Encouraging finger foods

[Dawnie6577]

My nearly 9 month old son is doing fab with mashed up spoon fed food, but less well with finger foods.
He eats toast and Organix crisps with a passion, but everything else I've tried (carrot batons, brocolli, courgette, banana, green beans) he just mushes in his hands. Peaches and nectarines he sucks on.
Any ideas or tips as to how I can encourage him to enjoy finger foods. At the moment, I am leaving him with 1 of the above in front of him whilst I prepare his meal. Mostly he plays with it for a few minutes then ignores it.
He is fine with being fed pieces of food.
Any ideas very appreciated!!
Thanks.

He obviously can do it when he wants, so I wouldn't worry - he is still young so there's plenty of time . Have you tried rice cakes (I think it was organix that make really nice apple flavour ones my DCs loved when they were little), cheese or those baby biscuits that are in funny shapes like teddies?

Thanks for your message. I haven't tried rice cakes, good idea, I will try those. I did buy a pack, but they said 12mths+ on them, so they are in cupboard. But I might try him with them.
I tried cheese and got the same response, not keen!
I will try the baby biscuits. I think it is veg he isn't keen on, which I hadn't appreciated until I wrote the list! I might try some butter on the carrots, as he likes his toast with butter on.
Thanks for the reassurance and for replying.

What happens if you spread mushed-up carrot on a piece of toast? It might be that he just likes mushing up mushable things, rather than that he doesn't like the taste of veg.

Maybe try different types of cheese? Cheddar tends to just break up but cheese like Edam, Gouda etc are bendy and good for playing with and eating! My DS (almost 9 months) went through a phase there of refusing to eat from a spoon and would only eat finger foods so I have tried lots- I made homemade chicken nuggets that went down a treat, he also has rice cakes, toast, bread, chopped fruit eg strawberries and grapes, mini shredded wheat soaked in milk, cheese, pitta and hummous, cooked chicken strips etc. Today I made some couscous and mushed it in with philidelphia and he loved it- I did pop most of it straight in his mouth tho cos it's so squishy!

Most rice cakes say 7 months plus, I think 6 months onwards is fine and the Dept of Health website agrees most finger foods fine after 6 months. Double check the rice cakes you have - are they the honey ones? Honey is not ok until 12 months. It may be the honey that is the issue (I think it is Heinz that make one type with honey in)

Some little ones take longer to get the hang of finger foods , just keep offering. My dd1 was well over a year. dd2 took to it from soon after weaning. In fact she rejects her spoon a lot and has preferred finger foods from 9 months or so.

Thank you for your posts, some ace ideas and I am feeling inspired!
Cheers muchly x

Also try breadsticks. My DS loves them, and it really helped him get on track with the finger food.

It's probably just the squishiness of the fruit & veg. DS is now 11 mths old and still squishes his fruit & veg sometimes - just depends what sort of mood he is in!

I also found that cutting the peices up smaller helps. As was giving DS a whole strawberry, which he would just squash in his hand. When I started cutting it up into smaller pieces, not only did it help is pincer-grip to pick up the smaller bits, but he tended to pop them straight into his mouth as they were too small to squish!

Don't worry about it. My DD didn't have much in the way of finger foods until she was past a year. It may have been why she learnt to feed herself with a spoon pretty early.

Finger foods are way over-emphasised in the UK, IMO. I mean, if your baby likes them, fine, but this thing about having to be on finger foods by 9 months just causes people to worry needlessly.

I posted a similar thread to this last week as my 8 nearly 9 month old wasn't taking to finger foods at all. Since then I have discovered he loves organix rusks. I think they're great because they melt in the mouth but they have no added sugar. They are sweetened with grape juice. These really helped him get the idea. He also loves organix apple rice cakes.

I agree with vesela. There is too much of an emphasis on finger foods. Always the first question asked in clinic and also at his 8 month check a couple of weeks ago. This is what got me so worried in the first place. My mum told me that noone had even heard of finger foods when I was weaned in the 70s. Certainly not the emphasis on it as there is now and I turned out ok! Btw my nearly 3 year old is more than capable of using a spoon and fork but he thinks that every food is a finger food!! LOL