how do you get a baby to start eating pieces of fruit and veg instead of purees?

[rosylizzie]

I've hit my usual weaning problem with my latest baby who is just 1, when i start to give chunks of the fruit and veg shes happily eaten when mashed/pureed she spits them out despite being able to get down things like whole pieces of pasta. any tips?

how are you 'giving' them? i'm not sure how it works when you've started with purees but i just put dd's fruit on her highchair tray in chunks and let her pick them up and eat them if she wants them. is it just fruit and veg she won't eat or anything else?

they mess about with textures and stuff at first. its all new, inc the sudden autonomy of deciding when to pick it up and eat it, plus the logistics of quite how to do it... theres a lot more going on than tastes for her...

just keep giving them to her and letting her have a 'play' eventually, youll notice nmore of it goes in than before...and then maybe a bit more than ends up on the floor...

have you looked at babyledweaning website? might find that helpful.

-get 1 busy mealtime
-dump baby in high chair
-concentrate on feeding bigger children and ranting at them ( as per usual)
-chuck the odd bit of pasta ( whatever the bigs are eating) on to half - starved baby's highchair tray
-continue to ignore baby whilst you deal with others
-Job done

like your style notanotter sounds like my house! I find dogs under highchair helpful as well to assuage guilt about whats got on the floor, unfortunately the dogs wont touch chunks of fruit and veg!

Just give it them to chomp on when they need distracting - if you are eating, if you are out somewhere etc.

Rosylizzie - dd is 9 months, and the title of my thread would be 'how do you convince a baby to eat ANYTHING other than yoghurt off a spoon???' Think we use Notanotter's approach. Also, assume it'll take ages - put loads on her tray and leave as long as poss!

notanotter is spot on. agree 100%

thankyou ladies

don't necessarily leave loads on the tray... that sometimes overwhelms my DD and she flips it all off the tray to 'clean' it up. Just a couple of bits and pieces, maybe. i note that the mighty notanotter's advice was to 'chuck the odd bit'.
also, My dd loves to chew on cold sticks of celery from the fridge when she's teething so you could give that a try. It's not messy so can be given for wandering around the house.

incidentally Aitch, ds3 (now 11mo) is now sitting at the table my other 2 sit at to eat. thats; climbing up onto the chiar, sitting there to eat and climbing down again afterwards. Maria montessori would be so proud of him!

Never mind that old Maria bird, I am proud of him. and .