trouble w/ textures/table food

[cchavez]

Diego is 9 months and not doing that great w/ textured/chunky/lumpy foods. He will eat his crackers just fine and cheerios if we feed them to him but he will only eat 4 or 5 max.

Anyway, he is accustomed to jarred foods. I do increase the texture w/ cereal. But I have tried mashed avocado and bananna, small pieces of avocado and bananna and he gets upset!! Last nite I made him a sweet potato and mashed it but left it lumpy....he threw up 3 times!!

So then I purreed it in the blender and gave it to him this morning. He gagged and got pissed everytime I gave hime some. So I gave him yougurt instead.

Oh, we have also tried mashed potatoes (throws up) and pieces of green beans, does ok if I feed to him but he will growl like he is upset.

bTW, his pincer grasp is still emerging.

Any advice please!!! Should I get him a mesh feeder???

[JElaineB]

Since you are using jarred foods, have you tried any of the stage 3 jarred foods? My DS didn't do well on hand-mashed or homemade chunky foods at first (around 9 months old also). So I backed off and tried some stage 3 jarred foods. It worked really well and I was able to quickly progress to more chunky foods and finger foods.

Earth's Best had a jarred "Chunky Orchard Fruit" I believe which has just a little bit of texture, enough to get started. Also they have a Chicken and Stars that has very soft pasta and not too many other chunks. Gerber Tender Harvest has a few with pasta that were good for a second step with chunks. A little more chunky than the Earth's Best ones I mentioned. They have some jarred chunky cereals as well. Just check the label and make sure they don't contain any egg whites or anything else you don't want to feed. Regular Gerber has stage 3 of things such as green beans & rice, which is just a little more texture than their stage 2 green beans. You can try a little of the stage 3 alongside the similar stage 2 food, so if he starts rejecting the texture you have the backup and he might not know what happened! Plus Gerber does have stage 3 dinners as well with some texture. Just read the labels for those also.

I liked our mesh feeder, but I don't think it helped with getting him used to chunky foods too much as when the food is worked out of the mesh it is no longer chunky. But you could certainly try it, it might help with the "mouth feel" of having chunks in his mouth. Good luck.

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

[McQ]

Declan has the SAME problem. He barfs every time I give him something remotely textured. He barfs on homemde mashed potatoes. He barfs on gerber stage 3 with rice. He does not barf on the ones without rice. He barfed this weekend on fresh banana cut up into litle chunks.

He's got a great pincer grip though. He loves his cherrios, biscuits and crackers. I tried some cheese this weekend and all he wanted to do was to smear it all over his tray.

I'm really getting worried as the big 1 year mark is approaching and and I don't want to be giving him jar food forever. Help!

Allison
~ mommy to Declan 3.24.03

[McQ]

Just bumping this up...

Allison
~ mommy to Declan 3.24.03

[COElizabeth]

At 1 year old, James was still eating almost all pureed food. He'd eat cheerios, but that was about the only chunky or finger food he would eat. The ped was totally relaxed about it and told me that he's seen 2-year-olds still eating from jars. He said that was very unusual, but that there is a pretty wide range of when kids give up the purees. DS is now 16 months old, and I haven't bought a jar in months. Sometime between then and now, he started getting much better about self-feeding. My advice is to keep offering a variety of finger foods and keep feeding the pureed and soft food until he makes the switch on his own. It will happen!

Elizabeth, Mom to James, 9-20-02

[McQ]

Thanks. I hope there's light at the end of the tunnel for us too. Funny thing is he usually doesn't barf if he can pick it up himself. Last night I gave him green beans from our plate and he gobbled them up.

Allison
~ mommy to Declan 3.24.03