When can they start eating ALL normal adult meals like salads?

[Kelvinator]

We eat kid friendly food every second day (alternating with the preferred salad on the others days, which is when DS15 months eats the previous nights leftovers). But I want to know when they start to eat salad? He has no idea at the moment what to do with it and just plays with it.

I work in a nursery and we give the babies strips of pepper, carrot sticks, slivers of tomato and cucumber sticks with either some pieces of ham or pasta which they are all fine with.

Perhaps just cut it differently for you're DS so he can pick it up from the table or tray.

Thanks! I guess what I'm trying to ask is when do they just eat all foods normally without any special preparation?

I want to be able to go back to eating what we used to eat pre DS and am wondering what was the average age your children were when this happened?

Sorry to upset you OP, but ddtwins didn't eat a meal, plated as an adult would have, with things that needed cutting and forking into mouth, until age 3.

On the other hand they could manage large amounts of eating without much input from me from about 18 months, so long as it was finger food or spoon food.

I have a photograph of when my mother gave them profiteroles to show to their first boyfriends.

Thanks for your help, i guess my expectations are not right.... But when the advise you get is that they be eating normal meals, I took that to mean normal meals.

Not very helpful when you are wanting to start shifting the last few pounds of baby weight, I guess I will have to just eat more of those steamed veggies.

My 18 mth old eats a "normal" adult meal just cut small which she then forks messily into her mouth. She's definitely not a fan of lettuce though!

I think I was high school age before I got enthused by the sight of a salad

Mine have eaten the same as us right from the start. Although they eat a lot more salad than I do. I don't really like salad but my dds love it so they often have salad when dh and I have cooked veg. Dds are 3.9 and 2.4.

Our DD eats salad cut as we eat it - she doesn't eat a huge amount of salad and we give her something else with it, but then it's not a good really for a young baby - the calorie density is too low really. Tomatoes cut as strips or halved baby tomatoes, peppers cut as strips, cucumber as rounds, quarters or strips, salad leaves. All of which are just how prepare them and she handles them fine - has done since she was young (~7mo). At nearly 16mo she still uses her hands not a fork, but otherwise she just has it out of the salad bowl like us no special prep - same with the meat we're having with it just being the same as us.

Microwave a "baked" potato and serve it with cheese and/or sour cream, very quick to prepare and a good way to increase the calorie density for baby.

Mine is 2.11 and doesn't do lettuce at all. Re salad, he has pepper, cucumber, sweetcorn, spring onion but doesn't like anything else. I get bags of frozen green beans or mixed veg. If we are have salad, he will have a handful of that as well. Only takes a couple of mins in microwave so is really handy.

Sorry to be a bearer of bad news - but at 5, my DD, who will literally eat everything else, has absolutely no interest in salad.

She'll munch food that other kids turn their nose up at (Brussels sprouts are a particular favourite) but has no interest in lettuce etc.

When we fancy salad I just make a few potatoes for her & she has the rest of the ingredients.

(Don't know how managed to get such a good eater, pure fluke I think )

My two love salad stuff like cucumber and tomatoes and have done since they were tiny but absolutely only iceberg lettuce. Any other type of lettuce still gets described as 'leaves' and they are 2 and 6!

Bizzarely they both love celery and as there is about 1 calorie in a stick of celery I find it useful as a snack when they get hungry as I'm preparing dinner.

Bit stringy for a young baby though!

My 6month old dd has what we have and was happily munching on some salad the other day, infact cucumber was one of her first foods. Like others have said I wouldn't give it for every meal and we always have some higher calorie stuff with it anyway but I don't think there is any reason why your ds can't eat it other then maybe he just isn't that into salad...

If you ask my dd what she wants for lunch its always salad! When I say this she means, beetroot, cucumber, tomatoes, pickles, cheese, ham, peppers, sweetcorn, boiled egg, breadsticks or bread and butter. I'm sure you could add a few things to your salad to bulk it out for the little one, add some hummus or cream cheese or other proteins and good fats.

I'm still waiting (DD is 5).....

It depends, if your normal meals are shepherds pie and lasagna and other nursery faves then from one probably. Just with less salt. If you eat a lot of rocket salad with chili dressing and toasted walnuts then not so much.

Agree with the others as well, none of my dc go a bundle on leaves. And why should they, they are pretty much nutritionally pointless for a child, especially a young one that needs lots of calories.

My 8mo old eats exactly what we eat, only with extra carbs as we're on a high-fat, low carb diet.

He eats salad, I just add lots of meat strips or egg and cheese and give him some bread and butter as well.

Give him what you have, just remember he probably needs more calories than you at the moment!

Oh, and lots of variety too, obviously.

My 7 year old dd won't eat everything we eat- she won't eat anything with chilli in, and seeing as we like chilli, curry, spicy pasta and marinades she's a bit stuck!

Do your babies under 2 really eat everything you eat without any adaptions at all? I find that quite hard to believe really, unless you have a very simple diet.

Isabelle - I wouldn't say we eat a particularly simple diet but the DCs have always eaten exactly what we do aside from the period of 4-6 weeks when they were being weened on to solids.

Youngest is now 18 mths but in the last few days she has had:

Thai green curry

Chick pea and chorizo stew

Spicy lamb with cous cous (although she had extra raita)

Stilton and crackers

Motabal and bread

Chilli and rice

Crab fried rice

There are one or two things they won't eat: eldest hates cold tomatoes and ham; middle won't touch lentils, youngest is basically a dustbin but if we have something very spicy I cool it diwn with extra yogurt/creme fraiche.

Sometimes I think we got lucky but equally they never had bland purée for any significant period and no jars so have always had strong tastes.

My 8mo old eats everything we eat except honey, salt and whole nuts. Tonight he had a gian chicken curry. He likes omelettes, roast vegetables, steak, burgers, potato wedges, soup, stews and casseroles... Why do you find it so hard to believe?

admittedly he only sucks the steak dry, but he can chew and swallow slow cooked meats now

Goan curry. Stupid autocorrect

I keep portions of casserole frozen for days when DH and I fancy a salad or something very spicy or Indian takeaway so I have something ready prepared for DD.