How to transition to regular food?
At our 9-month wellness appointment, our pediatrician indicated that we should plan to transition our son to regular people food by around 12-15 months. Woohoo, fantastic, as I'm looking forward to not cooking his special food anymore.
What are some tips for this transition? Our son is almost 10 months old and drinks 20 oz a day (4-6 oz 4x a day) and has 3 meals and a snack in the afternoon. His meals seem pretty large to me (large portion of chunky mush and some fruit), so I'm not sure that I should increase his meal size? Also, how much milk should he be drinking around 12 months? How long does he/should he be on his cereal for? Should we push him towards regular food more quickly? Or let him drive the pace? Does it even matter?
Thanks!
1 Answers
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Is he eyeing your food? Is he reaching for your fork? If so, he's interested and possibly ready.
Start offering him whatever you guys are eating along with his mush. Cut it into bite size pieces. Sometimes, if the particular food is too tough (since they don't have teeth yet), I'll pre-masticate it for them before offering it. Yes, I feel like a mama bird when I do that, but it works.
We had to switch to regular, finger-friendly foods early for our daughter because she hated being fed. She wanted to be independent. Since 9mo, she's been eating whatever we eat. Tonight she's going to have fish tacos with guacamole and mexican rice.
Fish tacos, guacamole and mexican rice? Sounds good! How did she like it?
- Alana, Jan 7, 2010