Baby Feeding from 10 Months and Beyond

Once your baby has mastered baby food and finger foods you can move on to incorporating more table food into your baby’s diet. Hopefully you have fed your baby new foods in the right order and fostered good eating habits in your child. When your baby has more teeth, can swallow more easily, does not push food out with their tongue and is trying to use a spoon on their own, it is time to start feeding more table foods.

You can start giving your baby soft fruits cut into cubes or strips. It is also time to try soft, bite sized pieces of vegetables. Good ones are peas and carrots. You can also start letting your baby try well ground up meats and all types of beans cooked until they are soft. Combo foods such as casseroles and macaroni and cheese are also appropriate for this age group. Fruit juices, other than citrus, are also good as long as they are given in moderation.

Once your baby has reached 12 months they can start feeding themselves with a spoon. This may be very messy, but do not worry because they will get better at it. You can now start giving your baby whole cows milk. You also might want to try full fat yogurts and other types of cheese.

This is also the time that you start feeding your baby the same foods as the family eats. You just need to cut the food up into small pieces. Now is the time to introduce new fruits. Citrus is okay for your baby at this age and you might also want to introduce things like mango, melons and apricots.

Now is the time to really reinforce good eating habits. Start your baby on new vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower “trees”. The eating habits you start now will be with your child for life, so now is the time to get them going with good habits.

Even though your baby is growing, choking habits are still a big threat. When your child is young food should be cut up into pea size pieces. Also make sure you avoid any hard foods such as raisins, popcorn and nuts. Stay away from sticky foods like marshmallows, jelly candies and large globs of peanut butter. Spread peanut butter in a very thin layer on toast and crackers. Make sure that you do not let your child eat in the car because it is hard to supervise their eating.