Well I don't have that problem with my little one, but she particularly likes apples, grapes (careful!), yogurt, pasta, dry cereal....

Funny story about baby food - Just this morning a friend called me to ask if I had any tall glass baby food jars that she could have for her daughter's school project. She needs a dozen, I only have two. I said worst case just buy some and dump the food. She said she's thinking about that as a last resort. That surprised me a bit as she's the last person to be wasteful, but then she clarified: she remembers seeing a recipe that calls for baby food peaches or something, so she's trying to dig that up. Yikes!!!

Are there foods he shouldn't have, hasn't tried yet? You don't want to be the one to discover that food allergy. But probably not if you've tried pb&j.

If he likes rice - variations on fried rice? You can add chicken, turkey or beef, eggs, frozen peas, lots of different vegies.

Since he likes cheese, you can try something like a scrambled egg sandwich with cheese, or grilled cheese.

Peanut butter balls used to be a favorite here. Peanut butter, honey and nonfat dried milk, mixed up and rolled into little snack balls.

Try grilled cheese, cheerios stirred into yogurt, noodles with milk, butter and parmesan cheese or cheddar.

If he likes rice mix rice with an egg and milk and cook on low until creamy.

They are funny at this age sometimes it's taste and sometimes it's texture.

Remember...n ot many teeth!.
Bits of canned veggies...cherrios and more cherrios, cottage cheese, messy but...
well cooked veggies in cheese sauce...my one grand son loved broccoli rice and melted velveeta and a bit of milk....and his 3 year old brother thought that was the worst thing in the world and bagged my daughter not go give that yukky stuff to baby!
Bits of cooked salmon and tuna, of course cooked carrot bits and mashed potatoes and gravy!
And a grilled cheese sandwich...my kids' fave!
Linda C

bread, bread and more bread is what my grands love. So I spread it with cream cheese, make little sandwiches with turkey and also fruit. My littler grand will eat apple slices, persimmon, melon and grapes. Pasta, chicken tenders and pizza are faves too. How about cottage cheese mixed with noodles or fruit? Yogurt is what my two lived on at that age. Also the sweet veggies like sweet potato and squash.
It may be me, but I would not give peanut butter to one that little. It's thick and not easily swallowed. I also am concerned about the potential for allergies; immediate and stimulating more down the line.

meatballs? beef or chicken

Mine started with lentil soup around that age. One of the few things I cook that she still eats (insert angry expression here). Red lentils, onion, cumin, lemon, olive oil, s/p. (Red lentils cook up a much more appealing color than other lentils.)

A lot of kids eat beans, refried or otherwise.

He finally went after the banana..
He has no known food allergies.
He loves chocolate chips! LOL
I'm making a casserole for dinner with leftover chicken, broccoli and rice with a cheese sauce..He and I will try that tomorrow. Plus a few cubes of cooked carrot.
Thanks for the ideas..
By his "byproducts" you can tell his diet is mostly starch in the form of crackers, cookies and baby snacks and oatmeal..oh and milk and apple juice.
LindaC, he has 8 front teeth and has a few 1st year molars part way in so he can chew and bite food just fine.

He's not to bad with the baby utensils either..I'm going to stop at the thrift store later this week and get a booster seat..he sits fine in the dining room chair, but..he's such a sprout..I'd rather "boost" him up a bit higher.

Offer things that taste good to you, chopped or ground appropriately. Don't give them a hard sell, just offer them. If you honestly like the food, he will sense that. If you don't, he will rightly be suspicious so don't start with lutefisk. Parents who don't like carrots tend to have kids who don't like carrots. My daughter grew up eating and enjoying just about everything.

Jim

Terri that is so sweet of you to take such an interest in his eating.He is so lucky to have you.

Shelley

Thanks for starting this thread. My 14 mo old has turned terribly picky lately. Anything with noodles is a go. I've been doing them with parmesan and butter with peas or tomato sauce, pancakes, scrambled eggs with cheese and spinach, finely cut up lean hot dogs with a bun, perogies. Just a few, now I gotta run. Bye.

My 11-month-old loves whole foods and is starting to enjoy regular dishes. On a good day I steam fresh or frozen veggies. On a busy one I open a can of no-salt-added. Cut and serve. His favorites are (in this order):

beets (will eat plain beets all day, any day)
apple bran muffins
clementines
carrots
corn
banana
blueberries
applesauce + yogurt + oatmeal
plain spiral pasta
plain toast/Whole wheat english muffin
ravioli (the only way he'll eat spinach)
mac n cheese (Amy's or Annie's)
Cheerios

Sometimes he'll eat
peas
green beans
hummus
black beans
pinto beans
avacado

Most kids I babysat liked foods one at a time, instead of cooked dishes, until they were 2. I think a lot of little palates aren't ready for multiple tastes at once. Not all kids! But enough that it makes a difference.

Other fun things to try:

-Half a banana and a tray full of Cheerios. Mash the Cheerios into the banana.

-Offer frozen blueberries while they're frozen (and small enough to swallow whole). Like tiny popsicles!

-Deconstructed burritos. Tortilla, beans, cheese, avacado. Together or separate.

~Amanda

Forgot to add:

Roasted root veggies

He loves roasted potatoes, onion, carrots, parsnips

And plain chicken

Kids like to eat whatever the grownups are eating, too, so we have been eating simpler food and serving him off our plates. (We reserve a corner on the plate for him.) Plan your meals for things babies can eat and that might motivate him to be a little less picky.

Good luck!

things my kids loved:
#1 pastina. Make just like you are making rice, but substitute pastina for the rice and chicken broth for the water. Once it has cooked, throw in a tbs or so of butter and a handful of mozzarella, or parm.

2. bread dipped in egg (no milk) and cooked in a skillet. cut into finger food. Basically it is french toast, but much more eggy without the milk.
Good luck, he is lucky to have you.
Jo

Thanks you guys! There are some things on this list that I have readily available.
My boys always ate whatever we ate..I even chewed some steak or other meat and then fed it to them before they were one or just after. But it's been a while since I had to feed a little one...and since he's been raised on these "packaged" foods..trying to interest him in unknowns is a guessing game.

By 13 months with 8-teeth, he can eat practically everything except for very hard crunchy things (i.e. uncooked carrot) or very tough chewy things (i.e. not a slab of meat but shredded or small bites cut across the grain or meat loaf, etc should be okay). And if at this point if he has been introduced to lots of foods (even from the jars) and hasn't shown allergies, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I think even on things like peanut butter, there is a line of thought now that delaying introduction too long can increase the risk of allergy when it is introduced later.

By the way, unless something is man-hood testing hot, she is okay with spicy foods. The other day, she did grab a jalapeno pepper from our garden that was near her learning tower and found that a bit too much.

Some things that work well with our granddaughter (her father is vegetarian and she is being raised that way so I don't have experience with her and meat):

Protein foods:
Hard boiled eggs (she only eats the whites, her father was that way too but his brother only ate the yolks so back then the yolk didn't go to waste).

Scrambled eggs or a bit of omelet,

Seitan (a wheat gluten protien) cooked in a stir fry.

Cheese - we usually give her cheddar with crackers but she gets mozzerella and feta on pizza sometimes - the pizza crust is still a little tough for her so she chew the toppings off and gets part of the crust.

Beans, she especially likes black beans and rice (as does her dad so she gets offered it often on nights when something easy is needed).

PB and jelly sandwiches (in small squares - a whole sandwich can be kind of daunting) - she takes the sides apart and eats them separately.

She will also eat a bit of lentil or bean soup - she doesn't handle a lot of liquid in her spoon well yet and she mostly doesn't like to be fed by someone else (unless she wants something from Mom or Dad's bowl and then she will say "bite" and let them feed her a bite). So we drain off some of the liquid out of the serving spoon to mostly solids from the soup in her bowl.

Fruit:
Raw apple and pear slices - you might start with peeled thinner slices. I think by 13 months our GD was handling the peel but we started earlier. Once he gets the hang of processing the thin slices you can move to thicker and leaving the peel on. At 18 months, our GD has been known to grab a whole apple and make good progress with it but she can't finish a whole one so we try to discourage that.

Orange sections (or she isn't picky - she will chew a lime or lemon slice like her aunt).

Bananas of course,

Grapes, you might want to halve them to reduce choking hazards until he learns to handle them in his mouth. At 13-months we had stopped doing this but she started much earlier. She especially likes ones that have been put in the freezer which are soothing to teething gums. She will ask for "cold grapes".

DH usually gives her a chunk of banana to pick up and gnaw on rather than slices.

My DH spoils her and buys her favorite fruit, blueberries.

Veggies - just about anything roasted, steamed, sauted or from a soup. Even stir-fry veggies except that hard ones like carrots sometimes come out to crisp hard for her. Carrots with their slight sweetness are a big favorite.

Also raw peas fresh from the pod, or sugar snap peas or the flat chinese peas in the pod. (DH has them from our garden now and they will go out to pick some for snack.)

When pears or peaches were in season on our trees they would go out and harvest one of those for snack.

And of course cereal (mainly Cherrios and Special K - she hasn't been introduced to the very sweet ones), bread, crackers.

For excursions, my DH packs her a little ice chest as a "tucker box". He uses the smallest size Gladware containers and will put something like fruit in one; some kind of protein food in another: sandwich, cheese and crackers, hard boiled egg white; maybe one with cherrios: etc so there are three or four choices and a sippy cup with milk. When she gets hungry, she takes out the containers and examines carefully to choose what she wants - they both enjoy that.

And for snack time at home she is sometimes allowed to ask for what she wants from the fridge or counter at 18-months. We mostly keep healthy foods around though she does no that the bunny cookie jar on the counter sometimes has cookies.

It can be helpful to serve small portions at a time so they aren't overwhelming. She has graduated from using baby utensils to regular teaspoons and salad size forks.

Pancakes, waffles, with peanut butter on top of course... still one of my faves...but then there is that allegery thing that so many have these days...maybe some grits or biscuits and gravy..give em a taste of the south. If he is teething cold raw veggies were always a hit with the little ones in my group. Glad I haven't had to change a diaper in years now....and that was just babysitting..LOL!

David

I just have to say that Gerber is not processed crap. I used Gerber organic in times when convenience was a factor and the ingredients are the ingredients. Like applesauce is apples and I think absorbic C.

I wish people wounldn't brush off the seriousness of food allergies just because they dont have them in their family and it was fine with their kids.. It is on the rise and the numbers are staggering. Peanut Butter is not recommended now until the age of 2. THEY ARE DEADLY ALLERGIES.

WE have no allergies in my family whatsoever and found out when Grace was 9 months old that she is allergy to peanut butter, eggs, and soy. Her numbers are extremely high. I am constantly shocked how people just think it is "fine"...and then to tell others it is fine! Do what you want with your kids but don't put out misinformation. My son eating a pb&j sandwich and then kissing her could cause her airways to close.

It should be taken seriously.

At that age my kids ate what we ate. Their favorite things:
Ice cream, yogurt, cherrios, pasta, goldfish, rice cakes, crackers, any kind of fruit (cut into managable pieces) - my one daughter even liked lemons - it was so funny she would take a bite and scrunch up her face, but if I would take it away she would be angry. Meatloaf, meatballs, pieces of mild fish (like tilapia). Ricotta mixed with a little babyfood (like apples or plums). When I was in a pinch for time or the kids were hungry before dinner was ready I would throw a handful of frozen mixed veggies in the microwave cook and let cool.

What does his mother say about this? Referring to the food she gives her baby as "disgusting packages" is pretty insulting to her and her decisions.

I think you should to sit down with Jaden's mother and make these decisions together, certainly using the great suggestions you've gotten here. This is a great opportunity to lovingly offer other food options for her son. But her decisions are final, even when the baby is in your home, no matter how offensive you find her choices.

momj47 has a point. We work with our DS and DIL on questions about or GD's diet. And "disgusting packages" wouldn't be a good foot to start the discussion on. And I think that description is a bit strong even though we didn't use packaged baby food other than some baby cereal at the very start. But by 13 months, it is time to be transitioning to real foods and the baby should be ready for it. Once our GD started getting real food at about 10 mo, she lost interest in even the home-made pureed stuff pretty quickly.

The parents are in charge - but the day care giver has the choice to say "sorry but if those are the rules I can't do this." Hopefully, the discussion can stay far from that territory.

The need to include the parents applies especially strongly to health issues like how cautious to be about introducing the foods that are more allergy producing foods where opinions differ so strongly. And the parent who is taking care of the child in the evening needs to be aware of what has been introduced in case there is a reaction.

I also meant to mention that for many toddlers appetite can vary a lot from day to day. Some days our GD is really into eating and others she has what my husband calls "a low calorie day" when she isn't as interested in it. As long as she has normal energy levels and is staying on track for growth, we try not to stress about the ups and downs of toddler appetite.

I was a full-time working mom without a lot of time to cook for anyone. My son loved going to the sitter who made wonderful homemade food everyday, breakfast and lunch. In fact he ate so well and so much that when his appetite decreased at around 14-15 months, he pretty much just ate there on weekdays. He might nibble a bit at dinner and have something to drink but that was it.

My kids were allergic to dairy so that was a concern. They could tolerate a little milk (like in mashed potatoes) but no yogurt, ice cream, glasses of milk, etc. My sitter grew up the daughter of a dairy owner so this was really strange for her! We worked it out. When she saw what feeding my daughter milk-based formula did to her diaper, she got the message. ;)

Hmm, kiddos at that age can be very picky. I nanny for a nine month old and recently she discovered she likes to feed herself. Soo when she stopped eating her baby food veggies, I found an idea for veggie pancakes. Basically you start with a basic pancake recipe, (I use a whole wheat organic mix, her mom's choice) then I add frozen chopped veggies, or even add leftover baby food she didn't want to eat previously. Make sure its a good pancake consistency and then cook mini pancakes. She seems to enjoy feeding herself. You can make fruit ones too!! There are a few websites completely devoted to the topic of feeding children. I might suggest looking at a few of those. The one I found very helpful was wholesome baby food. Good Luck!

mj and cloud even Maggie, The food is the Gerber Graduates in little microwaveable containers. And then packages upon packages of crackers and cookies made by Gerber.
I give him some of that..but every package of food I've opened and heated he's turned his nose at and doesn't want to eat it for me. Soo...I feed him foods we eat here.
His grandma even thinks mom feeds him to much sugar and junk. She told me that yesterday. Grandma brings a small peeled apple which he usually hides..one day she brought a satsuma, which he didn't want. I know kids decide one day they like something and another they don't.
I was just looking for finger/self feeding ideas..from people who are "in the know" now..It's been a long time since I fed a toddler, and I knew people here had recent experience...WHICH I TOTALLY APPRECIATE...
I have frozen blueberries..I'll plop a few of those on his plate today, and cook up some carrots, to go with the leftover casserole.
What I was saying is..I don't think they feed him "people" food much...they feed him container food marketed by Gerber.

I fed my kids baby food in jars when they were very small...but once they were interested in what was on our plates and started to refuse the jars...well then...they got food. My last one..hardly had a jarred food, he never really liked it.

If you give him canned beets, warn the parents--the diaper will be rather alarming if they don't know!

for some reason, when one of my kids was around 15 months old, I had a jar of meat sticks (I know, I know!) Anyway, my child hated them and I was curious. I tasted one and knew why he hated it. I went as far as to call Gerber and tell them how hideous the meat sticks were. The woman I spoke with acted shocked and told me that they keep plates of those in the break room and they are always a crowd favorite.
I kid you not.
Jo

Fori, LOL...that is true..I love beets!!!!!

He's diggin the frozen blueberries.....

And right now he's eating some of the casserole...not as keen on it..but is eating the carrots I simmered seperately with a little sea salt and organic butter..(what's not to love? unless you're AnnT) lol

I admit it: I like meat sticks. So did my daughter. So did my cat, who she learned to feed early...no coincidence her first word was "kitty".

Kids seem to all love sausage. Mine loved the chicken-apple type. Me too.

I assumed you're talking to the parents about the food, right? My babysitter and I don't see eye-to-eye on every food-related thing and it has the potential to be a problem, but so far we've navigated those conversations well.

It adds a layer of tension that parents of previous generations really didn't have to deal with things that this generation has to--i.e. deadly allergies and over a decade's worth of research on nutrition that simply didn't exist before.

Talking to her is the right thing to do for safety AND it may help her see that there are cheaper, faster, healthier options than Gerber out there. (Seriously, opening a banana is less work than a package of cheese and crackers.)

~Amanda