Pasta - self feeding what age?

[Tapster]

My DD 6.5 months has rejected the spoon and has self feeds mostly with a bit of encouragement using pitta, bread, rice cakes and rusks (sugar free of course but still feel guilty). She scoops food with her hands and shovels it in but misses or forgets rather alot.

Will she be able to eat well cooked pasta - fusilli/penne yet in sauce? MIL of course says she'll choke and to buy baby pasta.

Any recommendations?

yes - she'll prob pick up the penne / fusilli in her fingers and chomp them to bits

ignore MIL

inspiring ideas and pics here

also worth a squint if you want recipe ideas

fusilli better than penne, easier to pick up. penne will prob just slip out of her hand. nice bit of fusilli with a bolognaise sauce including chunky veg.. very nice.

My DD1 used to suck down fusilli like a bird eating worms from about 8 months

I'd definitely try your DD. Sure she'll do fine.

baby pasta is just smaller pasta - save yourself the money and cut up your normal sized pasta
ds was a big pasta self feeder from an early age.

sorry, I meant big on feeding himself pasta from an early age (not big sized pasta)...

Thanks so much - thought it would be fine, will try over the weekend - just have a hunch that she will enjoy it.

I found rigatoni quite good as well as fusilli.

Just buy normal pasta - penne or spiralli - just cut it up to small sizes if you are worried about choking.

I found it's best to make sure it's really soft - then DD2 could pick up a whole piece and her gums could chew it easily.

Normal pasta, cut up, although I used to sometimes buy the soup pasta to make soup with and use that as normal pasta for dd's tea.

She'll be fine - fussilli is easiest

there's really no need for any of that baby version of 'human food' stuff...baby pasta, baby yoghurts, baby cereal etc etc. your baby is over 6 months, go easy on the salt and sugar and you'll be fine. get them used to your normal food, save yourself the hassle.

dd liked fusilli and butterfly shapes best (what is the proper name for butterflies?) sometimes she found the penne a bit tricky in that she is such a greedy guts that she'd what the whole thing in and forget to actually chew so it would bounce straight back out of her mouth. but that was only in the beginning, right enough. now she likes all kinds, including spaghetti, but her favourite is the shells because the sauce fills them up so they're a little bolognese parcel.

The problem I find with penne is that the sauce inside the penne stays hotter then the sauce outside iyswim!

Is it farfalle? or something like that? (the butterfly shaped pasta), or I may have just made that up. Trying DS on pasta tomorrow as well, going to go for well cooked regular stuff....

I'm with Ruddynorah!

yes! that's the one, farfalle! lol, and i speak italian and couldn't remember the word...

with regards to food being hot, might i pass on my Patented Aitch Food-Cooling Top Tip? (it's on the blog, actually but sometimes i have my doubts that anyone's reading it, you know...)
anyway, it's frozen peas and frozen dishes. when i first started giving dd what we were having (ie pretty much from the beginning) i used to keep her wee melamine dishes in the freezer and also i added frozen peas to Everything. cools the food down a treat and is also a bit of extra veg fun once they've got their pincer grip.

That's quite a lot of wheat, though, if she's having pitta, bread, rusks and pasta. It's a common allergen, maybe less while she's so little?

i love pastina e ceci, it's so comfort food-y.

I'm using rice cakes and will buy some rice fusilli too - she does seem to be addicted to pitta bread so I am worried about her wheat intake. Giving her carrot batons tonight to eat her leek and potato soup but I'm sure she would prefer bread or a rusk.

Tapster, with mine its bread - I can't eat a sandwich if he's around!

Keep meaning to make some kind of ravioli for a treat proper cooked meal(ha ha never going to have the time..) if I ever do I reckon that he would like them

my dd is 8 months and is just coping with pasta now.I think it's quite hard to break down in their mouths.Her gums are really hard now I guess.We have wholemeal pasta,which is a bit more course though.Other pasta may be softer?