8 Month Old-What food to eat?

[happydulwich]

Hi there,

I have an 8 month old girl who is loving food!

She likes to feed herself, which is fine, she can handle wholemeal toast, pineapple strips etc.

Can she eat cream cheese, hard cheese?

Can she have baked beans on toast, eggs on toast?

Also, what is an idea packed lunch/picnic for her?

Sorry for all these questions, but cannot really get an answer from the food books.

[ludoscotts]

a great book to look at is the annabel karmel food plannner. It has sort of meal timetables so you know how much and how often to give food and meal ideas etc. Also says when to introduce new foods etc was brilliant. I didnt follow it exactly as stated(its very detailed saying what to give for everymeal, I mixed it up to suit me) but I found it very useful to help with when to drop bottles and quantaties etc. you might be able to get a copy form the library or we got ours from amazon.

[Ruth_Baldock]

I second Annabel Karmel, someone got it for me when I was pregnant and it seems really sensible, it's coming in useful now we're weaning the baby too.

[apenn]

The short answer is - anything she'll eat! No honey (apparently there can be pollen in it which is dangerous), watch the salt - don't add any and keep it low, and no cow's milk before 1 year. Those seem to be the general rules. As her dexterity improves you can give smaller and smaller pieces. Oh yes - and no nuts due to the choking hazard.

My baby is also entirely self-fed. Cream cheese and regular cheese are both fine - just keep a check on the salt. I've given him all sorts of eggs (not runny). Also with toast I've done avacado (I don't mush it up too much - just scoop it out and then mash it right onto the bread) and hazelnut butter. The hazelnut butter I found in SMB foods and use it instead of peanut butter only because it has no salt.

He's not crazy about baked beans just yet, but yesterday he ate some kidney beans I had mixed in with some onions and peppers for fajitas. Fajitas are great because he loves courgette, red onion, and broccoli which I generally put in. He also loves to suck and chew on strips of steak and lamb and to suck on chicken and meat bones!

Tomatoes are also a favourite because he sucks the mushy stuff and then spits out the skin. I'll either give him a quartered tomato or cherry tomato cut in half. Same principle with grapes and cucumbers - I give either circle or half moon shapes and he sucks out the middle. Last week he went crazy for kiwi. With pineapple, I also give him the skin after I've cut it and he loves to hold it and suck off the remaining pineapple. Same thing with mango stones.

My husband and I have a pretty varied, healthy diet and we love to cook, so we've never really used any of the baby food recipie books. Basically, I just give him whatever we're eating or a more appropriate version of it (e.g. taking out a portion for him before adding salt for ourselves, giving him the fajita stuff separately rather than wrapped in a tortilla). Don't be afraid to try just about anything and see how she gets on. Have fun. I LOVE watching my son enjoy food.

-A

[Belle]

yep- basically same as Apenn. we give our son a lot of our leftovers from the night before, for his tea, as that's the only meal when I'm not eating with him so can't just share what I'm having. Admittedly those portions will have salt in but we don't really use much, and it's that lo-salt stuff, and I figure he balances it out with lots of other healthy things like steamed veg (can get handy frozen packs of them), tomatoes - eaten exactly as Apenn describes - carrots both cooked and raw - and any fruit really. I found the stage just after your little one's age - so say 9ish months - was when it all fell into place and I got much more relaxed about it all.

to answr your questions though -

cream cheese great, philadelphia etc - hard cheese my little boy seems less keen on but I grate it onto baked beans, reheated mashed sweet potato, even peas

hard boiled eggs mashed onto toast fingers works well and is perfectly healthy I'd say

ditto baked beans - you can get low salt ones, I buy those little snap packs and they just take a minute in the microwave and amazingly cool down quite quickly so are ideal for that 5pm 's**t what am I going to give him for his tea?' moment if you have no afore mentioned leftovers!

[Pickle]

Another vote for the approach used by APenn and Belle. With child #1 we went the Annabel Karmel route (which is excellent, and her books are useful. I still cook some recipes from her books which we all eat). #2 was fed on the same food we eat from early in the weaning process due a combination of not enough hours in the day to puree and her reluctance to eat anything that didn't look like what her brother was having (17 months older than her).

I don't add salt to our food, so not a problem for them to have the same as us. For recipes that are spicy I just take their portions out before adding chilli etc.

Up to the age of 1 the most important thing is that you have fun with it - don't worry too much about how much they're eating as it's still milk that they get the majority of their nutrients from. Give a range of tastes/textures and enjoy!

[happydulwich]

Thanks everyone for your wise words.

It is a bit shocking how quickly they progress from milk to food!

I am now feeling much more confident, so thank you once again.

[Fuschia]

You can use cows milk in cooking, (unless you're particularly worried about allergies) but don't give it as a main drink until 1 year.

Re packed lunches - stuff like breadsticks, rice cakes, little sandwiches (philly or cheese or egg or tuna) or pitta to dip in Hummous

Chopped cucumber, baby tomatoes

Fruit

[Moos]

I remember first seeing the Charlie & Lola lunchbox with the slogan 'I Will Not Ever Eat A Tomato' and thinking Eh, who doesn't like tomatoes?!

Of course, I gave birth to someone who Will Not Ever Eat A Tomato. Sigh.

[Belle]

Moos - I think tomatoes are one of those things - I know at least five people who really cannot eat them. Which i find weird! But then, my husband refuses to eat mushrooms and I won't eat peppers, so we're no better really!

[ClareC]

My partner won't eat mushrooms, peppers or tomato's !??

[helena handbasket]

ClareC Wrote:

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> My partner won't eat mushrooms, peppers or

> tomato's !??

I didn't eat any of those until I was an adult. Add onion to the list as well. But then at 18 I lived in a house with a bunch of adventurous eaters and was shamed into eating all of my listed hate foods, and wouldn't you know I couldn't live without them now!

I wish I knew why my son won't eat hummous. I love it so much.

[Moos]

Me too, and it's so convenient for pub lunches, picnics etc.

Still don't get the tomato thing. They're so tasty and inoffensive! Anyway, it's my prejudice and I'm sticking to it..