for some advice on introducing finger foods into her diet...when to start and what to give her?? She has no teeth yet so not sure how well she would do with chewing.

Thank you x

just let her pick something up and ram it in

Give her a banana!

You could try:
sticks of cucumber with skin cut off
lightly boiled zuccini cut into sticks
raisins
cubes of cheese
cherrry tomatoes cut in half (my DD sucks out the middle and spits out the skin)
toast with butter or marmite or smooth peanut butter or cream cheese
cheerios
mandarin pieces
kiwifruit cut into cubes
cooked pumpkin or kumara cut into cubes
boiled carrots, cut into sticks

I just put a few things on her highchair tray and she goes for it. She LOVES picking stuff up with her fingers and eating it - it gives her a sense of control I think. Don't worry about no teeth - they can cope with quite a lot, actually. You might have to demonstrate "chewing" to her if she's used to mushy foods.

I'm pretty strict with DD and I think it has really paid off (touch wood). If she doesn't like what I put out, I don't put anything else out. She usually figures out that if she wants to eat, she has to eat what's in front of her. It took her a while to eat zucchini, for example, but now she loves it.

I started around 7 months with my son.

Soft fruit like mango is good.

Also bread. And omelettes.

oh yeah slices of banana are her absolute favourite

Thanks for your responses :-) I think I just feel a bit panicky about her choking but don't want to leave it to late!! x

Don't worry - remember there's a difference between gagging and choking. Gagging = a perfectly normal (indeed necessary) reaction that helps with strengthening all the muscles in the mouth to manipulate food better. It's noisy and coughy and a bit to watch, but it's FINE.
Choking = silent, desperate, hands at throat or stretched straight out. Well worth familiarising yourself with what to do with a choke. DD had a couple of incidents with apple (they're actually better off with a mostly-eaten core than they are with pieces, as they can scrape small pieces off rather than accidentally ending up with big chunks).

But you do want to introduce this sort of thing soon - you don't want to risk her refusing to eat anything other than puree. Remember that although they have no teeth their gums are FULL of teeth and very hard!

Depends on how well your LO takes to food in my experience. My DS flew through the weaning process and was on 3 very varied meals a day from within a few weeks. I just moved onto the next stage as soon as he showed me he had adapted and could chew well. We probably moved onto little lumps of finger foods from about 7.5 months i think. Just cut up everything quite small and gradually gave him bigger and bigger pieces, no problem. He's gagged a couple of times, but usually wolfs it down no problem.