Self feeding suggestions please

[mrsspagbol]

10 month old DD has decided she will only eat of she feeds herself and will not accept anything off a spoon.

She gets 10/10 for determination but a little less for actual coordination.

Any suggestions for things i can give her that she can pick up herself? She still sometimes gags on big bits though.....

What do you eat? Can she have a bit off your plate?

Eggy bread, cheese on toast, sardines on toast, hummus and sticks of veg or bread sticks, strips of omelette, strips of cooked meat, savoury muffin, chunks of cheese, grapes cut in half, cheese straws, roast veg and spag Bol.

You can even offer roast dinner, just try to use low salt gravy granules.

You're lucky, my dd was a adamant spoon refuser from day one!

Baked potato (skin off and cut into grabbable chunks) with whatever topping - my 9mo DS likes tuna mayo, bbq pulled pork, beans and cheese.

Pasta, spirals are good to grab, go easy on the sauce so they're not too slippy.

Sandwiches cut into 6 squares.

Strawberries

Cinnamon French toast with chunks of lightly baked or poached apple.

Would she feed herself with a spoon if you loaded things on for her?

Sorry if any of this has been discussed/mentioned, I'm on the talk app so can't check back.

Don't think they have been Gerty

Wow thanks for the ideas - really appreciate it. Will report back!

Risotto that sticks to the spoon
Will she dip bread into soup?
Cheese sticks
Crackers spead with hummous/mashed avacado
Pieces of soft fruit

Risotto that sticks to the spoon
Will she dip bread into soup?
Cheese sticks
Crackers spead with hummous/mashed avacado
Pieces of soft fruit

So glad you are going to report back, that's lovely

Roasted sweet potato, potato wedges, omelette / fritatta, quiche. Slowly cooked tender strips of meat, fish goujons. My ds will even eat risotto with his hands sometimes!

Regarding the eating the same food as you- at what age can they start eating food with salt in?

And presumably this is only if you are eating something cooked from scratch?

The NHS guidance on salt.

So they can have some salt under 1 just not too much, and the amount increases as they get older.

The recommended maximum salt intake is 1g (0.4g sodium) per day for babies less than 12 months (then it goes up to 2g).

At first, DD was eating so little that we didn't really worry about it. Once she started eating decent quantities, we totted it up over a few days to see how close we were, and get a feel for where the most salt was coming from (in our case, cheese and rather surprisingly to me at least, eggs). Processed food can have lots of salt in it, but we found one fish finger was not very much (about the same as one egg), so that was our go to freezer meal (in a sandwich or with chips).

So, I would say you don't need to cook everything from scratch, but you do need to have a general awareness of how much salt is in the food you eat.

I am back to report back!

Sorry it took a while but she was wiped out by a virus and it took a while for her appetite to come back and then I was wiped out by the sheer stress of going back to work ...

Thanks so much for all the suggestions - they were really helpful. Funny how I had such a mental block on what to think of but all the things you have all suggested seem pretty obvious now .

Thank you for your help.

Hope she's feeling better and work is going well. Thanks for coming back