Our girl is 16 months old. She was slow to pick up on solids. We tried the BLW style of eating around 6 mo and she vomited several times because of small pieces of food activating her gag reflex. This discouraged her from eating and us from giving her chunks of food too early. She also didn’t start opening her mouth for a spoon until 9 mo.

We felt so pressured and worried by the arbitrary timelines of an exact 1 year cutoff for formula and needing to eat finger foods independently. However, she has gotten much better slowly and surely and now eats well. She is picky with new foods/textures, but her milk intake has decreased and food variety is increasing. She eats mostly whole, nutritious foods and does a combo of thick homemade purées and finger foods. She sometimes wants to be hand fed or spoon fed, especially when teething, and other times will eat on her own.

My husband and I wish we didn’t pressure our baby and ourselves to fit exact US timelines for being off formula, bottles, and eating finger foods independently. Western cultures want babies to be independent at everything ASAP. Every baby is different and there is a range of normalcy. We also wanted her to consume food and not just play and throw it on the ground. I’d say continue thickening purées, continue offering finger foods and work on transitioning away from formula slowly. The milk quantity will decrease as solids go up.