Where should I be at 13 months?!

[LindsayS79]

Hi all

I've no idea if I'm doing this weaning thing right.. 13 month old DD and due to reflux was a bit difficult accepting lumps. It's a lot better now and she's doing well with chunky shepherds pie etc.
However she doesn't seem to be enthusiastic about larger finger foods. She's fine with fruit, breadsticks etc, but she only manages a soldier of toast/omlette/bread etc. Nothing bigger. She point blank refuses strips of meat.
Am I far behind with weaning her onto 'normal' family type food?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by bigger than a toast finger etc? Do you mean that she'll only eat one of these and then not want any more, or do you mean that she can't handle things that are cut bigger than that like half a slice of toast?

If it's the latter, then I honestly wouldn't worry about it at 13 months. I would just start offering more family type food for her to self feed. Give her a spoon and fork as well (if you don't already) and see how she gets on. You can obviously continue to spoon feed her yourself around that as well.

I don't know about red meat (am veggie) but how about fish? Also I think chicken can be easier than other types of meat as it is softer.

Thank you. It's actually a bit of both..! She handles the soldier size better, but if I try to put another down she refuses it. Same with veg like broccoli, she'll take one sprig then refuse more!
I'm veggie too but I'm trying to get her to eat strips of chicken etc but she struggles. I tried a fish finger and she ate half..
She's great at trying things, in fact she wants everything she sees others eating, which is fab! She just doesn't eat a great quantity. I'm just not sure where she should be at, at this age!

Would this guide be any help? It has explanations of portion sizes for 1 to 4 year olds. I guess that at the 1 yr old end you would expect it to be at the smaller end of the range.

If she isn't that keen on meat at the moment, imo it isn't the end of the world - my DS is vegetarian and is thriving.

Just keep offering the finger food and she'll get there in the end. It's great that she will try new foods, the volume will gradually increase.

Wow, that's exactly what I've been searching the internet for..! Thank you!!
Being veggie, do you have any recommended recipes/sites for LO's then? I feel all I'm feeding her is pasta/cous cous/rice etc!!saying that, these are all the things I love. I just have limited food imagination!

I had a read of the Veg Soc website before I started weaning, iirc they had some advice for veggie children.

I just try and cook with pulses a lot eg lentil dhals, green lentils in a bolognaise type sauce to go with spaghetti, nut roasts, a variety of nut butters on toast, bean chilli, lots of Mexican type food etc. Eggs are always good, although my DS doesn't really like them :-(