8 month food ideas? totally stuck! :-/

[sparker22]

My DD is 8 months old And she's on 2/3 meals a day.

Im trying my best and spend a lot of time racking my braons but I seem to have got stuck in a bit of s rut with food.

Her meals consist of:

• Fruit (at breakfast & lunch either pieces of fruit or puree)
• Dry baby cereal hoops (she didn't seem keen with milk added but will try again soon)
• fromage frais yogurt
• grated cheese
• toast
• eggy bread
• fish fingers
• carrot

I have got the irrational fear messy foods still unfortunately :-(
Only really because when DD has had enough and wants to get out of her highchair, she's wanting to get out there and then and doesn't understand I need to clean her up before putting her on the floor to play.

Are the foods I'm giving her OK? I know I need to give her a wider variety of foods but I'm not sure what to give her. I'm not ready to give her chicken or things like that because she just shoves food in her mouth so she will gag/choke on something that's not 'mushable'.

She loves to self feed, will only tolerate the spoon for fruit puree and yogurt.

Plus we don't really have meat at home as DH is a vegetarian so we only eat quorn (with the occasional bit of already cooked meat for me) and NHS website says babies can't eat quorn till 9 months....

So I suppose what I'm asking is for some advice, different mushy things I can give her, and possibly how can I keep her calm when she's finished but I need to clean her up before she gets out the highchair?

Thanks everyone :-)

oh she loves fruit . think she'd eat it all day if I let her!

My 8 mo loves fish pie, cottage pie, pasta shapes with cheese or veg sauce, bread and butter, dried apricots cold from the fridge, mashed turkey with parsnips, any veg steamed then mashed with milk and or cheese, marmite on toast, apple. Lots of stuff! He's my third so I don't care about mess anymore! Do you have a baby cook book? I love the Annabel karmel ones.

Ds2 aged9 months had omelette with cheese, courgette and onion for lunch. Thats not messy, quite mushy and quick to make with whatever you have in th fridge.

He's also a shoveller and manages ok with well cooked chicken, btw.

I give him my keys to chew on while I clean him up, keeps him quiet (ish). He hates being wiped up but I take the view that it's tough shit and he will just have to cope with it. Only takes a minute and I'm firm and ignore the wails.

do you have to cook courgette? or is OK just grated up raw? thanks everyone

I grate or thinly slice it and fry gently for a couple of minutes first.

Courgette fine raw. Ds likes to chew sticks of it. I also make a risotto with red pepper and courgette using milk instead of stock.

I do have some turkey dinosaurs in the freezer, I was going to give her one of those mushed up a bit (minus breadcrumbs) with possibly either her usual mushed up carrots or try her with some chopped tomatoes for dinner tonight...

Try roasting the carrots instead. They go very soft inside with a dry outer which is easily grippable. Offer her a baton to hold in her fist and let her eat it like that.

Mashed sweet potato/carrot/pumpkin/butternut squash, scrambled eggs, or baked beans (low salt) mushed up with a fork?

What age are scrambled eggs ok from?

Scrap that - good point mumof3 I think eggs are best kept until baby is 1 in case of allergies. Sorry!

My DD loves pasta with cheese sauce. U could mix a bit of tuna in too and she can get all those lovely fish oils

Here are some of our staples (my DS2 is 8 months too):

-Meat/proteins are no problem - start out grinding them in a food processor or grating the with a micro-grater. Then work up to very small pieces. Fish can be ground to pate consistency to start then less and less so.

-Mine likes leftover veg purees spread on toast and cut into strips

-French beans and carrot sticks boiled till soft

-Pasta - Rotini or large egg noodles on the tray or spaghetti/vermicelli by spoon, pasta stars

-Broccoli/Cauliflower florets, whole peas on the tray

-Avocado wedges

-Pear/apple can be cut into thin sticks for finger food. Fruits like apple can also be grated to help them move up from puree.

-Pancakes (blueberry or other fruit) - cut into strips

-Rice, Quinoa, Couscous

-Soups

-homemade Potato/Sweet Potato baked wedges

-Scrambled egg yolk, hard boiled egg yolk

-muffins - I make fruit muffins but you can also make savory ones.

I wasn't pointing it put for allergies I was asking for myself! But yes keeping away from eggs a bit longer I think

You can have egg yolk at this age - the recommendation where I am is no egg white until 1 year

thanks for all the great ideas everyone, I shall be writing them down on the fridge so I've got lots of ideas for when I'm feeling totally stuck!

oh and eggs are fine as long as they are well cooked all the way through, no runny eggs till after one

grating meat is a grate idea! I'll have to get and cook some chicken and give her some grated up thanks!!!!

I never thought of grating meat! i think that's gonna open her up to a real wide variety of foods now! knowing I can grate possibly anything!! fantastic!!

fix it - do you have a recipe for pancakes and muffins??

I made some 'broccoli and cheese muffins' for DD not to long ago but the came out like fat biscuits, I wasn't convinced I'd done them right either as they where only suppose to need 15 mins to cook and make around 6-8.... mine made 24 and took over an hour to cook! lol

oooh how long can I keep cooked chicken for for DD? thanks!

grating meat is a great idea

Oh good - I'm glad that is helpful! With DS1 I carried a micro-grater around in a plastic baggie in my purse . You can grate steak, chicken, pork - really anything. Though I have a mini Cuisinart food processor this time and its much easier and I have more control over varying the consistency

I am out and about - will post my pancake/muffin notes later.

I don't personally freeze my meats but only because DS just eats whatever we are eating and I keep leftovers for the normal amount of time - a day or two. I'm sure you can though....

its a fantastic idea! I'm going to be able to hive her lots of things now without fear that she won't be able to handle it!
just wish I had some chicken to try now!! I'll be down the shops first thing tomorrow morning!! lol

hey, fixitup, any chance of those recipes? can't wait to try them out!