Hints and tips for weaning (merged)

Lady_Pink

Sorry if this should be elsewhere/merged etc but I've had a good look and can't find a post that answers my question.

Basically, my nearly 7 month old daughter won't drink milk and is getting difficult about food - I've been as patient as I can but I'm getting desperate and upset now, especially as I have to go back to work next week. We weaned her at 5 1/2 months as she was showing all the signs of being ready and did *so* well - glugging her milk and eating everything we gave her. Then all of a sudden she's gone off milk - cries when she sees her bottle sometimes, and is getting fussy about food. She will have a few sips of water but sometimes refuses that. I don't think it's teething - she has her bottom teeth but no sign of the top ones. Some days she'll eat 3 meals, others she refuses anything at all. I've been making my own food but also tried jars, just in case it's my "cooking"! From a MSE point of view, I feel like I'm just pouring money down the drain and into the bin (I couldn't BF for various reasons). It's costing a fortune for nothing and I worry that she isn't getting the nutrition she needs.

Some days she will only end up having about 200ml milk (6 or 7oz ish?) - which isn't even half of the suggested 500-600ml. I try and top her up with cheese and yoghurts, which she does like - but she can't live on yoghurt alone, surely?? I also worry that by giving her the yoghurt it's encouraging her sweet tooth and setting up probs for the future.

Sorry if I've waffled but I am so near the end of my tether with it all, have been in tears as I worry I'm setting her up for a future of poor health. HV and GP are useless and everyone I know with a baby isn't having any probs with food, so can't offer advice.

Does anyone have any advice or help please?? Suggested feeding times etc? Ways to get her to drink milk? Advice on feeding? ANYTHING really, I just feel in such a tizz and like such a rubbish mum

Glad

Please go back tp your HV, GP or even ask advice from Midwife
MSE is a moneysaving forum and I know you feel your baby not eating is wasting money, but this isn't the place to ask for advice if you are not sure what your baby's problem may be


Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: Sorry, giving or asking for medical advice is not permitted on this forum as it’s not what this site is about. While discussing medical insurance policies, cheaper ways to see consultants, cashback for alternative health treatments and how to get specific medication cheaper (legally) are all perfectly acceptable we ask you specifically not to discuss what to do in the event of certain medical problems (please see this rule on the Health Board). If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL]

looby-loo_2

Hope you got sorted

Soubrette

Hi Lady Pink

If your baby seems dehydrated, listless or 'spaced' out in anyway then consider phoning your emergency GP.

I had a baby who was not a great eater (and even now 15 years later isn't that interested in food). Make sure that you regularly get her weighed at the GPs (we used to have a weekly baby clinic) as sometimes we don't think they are eating enough but they are actually doing fine.

I understand what it is like when it feels that your GP and HV aren't being very helpful but keep plugging away.

My HV suggested small snacks between meals as a way of increasing my daughter's appetite, unfortunately this did not work for me as all she did was then refused lunch and tea (presumably being full from the snacks!!).

In the end I accepted that she has a small appetite and just had the attitude of putting new things in front of her to try and giving a small pot of fromage frais for dessert as she would have had anyway.

Try not to have food as a battle ground so hard as it is, be relaxed if she chooses not to eat something and try not to punish her (by taking away desserts) or inadvertently rewarding her for not eating her savouries (by giving her double desserts because you feel she has to eat something).

Also keep a food diary so that you can show that to the health visitor and s/he may be able to use that to see if there are areas of concern.

Good luck

Sou

starbump

Worth pointing out that if anyone is in need of medical advice, there *are* services outside office hours. You could try phoning NHS Direct. Your local surgery (GP) will probably have an emergency phone number for an on-call doctor. And, finally, there is always the A&E department at your local hospital. You can find all of these phone numbers/addresses in your phone directory - Yellow Pages, Thomsons, BT, etc.

Anyway, had a look at the other thread... anyone who cares enough to be concerned about their baby is clearly a good mom. Any recent weaning problems are not your fault because you were unable to breast-feed. However, anyone who didn't breast-feed may not realise that breast-milk tastes sweet - all babies are therefore born with a "sweet tooth", so don't worry about that.

Lady_Pink

**Would just like to point out that at no point was I asking for medical advice. This is what I actually asked for - Does anyone have any advice or help please?? Suggested feeding times etc? Ways to get her to drink milk? Advice on feeding? ANYTHING really, I just feel in such a tizz and like such a rubbish mum" Thanks BTW for the PM with kind words.**

Thanks starbump and Soubrette. Baby certainly isn't ill, she's been seen by Gp recently and we go to baby clinic every 2 or 3 weeks to get her weighed and have done since she was born. She's at the weight she should be. HVs aren't very interested in anything other than weighing her - when she had gastroenteritis they just kept saying "see how she is in a week" repeatedly - in the end it was advice from the milk co careline and other mom's that helped me to make her comfortable and get her better - GPs advice was to starve her of milk repeatedly! HV told me off for doing that on GP advice - I can't win.

It's really experiences like Soubrette's that help - everyone else's baby seems to be scoffing milk and food happily and while she's interested in a few things and will take the odd spoonful here and there, she just doesn't seem to be interested in food unless it's yog or fromage frais. If I can get her started on eating (she turns her head away, clamps her mouth shut and gets upset if I keep trying) she will eat so it's getting her interested in food that's the issue. She often takes some coaxing to have yoghurt even though she loves it! I'm running out of ideas. She also doesn't follow the usual milk/breakfast - mid am feed - lunch - mid pm feed - tea - late feed pattern so I wanted to find out what feeding patterns other mom's use. As i said, any advice, experiences or help was welcome - i'm all out of ideas.

I think perhaps my original post wasn't as clear as it could be, although I thought by saying "some days" it indicated it wasn't short term sudden change but accept it was hastily written in a fog of desperation - i went back to edit it to be clearer and it was closed. it's not that she's refused feeds in the last couple of days, she's not suddenly off food and she's not ill - she's just been less interested in food over the last few weeks. She doesn't want milk anymore having tasted "proper food" but she doesn't seem bothered about proper food unless it's the baby equivalent of cream cake - I don't want to get into battlefield situations but am also worried that alot days she's going without any real intake of food or milk and worry that she'll make herself ill by being so fussy. I'm trying really hard not to react in front of her but am still getting upset and worried and feel llike I can't do anything right! (even on here)

Soubrette

Yours sounds very similar to mine then

I remember visiting the health visitor for her pre-school injections and expressing concern about her eating, I think she would eat say a weetabix for breakfast, half a small sandwich (no crusts, thin slices) and a fromage frais for lunch and a few spoonful of peas for tea.

The hv said they all go through slow eating phases but I was trying to tell her that she was eating really well at the moment and yet it seemed so little . It was after this that she said to try the unsuccessful snack idea of a few carrot sticks at 10.30am and a biscuit at 3.00pm

Some children seem to do better on the finger foods though, when they have a choice of what to pick up and try and are aware enough to be interested in funny faced pizza or whatever (my daughter had a horror of finger foods and hated getting in a mess though so ended up being spoonfed until she could tidily feed herself at about 3, I remember being the only mum to spoonfeed when she was two at a friends party - the good side was that all her clothes were in pristine condition for her sister though )

My mum's advice was to forcefeed by holding her nose - apparently she used to do this to me - I reluctantly tried it once and it was an horrific experience for both of us, so decided that was definitely not for me.

One other thing that was suggested to me when she was about 18 months was to stick to definite meal times and just calmly clear it away if she's not interested after it has been offered until the next meal time so she is definitely hungry each meal time. I would rate that as semi successful.

Sou

pookienoodle

if she has a sweet tooth go for the good things that taste sweet.
oven roasted parsnips and carrots go down well with sweet tooth babies.
maybe she is a little and often baby.
why not try giving her smaller more frequent feeds ?
if she is happy and healthy don't worry.
just as we all know adults who don't eat much babies are the same just try to tempt her with a wide range of good food.
btw those mums whose kids eat well, sleep well, don't cry,stay clean,never have tantrums.......I think they fib.

Lady_Pink

pookienoodle wrote: »

btw those mums whose kids eat well, sleep well, don't cry,stay clean,never have tantrums.......I think they fib.

Lol, thanks for that! She's been sleeping through since she was teeny so I think this must be my battle. I think I've got so wrapped up in being told she should have this much milk, she should eat then, she should do this and should do that that I've forgotten that she's not a textbook, she's a baby (HV has no kids btw, so guess she's not looking at it from the sticky end of things).

Not that the money matters at the end of the day, but we seem to be tipping over half the formula we buy down the sink these days, along with all the food we puree. I'll be seeing the HV again tomorrow to ask about whether it's worth dropping feeds that are just upsetting her and getting thrown away, or perhaps using a follow on milk? Anyone got any experiences of this? Figure if I offer her milk with breakfast, snifter of milk before lunch, water with evening meal til we see how we get on, and keep on offering her a 11pm bottle that would be enough opportunity for her to get her milk quota. I've been following the Annabel Karmel planner as hadn't got a clue when it came to weaning (HV advice was a brief NHS booklet and nothing else) but her way of doing things just doesn't seem to suit us. Just seems an awful long time for her to go between meals - am with Soubrette on the snacking just making her have no appetite for meals. She's pretty good with trying new things, it's just getting her to have any more than a mouthful of anything that's the challenge - and the milk refusal was starting to really stress me out as everyone makes such a big deal about 500/600ml milk/dairy a day - and no way is she getting that.

Krystaltips

Have you tried making up smaller bottles and offering smaller amounts of food? Psychologically it is easier to accept smaller amounts as they are less daunting, also less waste if they are not drunk... Using a different cup/bottle teat might help too...

My DD was breastfed but between about 7-9 months asked for milk less and less, I had a chart from a formula company stuck to my wall with suggested feeding amounts on and she was probably asking for about 1/4 of what was suggested... I ended up throwing the chart away because it didn't help me... and after a while she just started asking more often...

At the end of the day, if she is hungry/thirsty she will eat/drink... No child will ever starve itself... (They just like to wind up Mommies and Daddies by excersizing free will when all the books tell us they shouldn't!)