First Finger Food Ideas For Babies
Looking for some easy first finger food ideas for your baby?
Introducing finger foods to your baby for the first time can be a little scary. What do you start with? How do you prepare it? Will they know what to do with it? Will they choke on it?
If you’re just getting your baby started on finger foods, here are some easy first finger food ideas to help you feel confident about this next stage.
Firstly, what exactly are ‘finger foods’?
If you’ve just started your baby on solids or you’re thinking about it, you might be wondering why everyone keeps talking about finger foods. Aren’t they for parties?
Well yes, but when it comes to feeding babies, finger food is basically just food that babies can pick up eat with their hands from a young age, i.e. fingers of food or finger shaped foods.
Finger foods are important as they help babies develop their motor skills, gain independence, tolerate different textures and also allow them to eat a wider variety of foods. They also make meal times more enjoyable for them and for you (and a whole lot messier…).
When should my baby start having finger foods?
From around 6 months of age, babies’ hand-eye co-ordination and motor control have usually developed enough so that they can start experimenting with feeding themselves. Finger foods are an important part of learning to self-feed and also gives your baby more control and independence at mealtimes.
So whether you’re doing traditional spoon feeding (i.e. purees), baby led weaning or a combination of both, when your baby starts to pick things up with their hands (usually around 6 months), it’s a good time to start offering finger foods.
What finger foods should I give my baby first?
Start with soft, easy to handle finger foods such as soft fruit and well-cooked vegetables in finger shapes.
These can be given as part of their meal, while you prepare your baby’s meal or after their meal as a ‘dessert’. Just pop them on their high chair tray and let them play around.
Starting finger foods for the first time can be a little scary and a lot of parents are unsure about how to do it and what foods to start with.
Here are some easy first finger food ideas for babies (and parents!) who are just starting out:
Pieces of soft cooked vegetables - such as sweet potato, potato, pumpkin and zucchini or soft raw vegetables such as cucumber sticks
Soft fruit cut into fingers - such as bananas, mango, soft pear slices, avocado and melon fingers
Toast fingers (lightly toasted) spread with fruit puree, mashed banana, yoghurt, avocado or hummus
Cooked pasta spirals
Well cooked lamb chops – the bone provides a nice little handle and babies can suck out the juices and get important nutrients such as iron and zinc (make sure there are no chunks of meat which could be torn off)
A few other tips before you get your baby started on finger foods:
Texture is important – finger foods should be soft and ‘smushable’, but not so soft that they disintegrate in your baby’s hand
Finger foods should be easy to hold – most babies don’t develop a pincer grip until 8-12 months, so early finger foods will need to be foods that can be held with the whole hand
If foods are too slippery for your baby to hold, add texture to allow for better grip - This can be done by using a crinkle cutter (you can buy these for a few dollars), leaving some skin on foods like banana (cut just the top section of skin off) or rolling the food in rice cereal, oat or coconut flour
Babies might not actually get much of the food in their mouth at this stage – that’s fine! Allow them to explore, have fun and develop their fine motor skills
Things do start to get very messy, so be prepared! Babies naturally want to play with their food, squish it between their fingers, shake it around and drop it on the floor. They’re not doing this to irritate you, it’s just their way of exploring this exciting new world
Make sure you’re supervising them at all times - and that you know what to do in the unlikely event of choking. First aid courses for babies and children are available or alternatively, there are instructions and videos available online via St John Ambulance.
For more information on introducing solids safely, grab a copy of my Step-by-Step Starting Solids Guide