If you didn't do BLW...

[AFWife]

When did you start "real" food? (not purees)

We did BLW and my son is munching on a chicken nugget with no problems. I found myself wondering when other parents would introduce foods like that...

[reignbelle]

Dd1 was started on cereals and veg/fruit jarred food at 4 months. We did mashed soft food around 6 month and she started self feeding small bites at 8ish months a whole nuggets would have been closer to ten months. We did blw and spoon fed dd2 basically eating whatever we ate so applessauce ment spoon sweetpotato ment selffeed. Nuggets for her around 8 months .

[Abraisme]

I have never done purees, but my baby started self-feeding chunks of food at 6mo and now at 7mo she can easily feed herself small bits of cereal, etc.

[sunshynbaby]

We started ds on chunks and bits blw style. We have had little success with that. On a whim last week I made him a cantelope and breast milk smoothie. Dh fed it to him and he gobbled it up like he was starving to death. I have tried various purees since then, and he loves them, but only when fed by daddy. We'll still offer chunks and bits, but he mostly plays with them right now. If he gets any in his mouth he does everything he can to spit it out. He swallows the purees right away and opens his mouth for more like a little baby bird. I believe in following the baby's lead, and ds has led us to daddy-fed purees. Go figure!

[newbiemama09]

DD is almost a year and we're still slowly adding "real" food. she still mostly gets purees, but we also give her peas, cereal and sometimes crackers. i always take away the last chunk of cracker from her and break it up, otherwise she tries eating a huge chunk by herself.

[tzs]

we just started at 6 mo, technically purees b/c i mostly spoon feed although my babe prefers soft chunks. so i guess...6 months. in fact, one of her first foods was meatloaf. it was not planned, she pulled the whole pyrex to her chair.
i do let her experiment with big pieces as well though.

[teachma]

My April baby has only ever eaten "real food," but not necessarily in true blw fashion. At first, I gave him teeny-tiny pieces (he was abt 5 months old) of soft foods on my finger. By 7 mos, he was self feeding tiny pieces of a variety of foods with a pincer grasp. Now, he is a real omnivore, minus the few allergens I avoid.

By 11 mos old, my middle child (who ate fruit and vegetable purees to start) was also eating a wide variety of real food and doing quite well with it. My first (who ate the pureed stuff too) did not become a comfortable eater of anything with texture until a few months beyond one year old. I'm not sure if you can draw any conclusions from our experience...

[Phridae]

We did purees starting at 6 months, and around 8 months we went to cherrios and various bite sized foods, and things like teething biscuits. I think around 9 months is when he lost intrest in purees as a whole, but still loves things like applesauce and yogurt. He self feeds himself for the most part, expect for things like applesauce and yogurt. I'm not yet ready to clean it off my ceilings. =)

[Kelly1101]

We started purees at 6 months, finger foods around 8-9 months. Right now she's half spoon fed, half self-fed. She eats everything except sugar/processed, shellfish, and nuts. We just cleared strawberries yesterday, will probably try shellfish next week, and nuts the week after. She is 11 months old tomorrow.