Hints and tips for weaning (merged)

msb5262

Hi Gemma,
I know it's easy to say from here (my children are 14, 12 and 10 now!) but don't worry about this. When your baby is ready to feed herself, she will. If she's currently willing to be spoon fed, go with it. If chewy meat is the problem, chop it finely then mash with vegetables etc or use mostly minced meat for a bit. I think small children like copying other people when they're eating - you don't say if your daughter is eating with you at your mealtimes. This may help. You could also try giving her a second spoon when you're feeding her so she can experiment with the mushed-up food. My children were all keen on using forks and enjoyed using a small metal fork to impale things like chunks of cheese or banana, or pasta twists, or of course chips. Breadsticks to dip into a pot of cream cheese or hummus can be fun, likewise toast soldiers in a boiled egg or into thick home-made soup. These are just thoughts but honestly, don't worry about food issues unless your child is clearly unhappy or unwell. I bet your baby has learned endless new skills and done many new things in the last two or three months - maybe the security of keeping mealtimes the same is what she needs. You also have lots of pressure on you to do what the books/experts say...try not to let it get to you. Babies unfortunately don't know what they're meant to do *when* - they just do things when they feel like doing them! If your daughter is happy to be fed, feed her; you are obviously doing an excellent job meeting her needs, so don't get stressed about food. Just enjoy this stage while you can!
HTH and best wishes.

wendyphant

My ds have big probs with meat til 18 months and now at 2 he is not keen. Mind you he had no teeth til 10 months and no molars til 18 months so how it was expected for him to chew i don't know but i did have a lot of pressure from HV for him to have meat. I found fish a good supplement he still got his protien but fish is easier.
I would make anna karmel 's chicken and apple and as he got older i used it as a base ( like shepards pie) and put mash on top. I got hiom used to the taste via stews.
Now I don't get too anooyed but he chews the meat to get the flavour but won't swallow it and a lot of the other mum's in my tots group say the same

vickyjayne

my dd is nearly 3 and she would not eat 'solids' until she was one she would only drink milk, from 1 she started eating a little bit but to this day she can live on a slice of toast and a bowl of cereal a day, been to specialst but they have now told me just give her what she wants (that means anything)
it is not nice when you worry bout what they eat but she is still young so dont fret she will eat what you eat soon enough then wonder what you worried about

starbump

Before you stress too much, I gather you are still breast-feeding and baby is actually eating solids (that you feed to her)...? If so, she won't starve and the rest will surely just take time.

I still help my baby with cutlery at 17 months. If you are keen for her to use a spoon, try something "sticky" like mashed potato - I put it on the spoon for my baby, give it to her and she puts the food in her mouth herself. Something like yoghurt is too runny so I spoon feed that to her. Meat, I think, depends on how many teeth baby has - it is quite tough after all. My baby has no problems but she has 11 teeth through the gum now! I didn't even give her meat until 12 months anyway. She has no problems feeding herself with her fingers and I don't remember needing to encourage this so I can't help there. The only things I can think of is maybe baby eats more than you think (their tummies are still very small) or maybe it's the actual foodstuff being rejected rather than refusing to eat with fingers? I do offer things a few times to make sure she doesn't like it rather than just not being hungry but if she really doesn't like something then there is no way she'll eat it. Bananas were particularly disliked. And some fruit skins like blueberries - sucks the juice out and discards the rest. Oh, and for some reason red grapes are yuck but green grapes are nice. Most other things she eats - particularly if it can be "stolen" from mommy or daddy. I suppose because it confirms we were actually going to eat it ourselves as otherwise she can be slightly suspicious of new foods.

Savvy_Sue

It might be worth letting her hold a spoon even when you are feeding her. And passing her a loaded spoon from time to time might also help. You could even 'swap' spoons with her.

She may be one of those babies who doesn't like mucky fingers, DS2 used to eat soup with his fingers which is a bit extreme! :rotfl: It did have lumps of bread in it.

Savvy_Sue

I have found a previous thread which will hopefully reassure you that this is normal, or at least as normal as parenthood ever gets, and give you more ideas.

tsstss7

gemmaj wrote: »

I did some BLW but it all went wrong from 8 months ish and I ended up doing purees with odd finger foods. Until recently I was happy feeding (and Annie happy eating) purees and mashes of my food or meals I have cooked for her, which I feed her by spoon.

I am trying to puree and mash less, although I dont seem to be able cook anything tasty at the moment (before I could mash it with some cream chs etc and make it tasty, now it all seems a bit dry and basic). Also she can't eat some food unless it is pureed - chewy meat for the main. I have also tried getting her to self feed but its been a total disaster. If I give her the spoon she can feed herself from it, but she can't put food on the spoon herself (she won't even try). I have also tried letting her finger-feed herself but she won't eat much that way. One night she ate almost nothing for dinner and was up most of the night hungry and screaming.

Is it ok / normal for me to spoon lumpy chewy mush into her? Or is this not suitable for a 1 year old?

If at this age she should be "eating what you eat" (and how you eat it) how do I get around the fact that she can't chew through most meat, won't put food on her spoon and won't finger-feed herself more than a sampling of food?

Aaah, please help! I should be planning Christmas, not beating myself up about food!!

Hi honestly I think you are doing fine. My ds2 is 13mths and sometimes goes to bed hungry purely because at times he gets too stubborn to eat and chucks it all on the floor (absolute nightmare) added to this he WONT let us feed him at all and has been using a spoon (badly) but mostly his fingers for ALL his food including weetabix and mash potatoes since he was 10 mths old. (I haven't braved the soup yet) :rotfl: .

I don't give him meat so can't help there but He mostly has what we have and I try and make all food baby friendly by chopping up small and like suggested above if we are eating food I don't think he should have (eg curry) I will give a substitute instead.

There's nothing wrong in giving your Lo mushed up food if that gets the job done -I only wish my lo was still letting me feed him!

gravitytolls

Sorry, don't plan to hijack this thread, but if I can tap into your collective experience for some advice please.

Despite having had 8 babies, and breast fed them all, I have absolutely no idea how to stop. The first five naturally moved onto a bottle at about 14 mths, with little resistantce. The 6th was a mummy's boy and fed until age 4, whn daddy insisted I stop. By then no.7 had arrived, and I'd been feeding 2 for a year, which worked out great actually, as I had no period of sore nipples, and again with no.8.

Now this arrangement was fine, until I developed thrush in my nipples. My word, I've never known pain like it, and I eally felt I'd rather die than have to give another feed. Anyhoo, after months of tratment, w egot through it. But it's taken it's toll on my nipples, they're very dry, crack easily, and need to be lubricated with vaseline all the time. I have now got sore again, and I'm terrified the thrush will return. But at 21 months, he's very attached to the breast, and very unaccommodating, especially when tired, regardng having a bottle or cup instead.

Any advice please, though I know that if it involves tough love, and crying, I'll give in.

Savvy_Sue

8 :eek: :rotfl:

You deserve a medal! :rotfl:

I am not an expert, so if you can access a breastfeeding counsellor / someone from La Leche League that would probably be worthwhile.

But I have some suggestions, based on my ancient and my friend's more recent experience, it DOES involve tough love, but maybe not as tough as you think. And remember, if for some reason you absolutely couldn't feed, he WOULD survive. Honest.

Most important, I wouldn't necessarily try any of this before Christmas. Although if the pain comes back, I'd probably just stop, but I guess you're made of sterner stuff than me.

Does he drink anything other than breast milk? If not, that would be the first thing to crack. See below.

Are you at the stage where you are only feeding at certain times? If not, I would try to move to that. At 21 months, I believe they CAN understand concepts like booby = bedtime, not bedtime = no booby. It just doesn't come out during the day. My friend found her youngest did scrabble about a bit, but if she said "Not now, booby at bedtime" then there wasn't TOO much fuss. Yes, it was worse when baby was tired, but bearable. A range of cups might help (or it might not), also phrases like "Big boys use cups / straws / whatever you have to hand to try!" Maybe he'll get on with a sports top bottle. Maybe for a treat he'd like a carton of juice - I had one friend who thought her youngest couldn't manage one, but I think he heard the magic words "He's too young" and decided to prove her wrong, because anything Big Sister could do, he could do better! Of course you might want to give him a half empty carton first so he can't squeeze juice everywhere, unless you've got some of those natty carton holders.

But even if he doesn't drink initially, he WILL get some liquids through food. Honestly. At least that's what my HV said.

Then, does he feed himself to sleep? My eldest did, so when I wanted to stop feeding, he had to learn to fall asleep himself. Which was a bit of a battle, and I did feel rather guilty leaving him with a babysitter on his birthday to scream himself to sleep. But no, she didn't have to leave him screaming for long (she wouldn't have done, but like your youngest mine would not take bottle, cup or spoon, although he was by that stage taking small amounts of juice / water from a cup.)

I can imagine that getting a babysitter isn't the easiest thing to do, so if you can't, feed him but try to stop before he's 'off', then find somewhere you can hide while someone else takes over the tough love. Headphones in a room he can't see you. Yes, it may be distressing, but you repeating the mantra "Mummy back soon, time for sleep now" before he goes 'off' and whoever's holding the screaming baby continuing with that may help.

I may be wrong, but I think he would fairly quickly get the hang of at least the 'booby at bedtime' idea. I know he's still YOUR baby, but he is growing up. And you do have to look after yourself.

BTW, I presume he doesn't like nipple shields either? Which might or might not help anyway. Also have you tried things other than vaseline? It is very good, but sometimes I find it just makes my lips drier. See if Santa would like to bring you something organic and wholistic and free from everything, look on the Health Board for some ideas if you need them.

Obviously letting the air get to them is part of the accepted wisdom, but I can see problems with that. :rotfl:

gravitytolls

Thanks Sue darling.

He does drink from a bottle, beaker and lidless cup. But when he's tired, hurt, poorly etc., he just wants me. Co sleeping adds to the problem.

I tried sleeping elsewhere, but I could hear him crying, and DH is too woozy from night time pain killers to do more than pat his back and whisper shush. I can't listen to him cry, so \I give in. Maybe I should leave the house altogether? LOL.

I use nystan and lamisil to combat the infection, which is proving highly resistant to permanent eradication, and vaseline for the dryness caused by the creams. I dare not try anything else, as I had a horrendously painful reaction to the very gentle kamillosan several years ago, which stripped layer after layer of skin from my nipples, with even the MW recoiling in horror.

As for the air thing, I have no problems with it, and the children are well used after years of breastfeeding, to seeing bosoms, and are completely unfazed. Good, hopefully the human form will hold no illusions or fascination for them, beyond the normal hormonal urges.

I don't know, I think I may have to grin and bear it, at least until I am able to communicate with him that it's no longer acceptable.