Safe Toddler (One Year and Older) Feeding Tips. Page 2

Finger Foods
To encourage picking up and eating rather than messing and smearing, place a few pieces of O-shaped cereal, cooked diced carrot, rice cake, or baby-bite-sized pieces of soft fruits on the high-chair tray. Babies also enjoy firmer finger foods for teething, such as teething biscuits. Harder foods, especially teething foods, should have a melt-in-the-mouth texture, dissolving easily while being gummed. You may notice that your baby will be fascinated with a pile of cooked spaghetti placed within easy reach. The ability to pick up with thumb and forefinger enables baby to pick up one strand, shell, or elbow at a time. Pasta picking holds baby's meal attention longer than most foods. Some of the pasta may even make is way to the mouth. If worried about allergies, wait until one year to introduce wheat products such as zwieback, bagels, and pasta. If you know your baby tends toward allergies, you can buy wheat-free teething biscuits and pasta made with rice.

The ability to pick up food also has its hassles. Food and utensils become interesting objects to bang, drop, and fling. This does not necessarily mean rejection of the food or the feeding but reflects baby's natural and normal need to explore new ways to use the newly developed skills of picking up, dropping, and throwing. When it gets to messy for you, simply end the feeding.

Pointing and Dipping
Besides developing thumb-and-forefinger pickup, around ten months babies are using their index finger for poking and social directing -- giving cues to their caregivers. Baby is likely to poke into a new food as if dipping in and tasting it. Capitalize on this skill by making dip. Avocado or guacamole dip (without the salt and heavy spices) is a nutritious favorite at this stage. Remember, each new developmental skill has it nutritional benefits and humorous nuisances. While babies will use their poking finger to dip into food and suck the food off their finger, expect the young artist to begin body painting and finger painting with the food on the high-chair tray. Enjoy this developmental skill while it lasts. And feel free to stop the meal if baby is no longer eating.

Feeding Strategies
Now that you have introduced your baby to the different tastes and textures of his favorite solids, here are some tips gleaned from other family feeding experiences.

Respect tiny tummies. Offer small helpings in frequent feedings. Since babies' tummies are about the size of their fists, they seldom take more than two to four tablespoons of a food at any one meal. Don't overwhelm baby with a whole pile of food on her tray. Instead, begin with a small fist-sized dollop and add more as baby wants more.

Gradually increase variety and texture. For beginning solid eaters, fruits and vegetables should be strained. As babies gain eating experience, they can advance to pureed foods, then to foods that are finely minced. Most babies can begin to accept chopped foods by one year of age.

Avoid pressure tactics. Never force-feed a child, as this can create long-term unhealthy attitudes about eating. Your role is to select nutritious foods, prepare them well, and serve them creatively, matched to baby's individual capabilities and preferences. Baby's role is to eat the amount he want at the time, according to his needs, moods, capabilities, and preferences. Feeding children is similar to teaching them to swim -- you need to find the balance between being too protective or restrictive and not vigilant or selective enough.

Here's a hint: If your baby shuns eating try a bit of group encouragement. Sit baby in a high chair. Let everyone start eating, but don't give baby anything. She will feel left out and wan some food. When she starts reaching for some food, giver her something off your plate. Let her think it's your food, even though it may be her own food on your plate. When she starts eating, don't suddenly put a whole plate in front of her. Let her keep asking for more, and give her only one or two bites at a time. This way, baby feels in charge of deciding to eat on her own.

Expect erratic feeding habits. There may be days when your baby eats solids six times, or she may refuse solids three days in a row and only want to breastfeed or take a bottle.