when should you have your little off Gerber 3rds?

Question

When do kids usually start to get away from the Gerber 3rd food? Is it ok for young toddlers to have some of the graduates meals and a few Gerber 3rds still?

Answer 1

My daughter hated most baby foods (she only liked the fruits and the desserts) so I just waited until she was about 10 or 11mo old and gave her small, soft foods that she couldn't choke on. I started out with foods I knew she would like to encurage her to eat the solids. In a few weeks most of her meals consisted of regular people food. Here is a list of some of her favorite first solids (note: they were cut up small enough to keep her from choking)
1. banannas
2. cheese (string, shredded, or crumbled)
3. deli cut lunch meat (especially turkey, ham, and oddly enough pastrami)
4. cereal (especially cheerie-o-s) softened with a little milk.
5. tomatoes
6. steamed carrots
7. steamed and peeled apples/ pears
8. peaches and plums
9. whole wheat bread with butter and jam
10. chicken noodle soup
11. yogurt- any flavor
12. eggs, scrambled, hardboiled

Here's my logic: if they can swallow jarred baby food, then they can easily swallow soft foods cut into tiny pieces. Putting these types of foods in their mouths almost instantly gets them mashing food with their gums out of instinct and has helped my daughter learn to eat more of a variety of food. When I actually tasted the jarred food my baby was eating, it all tasted very similar.

To set your kid up for future success, start exposing them to normal food now. My daughter is only 21 months old and will eat almost anything I eat. She will even eat corn chips with mild salsa.

I also made sure my daughter took a good multi-vitamin and she drank pediasure after she turned 1.

Answer 2

personally I never wasted the money! by the time any of my children were able to eat the stage 3 foods, they had whatever we had, just in a lot smaller pieces! Stage 2 was basically the same way... I just mashed up what we had to eat (for the most part) Just be sure to make sure your little one is getting a full variety of foods, and Lots and lots of fruits and veggies!

Answer 3

I never used them. Just the stage 1 and 2 aliitle. You can make them good home cooked food just mash it up a bit and dont add salt and etc. I always put a little season on my kids and I put them up to dinner with us.

Answer 4

Babies can be off baby food by 1 year! They can eat soft foods like noodles, small peices of vegies, soft meats, bread, etc... Start out slow and see how they handle it.