Starting Finger Foods

Hello friends and happy Monday!! Today's post highlights my favorite time in Jackson's food journey, starting solids! A few of my friends with little ones following along with the puree's on this blog have asked about the right time to start weaning and begin finger foods. Jackson's pediatrician never gave us a particular month to start solids the way she did with puree's. She wanted us to look for certain queue's from him including crawling with his stomach off the ground and his ability to pick food up with his hands and feed himself without any help. The first time we encouraged Jackson to self-feed was some time in month 6. He started with blueberries, bananas and avocados and we just let him go for it without any help.

Note: Had I known better at this time I would have coated the bananas and avocados with something like a crushed Cheerio to make them easier to grip... This helped a great deal in the future :-)

blueberries, banana, and avocado

The majority of the food ended up on the floor but we tried lol. I continued once a day until I noticed Jackson starting to use his pointer and thumb to grab food and managing to get them into his mouth (which only took a week or two).  

chicken, potato, and zucchini

Once he got the hang of it we prepped every meal like that and eventually weaned him off pureed meals. We still use the Fresh Squeezed Station however, for snacks, yogurts and smoothies on the go. Here are a few great finger foods for starting out (remember to steam and cut most raw foods first or use very ripe fruits)

~banana
~sweet potato
~avocado
~carrots
~apples
~peaches
~whole grain toast
~green beans
~peas
~whole wheat elbow macaroni
~beans

The next few food posts will be of a few s food combinations and recipes like zucchini fritters, banana and blueberry pancakes, and mini quiches.

Foods we've tried so far...

Fruits

Bananas

Apples

Peaches

Pears

Prunes

Lemon

Blueberry

Vegetables

Avocado

Broccoli

Spinach

Butternut squash

Beets

Green beans

Peas

Potato

Sweet potato

Carrots

Kale

Zucchini 

Meats and Fish

Chicken

Grains and Proteins

Oats

Rice

Chia Seeds

Are there any cool finger foods you've tried with your little one? Share them in the comments!

Britt