The Best Finger Foods For Baby

Your baby is tired of being spoon fed goop, and let’s face it, you’re pretty freaking tired of cleaning it up. Time to start finger foods? Probably.

Be warned: It’s not going to be a lot less messy than the baby food, (and might even be more!) but at least she’ll be feeding herself… kind of. Which options are the best finger foods for your baby?

Since babies generally start self-feeding before they have too many teeth, whatever they eat will need to be easy gum and to swallow like these…

• Small pieces of lightly toasted bread, bagels, rice cakes, French toast, pancakes, or crackers that become mushy in the mouth.
• O-shaped cereals, wheat or rice puffs
• Tiny cubes of pasteurized cheeses or tofu
• Small chunks of ripe banana, or other ripe peeled and pitted fruit, like plums, pears, peaches, apricots, mango, or seedless cantaloupe, honeydew, or watermelon
• Small chunks of well-cooked veggies, like carrots, peas, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, or zucchini
• Flakes of broiled, baked, or poached (boneless) fish
• Well-cooked pasta, cut into bite-sized pieces
• Chopped hard-boiled eggs
• Well-cooked soft meats, cut into pea-sizes pieces

Finger foods should be a size that’s easy to handle but not present a choking hazard. All food should be cooked so that it’s soft enough to mush easily, and everything should be cut into tiny pieces. (Even a whole grape is too big for your baby right now and could be a choking hazard.) Like when you started with solid foods, introduce finger foods one by one and keep an eye out for any signs of allergic reaction.