MASHED FOOD

[MUSA]

My son is 10 months old now, and i still prefer to mash all his dinners, on the other hand my nosey sister-in-law come round the other day and said your not ment to mash his food up now. my son will eat rich tea biscuits, eat bananas which are not mash i still make sure that he is using his month musles. it is a big issue am i bad?.

Hi MUSA, sounds like you're doing just fine to me. My ds (15 months) has only just started eating chopped up instead of mashed stuff. I found it followed his tooth development so when he just had the front ones he would eat toast, bananas, bread sticks etc., but main dinners still needed to be mashed. Once some molars came in he could chew a lot better and we've now stopped mashing and just chop fine. I kept trying chopped / minced stuff every so often but without molars he would just spit it out. We went from smooth to lumpy mash to chopped so maybe you could just try a very gradual progression and see what he'll take and what he won't. HTH

I think despite the age recommendations it can be personal to each child. My Ds who admittedly is a fussy little chap was well over 1 before he would eat chopped food for dinner. My DD on the other hand is 8 months old and doesn't want purees etc but will happily eat roast chicken and potatoes etc, she is just better at chewing than he was. Just be guided by your son, he's still very young. My HV used to tell me that his lack of chewing would affect his speech development, he could just about talk in sentences by 19 months1