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LO didn't start liking solids until she turned 1. Can't force a baby to eat so I just offered lots of different things. Made puree's, soups, gave her pieces of food, etc.
I cringe when I think about all the food I wasted

I agree about feeding from my plate. He wants what I have. His first bite actually came from a plate grab at around 5 months. He hated purees and preferred to have control over what he ate. So he wouldn't eat if I fed him but would help himself to a big fistful or whatever it was. It was messy, but he ate pretty well.

@pastemoo: I get that. When I was cooking I tried to take out LO's portion part of the way through, or before adding lots of seasonings. What ended up happening though is that he didn't really like the plain stuff, and once we let him try the "normal" food he started liking a lot more things.

We started (maybe around 5 months?) with finger foods that I would hold and he would mouth (at first he'd suck, and later he started bite/chewing). At first he was really into this, but he seemed to be losing interest. Then I gave him applesauce and he was in love with it, so I decided to give into 'traditional' and go with mush (even though I wanted to do more of a BLW style). So at 6 months I started giving single-grain baby cereal (but nice stuff from the health food store) plus purees of the veggies that I had, at 5 months, let him gnaw on. He was Mr. Puree, happy-to-be-spoon-fed baby for about 3 weeks and then all of a sudden one day he didn't like that anymore and sortof refused to eat until I gave him finger foods (toast strip). And since then it's been more of a mixture: he'll usually eat finger foods for breakfast and lunch, but for dinner he likes us to feed him. When we feed him we feed him a variety of ways, popping bits of food into his mouth with our fingers, spoon feeding mushy stuff, and fork-feeding tiny bits he can chew with his little gums. He seems to like almost everyhing now, even things that he rejected many times (such as avacado). And we are surprised that he likes food that we have cooked with all the spices that we normally use (for example, last night was fajitas: spicy and all!).

We started off by putting her in her high chair, putting a new "food" bib on her and letting her sit there playing with a toy while we ate. Then we started offering her some purees on a spoon. She is still more interested in eating her bib than what's on the spoon but last night she actually showed some interest in the peas I offered her.

@pastemoo: lol that's awesome!! I was really shocked when she wanted more of the peas. I hate them but my husband likes them so, maybe that's it? Definitely keep feeding him things that you like and ate while pregnant. Maybe that's the key!