Does your baby want table food?

[birthjunkie27]

It can't be just us. Samara is SO interested in what we're eating that it's pathetic. She'll just stare and drool. We put an empty plate in front of her one time..she was sitting on Daddy's lap, and she was pretending to eat! She would scoop up some imaginary food from the plate and put it in her mouth. And she'd do it over and over again. It was so cute! I know we're supposed to hold off on solids, but boy is it tempting!

[xkoliex]

Tori does the same thing! (minus the pretending to eat) At lunch last week she grabbed a french fry off my plate and stuck it in her mouth before I had even seen what she did!

She likes drinking water out of cups too. (In very little amounts of course) And playing with the condensation on the outside of my drinks...

[DreamsInDigital]

Tonight at dinner I dropped some spaghetti sauce on baby Winter's hand and he stuck it in his mouth before I could stop him. He was smacking and licking his lips and then he got a really excited face. He's been reaching his hands into my plate a lot too, since I always eat with him on my lap.

[MistyB]

Ella has sucked on fruit in a mesh feeder and she loves it. She has had licks of applesauce off of my finger too several times. And sucked/knawed on a cool peeled carrot. She has been eying food and us eating for about a month. She still has a tongue thrust going on so I don't quite think she is ready for eating but she enjoys tasting/licking/sucking/knawing. I will pretty much watch for tongue thrust to go away and for her pincher grip to be able to pick pieces up. In my book...if she can pick it up and put it in her mouth...she is ready.

[aisraeltax]

i guess i just dont know where i stand on this one. its something i have been thinking about b/c E pays very close attention and ppl are so eager to give him something. ive read it causes allergies, problems with their guts, etc.
ive also read that they really aren't interested in the food but just curious about what we are doing.
i am so torn, b/c he looks so eager to get his hands on somethign (and im always eating with him on my lap too).

[Panthira]

Greyson has absolutely no interest in our food. I mean, he'll look at us eat and I can see him registering that fact, but he doesn't want food. He's also the kind of baby who doesn't take (or need) a pacifier, he doesn't really chew on anything, has just started sucking on his hands now and then, and never spits up. The only thing Grey wants is the booby.

I've been thinking about when he might start solid food. With all of my other babies, we started feeding them baby food around 4-6 months, but this time I'm thinking I may let Greyson choose when he's ready to eat and possibly forgo baby food altogether. I really want him to have a strong digestive system.

Here's a thread in the Life with a babe forum:
Did you delay solids?

[DesireeH]

nak lol

daph tries to grab stuff but i know its just for the sake of grabbing it. she's growing well on bm only. I didnt give jev solids until "late" and i'll do the same w/ her.

[allnaturalmama]

I'm a big-time delayer, too. It's so much better for their immunity and digestion if you can hold them off as long as possible. I usually start slowly introducing small tastes of food around 8 mos, but they don't actually eat for nutrition til 10-12 mos, and the bulk of their diet is still bm til after that.

Their very own plate with UTN stuffed veggies is a fun way to make them feel part of the dinner table gang w/o introducing all the risks of early solids.

[IncaMama]

does a piece of plastic pizza from rowan's play food stash count? she was chowing on that yesterday. LOL
other than that, we plan to wait a loooong time.

[darkpear]

Moira stares, but it's no different from the way she stares at the ceiling fan. She hasn't grabbed at food yet. She does like to grab our hands and drag them into her mouth though. She almost gave me a hickey on my arm today Oh, and she tasted the cat too.

I'm not really hardcore about delaying solids after 6 months but I definitely have no plans to push them either. We gave Amalie some pureed veggies right around that 6 month mark, but she was our first and we were a bit eager. They weren't very well-received. We have some great pictures of the faces she made though

[oliversmum2000]

oscar grabbed a lump of sausage at 5 months, i got ready for him to choke, but he never di and he never spit it out!

he ate the whole thing!

he never did mushy baby food and never spoon fed - he went straight onto finger foods (though was still mostly breastfeeding till about 18 months without that much solid food other than just for fun!)

sophie however has shown no signs of even noticing food!

[birthjunkie27]

Yesterday I was eating, and Samara was watching intently....and she reached for my mouth and pried it open! LOL!! Geez, talk about eager.

We started our first two on food at 4 months (didn't know better back then), so this whole delaying thing is new to us.

[Marielle]

nah, I could put a wooden block and a steak in front of Ryan and he'd drool and try to grab either one. LOL I didn't give Ian a taste of anything besides breastmilk until he was 10 months old. Even then it was a taste of black beans I cooked for dinner and never did cereal or baby food.

[judybean]

Lucy watches me eat, but it's simply just to be watching and absorbing everything around her.

With Madeline we didn't delay foods and she had rice cereal right at four months. Ugh. That was a terrible experience. I mean, nothing bad happened, but it was ... frustrating I suppose. I thought she would just 'know' what to do when I put the spoon in her mouth (being a first-time parent and not having really looked into anything, I simply did what I was 'supposed' to do) and she just spit everything back out. Every. single. time. So I thought I was doing something wrong. ... of course we finally worked out the kinks and she seems fine now

With Katherine we delayed foods until six months and it made a WORLD of difference. By that point she seemed genuinely interested in food and simply loved it. I just mushed up most things -- never bought a canned baby food! With some relatives though, there was the push to give her foods earlier because she needed them, wanted them, etc.

And now, this time around... Lucy's a week and a bit from being four months old. I figure we won't even *think* about solids until she's six months old. And even then... we'll just see where she's at! At least now the relatives don't seem to be caring so much about whether I'm thinking about giving her solid foods yet. They all seem perfectly content with her just getting yummy boobie milk! (good thing, because Katherine tells people that's all Lucy gets )

[Minnow_]

Cailan also loves to watch us eat. He stares so intently, following food from my plate to my mouth, then he'll touch my mouth. He also is always grabbing at my plate (he also sits on my lap while we eat). We started putting a plastic bowl on the table for him to grab... and he did the "pick-it-up-and-drop-it-on-the-floor-and-laugh-while-Daddy-picks-it-up" trick.

[amygoforth]

I'm not at all ready to start Drew on big people food yet, but I did let him taste some mashed sweet taters off my finger the other night. I mash'd 'em up and was getting ready to add butter and brown suger, then decided not too 'cause they tasted perfectly sweet on their own. Drew was staring at my plate while I was chowing down, so I figured what the hay (since it was pure potatoes w/ nothing added) and let him lick some off my finger. He smacked his lips and enjoyed it.

[IncaMama]

well, i let ava have apple juice mixed with water yesterday (my ped suggested it for constipation, but now i know better) and she CHUGGED it. she was smacking her lips and sucking her whole face in practically. LOL

i think we'll still wait for several more months before really trying anything in terms of solids, though. we'll see...

[aisraeltax]

thats what gets me and where i feel really pulled...they seem to love stuff when we give it to them. can it be that bad if they love it so much? of course, having a teenager, i can answer that from several different perspectives, but i just dont konw...how can it be so horrible for them if they love it so much? and is apple juice mixed with water different than an apple in one of those mesh feeders?

btw, kidssurplus.com has those things on sell if anyone wants to stock up on them.

[kofduke]

Luke doesn't seem terribly interested right now. I figure we will start after 6 months though.

Aaron started solids at 4 months b/c I was going back to work at 6 months and wanted him eating something other than b/m. But, he never really got into it, so it was pretty much just b/m until he started finger foods.

[hottmama]

Luka won't have anything but breastmilk until at least 6 mos. So far, he's happy to sit in his highchair and bang a spoon on the table during meals.
I started Jules on solids at 5 mos., he LOVED them, but I really regret it. He had a lot of food allergies as a toddler (dairy, cinnamon, tomato were the big ones). We can wait a couple months, especially with the way time is flying! I'm just going to offer finger foods starting at 6 mos.
Also, I don't give babies juice. Even Julian doesn't get it very often (aside from OJ and V8).