Tips for parents of small children's

Sometime between baby's 9th and 12th months she will start eating chunkier foods with more texture. At this time she can eat certain table foods, but they still need to be cut up into small pieces and be soft enough. Unless the baby has all her molars in, she won't be able to chew harder foods or big pieces yet. A good way to transition her to table foods is to give her soft foods you eat such as pasta, potatoes, well cooked vegetables and rice along with small pieces of fish, ground meat or easy to chew meat cuts.

Another good idea is to mix table foods with home made or jarred baby food. You can add a few cut up pieces of the fish you had for dinner, for example, to vegetable baby food and mix it up. You can do the same with different types of food, mixing cut up food with soft baby food gradually making the mix chunkier as your baby grows more teeth and learns how to chew well.