Baby gets frustrated with steamed veg sticks

[nams]

Hi

My DD is still a week away from the 6 month mark, but she has a voracious appetite and does her best to grab anything myself, my husband or her brother is eating, especially puddings and cakes! The health visitor suggested starting weaning early, and we really want to do BLW this time round, so we started out a week ago with a few batons of steamed carrot/sweet potato/broccoli at dinner time. She enjoys squishing them in her hands and 'painting' her highchair with them, and will raise them to her mouth and suck on them, but then seems to get frustrated with them and start crying. Buttered toast fingers had the same effect when I tried them yesterday, but we've had more success with banana, strawberry, raspberry and cheese - I don't know if it's because they're mushier and easier to eat, or if she prefers the flavour!

Today I was a bit naughty and gave her one of those pouches of fruit puree (mainly because I had lunch out and got it free with my meal!) and she loved it - she held the pouch with a little help and sucked it like crazy! Then this evening I gave her a selection of steamed carrot, broccoli, pepper and mushrooms, which she happily played with, but had a mini temper tantrum every time she tried gumming/sucking on one.

So any tips on how I can get her to eat her veg?

[EnigmaFish]

Just curious: by any chance did you have lunch in a large, blue Swedish shop with a love of flat-pack? I ask pq they also do the free fruit purée pouches and I always get one for the girls because free food.
So, six months isn't set in stone, it's a guideline. If your baby can sit up without support, seems interested in your food and can bring things to her mouth herself, she might be ready even if she hasn't hit six months yet.
Your baby is still getting most of the nutrition humans get from fruit and veg through her milk. More of what they need at that age is protein, iron and fat. I would guess that she likes the fruit (purée pouches especially) pq the sweet taste reminds her of her favourite food, milk. I wouldn't stress too much at this point about her eating veg or not.

[nams]

Haha, yes you guessed right! I love Ikea (free cups of tea!) and so does DD (lots of people to pay attention to her and tell her how gorgeous she is!)

Based on those criteria, she's definitely ready. I'm just hoping a dislike of veg now won't translate to a refusal to eat veg when she gets older?

[lizandimo]

I second what EF said about not worrying too much right now about veg. Tastes can change a lot - even from day to day which can be frustrating! For example, DD used to hate broccoli, but now she thinks its great. Conversely, she used to wolf down cucumber but now will rarely touch it. I think most babies have a preference for fruit in the beginning, I know DD (at 3) still does, but that's not all that she'll eat. Once your DD starts to get the hang of feeding herself, she'll probably start developing lots of new tastes.

[emzit]

You could try roasting them. I alway used to road chip shaped root veg and bite the ends off so the soft mushy inside but could be squeezed out. Both my boys loved them.

[nams]

Thanks for the reassurance all. Thanks for the tip emzit - I had thought roasted veg might be a bit hard/crispy, but hadn't thought of cutting the ends off!

What's everyone's opinions on commercial finger foods, such as the Organix carrot snacks, biscotti etc? I know DS used to love them when he started finger foods, but not sure of their nutritional value?

[StJuniper]

here in Canada, at least, commercial baby foods tend to have a lot of sneaky extra sugar in the form of fruit juice concentrates...

[Treeb]

Commercial foods can be great for convenience, especially when you're out and about since you can just keep some on hand in your purse or wherever for when you need them. As StJ says though you do have to pay attention to the ingredients/nutrition info and watch out for added salt and sugar.

My lo loved gumming on sticks of raw cucumber and strips of raw bell pepper from the start. Maybe she would like those texture more than mushy steamed things.

[nams]

We've tried raw cucumber, she wasn't a fan

Tried oven chips today (for all you Americans, that's what you'd call fries, not the crispy things in a packet!) - not home-made unfortunately but a brand where the only ingredients were potatoes and vegetable oil. They were a hit, so it seems it's really only veg she won't eat!

[Lily]

Plain steamed veg do taste quite boring. Have you tried seasoning or dressing them? Butter, olive oil, pepper, finely chopped herbs - there are lots of low-salt ways to enhance the flavour.

[nams]

Thanks for the advice all

We seem to have turned a bit of a corner today and made real progress She tucked into buttered toast for breakfast, then for lunch at my parents' house she made a real effort with all the veg on offer (carrots, broccoli and babycorn - all boiled). They were a bit harder than I've been cooking them for her, and since she has no teeth yet I'm not sure she managed to get much out of them except for the broccoli, but she had a good old suck and chomp on all of them. Then we tried her with a satsuma for dessert, and she absolutely demolished it, chomping and sucking all the juice from each segment with evident delight! This evening she's had a little bit of cheese and some banana. She's doing much better at actually finding her mouth with the food too!

She's still breastfeeding just as much as normal, if not more (we were up till 3.45am last night between feeding and wanting to play!) Should I be offering her a cup of water with her meals, or not yet?