Chewing practice. Mix chicken bolognese with mini pasta shapes to help your baby get used to different textures.
Not all babies take kindly to lumps in their food, but most will master a variety of textures if you persevere. While it’s perfectly fine to continue to purée some foods for your baby, by 9 to 12 months the time has come for her to learn to chew and swallow. The good news is that there’s lots you can do to encourage her to enjoy expanding her food repertoire!
Mashing vegetables together, such as potato, carrot, and broccoli with a little butter, milk, and grated cheese, is a good way to introduce different textures. You can also mash well-cooked and raw fruit, and it’s a good way to blend several fruits and/or vegetables together without the use of your food processor. Mincing foods will also produce pieces that are whole enough to have a little bite, but soft enough to be chewed and swallowed easily. Once minced and mashed foods are accepted by your little one, try finely cutting and chopping her food, gradually increasing the size of the pieces as she becomes accustomed to the new texture. Some babies actually prefer larger, identifiable lumps to smaller ones that take them by surprise.
Meat can sometimes be difficult for babies to chew, and this can put them off, so mixing cooked minced meat or chicken with pasta or mashed potato is good, or you can make mini meat or chicken balls or mini burgers. Pieces of roast chicken make good finger food. Alternatively, you can serve up breaded chicken or fish fingers. Tougher cuts of meat such as lamb and beef can be slow-cooked to make them more tender and easier to manage. You could also consider adding tiny pieces of meat to pastas and risottos, where they aren’t quite so overwhelming.
Try offering healthy proteins, such as pulses, whole, in the form of finger foods. For example, chickpeas, butter beans, and even kidney beans are usually happily eaten by babies when you serve them this way.
Create a little plate for your baby that offers foods of all sorts of textures. For example, you could cook some minced chicken balls, mash some potatoes, and offer some raw vegetables, such as carrot or cucumber, with a tasty dip. Or whizz together some cooked vegetables, such as carrots, courgettes, and sweet pepper, with a tomato sauce, and serve with pasta shapes, followed by a home-made cookie or mini muffin. You can also offer a variety of fruit, vegetables, meat, fish or poultry, dairy, and carbs at the same meal, allowing her to choose some from a tray of finger foods, and feeding her some of the smoother foods from a spoon. She’ll end up chewing the finger foods at the same time as she takes in whatever you are offering on the spoon, blending the different flavours and textures. Encourage her to use her finger foods to dip and mush other foods on her plate. She’ll be able to create her own concoctions, which will have a texture all of their own. It’s good to have a plate or bowl with divisions, as babies like to keep different foods separate.
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While it’s perfectly fine to continue to purée some foods for your baby, the time has come for her to learn to chew and swallow.
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Mash, mince, grate, or chop!
Let your baby explore the textures with her hands.