Baby won't eat!

olgadapolga

I really wouldn't stress about it. Your little one will do it when good and ready. My youngest son refused anything until he was 9 months old and then he just got on with it. He will now eat anything. My youngest daughter on the other hand was ready for food at about six months and also eats anything!

Your HV's advice to reduce his milk is, quite frankly, ridiculous (and I can say this as I am a HV myself). Milk is a baby's main source of nutrition until 12 months. Weaning is about a baby finding his way with food, learning to chew and swallow, trying out different textures and tastes, NOT to get loads of nutrition and calories.

No two babies are the same. Your HV should be tailoring her advice to your situation, not trying to make one hat fit all (whilst making you feel guilty). Can your baby sit up without support? That is often a good indicator that a baby might be ready to wean. Do you have a highchair so that baby can sit up at the table with you?

If I was you, I would just keep offering food at mealtimes and see what happens. Eventually your baby will try it. Have you tried porridge made with expressed breast milk? If that goes down well, try adding some fruit to it to give a bit of variety, or try weetabix made with EBM. Don't worry about giving your baby "proper" food either - lots of parents worry about babies choking but the gag reflex is amazing.

But please, don't stress about it as your baby will pick up on it and that'll just make the situation worse. Don't stop BF your baby as it won't change anything, just trust that your baby will decide when to start eating.

stiltwalker

Don't stress! as others have said just keep offering food and tastes, milk will do the trick for a while yet.

DD was amazing with food - helped herself of my plate at 16 weeks (mind you that was the first and last time she self fed til 21 months, but that was due to her disabilities) to let us know she was interested and then progressed nicely through the stages of puree, rough mash, proper food - learning to chew beautifully, which is a miracle in itself considering the coordination issues and oral sensitivity inherent in her syndrome. DS came along (same syndrome so expecting similar self feeding probs) - did puree beautifully, at the appropriate time, gagged like I was trying to poison him when I tried to introduce any kind of texture, no matter how slight. Was beginning to get worried until DD solved the problem by announcing "DS like" and shoving a cracker at him which he grabbed and began to munch, from that day on he had exactly what his sister had chopped up and put in front of him just as we did with her way way way (age wise) before DD had self fed (he was only 8 months). Turns out he's just not that keen on that inbetween texture - he still hates things like carrot and swede mash, risotto etc, or anything like that, can now get him to eat mashed tatties (good job in this house as everyone else loves them!) but it has to be a really smooth mash so have to make sure they are proper floury potatoes or he will turn his nose up. He's almost 2 1/2 now and although he eats 3 good meals a day plus snacks we are still trying to wean his milk intake down to something approaching normal - he is still drinking a minimum of 2 pints a day, he is 98th centile for height but only 50th for weight - at least he'll have good bones!

meritaten

I honestly wouldn't worry yet - at this age they should be tasting your food but not relying on it for nutrition.
I would actually 'give up' on baby meals for a month or two or even longer. your baby wont come to any harm just having milk. I think that sometimes their 'instincts' are better than our 'science'! my son was a nightmare when I switched to bottle feeding from breast (on doctors advice). he rejected it totally and after many battles I HAD to feed solids - turned out he was allergic to cows milk! in this instance 'baby knew best'!
I know its worrying and you DO tend to treat the 'milestones' as if they are the 'word of god' - BUT, babies do things on THIER schedules! if he isn't ready he isn't ready! leave it and and as long as he is 'thriving' - don't worry yourself unnecessarily!
oh, I am a mum of three and have six grandkids and have learned the hard way to be relaxed about 'food'!

meritaten

babymonster2 wrote: »

On this basis all Hv in my area are idiots (a sentiment I tend to share!) he does just really like milk, OH reckons its the pretty packaging it comes in :rotfl:

Well,,,,,,,,,,what would you prefer? a nice warm soft booby? or a hard plastic bottle? not to mention that with a booby you get the cuddles as a matter of course!
It may be a separate discussion - but, I cant tell you how many times I could have slapped DILs for feeding the babies at 'arms length' or even worse......propping the bottles on cushions! grrrrrr

SmlSave

Hi babymonster I'm another baby led weaning fan and while I'm repeating what others have said - trust yourself and milk (bf or formula) is enough until 1 year just on its own.

Offer food long enough for baby to hold when your eating and just see it as play/explore time for him.

The Gill Rapley is good to read (borrow from library) and this website is friendly http://www.babyledweaning.com/

Try not to worry hun and avoid seeing/talking to the HV about weaning if you can.

SmlSave

SmlSave

P.S. If you do decide to give blw a go get ready to be preached at by the puree brigade and to freak out everyone who is convinced that baby will choke.

lol, my mum was terrible until she met a few older blw'd baby's who ate everything including melon with the skin on - they eat the nice bit and spit the skin out!

babymonster2

Thanks ladies, so glad to feel like I'm not being judged! Have given up completely for a couple of days so that hopefully when we try again we won't both be stressed about it. Think I'm going to try the baby led weaning, have got that book thanks smlsave, and ready to ignore the pur!e brigade :-) loads of people think it's strange that I'm still feeding (at not even eight months!) so not interested in their opinions!

MissKeith

I am in a similar situation with my nine months old son. He will eat any fruit but hardly anything savoury. He tried a few mouthfuls of potato last night and a little bit of tomato for lunch but that's as far as we've got. We have been trying BLW since six months with him but he's only interested in sweet things (helped himself to my birthday chocolate yesterday... Little monkey.).

I can't help worrying about him as he's still breastfeedinga nd seems to show little to no interest in solids. It doesn't help that my sister is a trainee hv and is worrying me. I've even resorted to spoon feeding him weetabix for breakfast with some banana mashed in. He seems to enjoy it but tends to be moreinter ested in the bowl and spoon.

I'll keep trying him with solids, we eat as a family with him in his highchair along withus. I can't say I'm not worried that he seems to have a rather strong sweet tooth...

Mrs_pbradley936

I have a 30 year old that is 6 feet 1 and totally healthy and yet I was sure he was going to starve to death!

Offer food and leave it at that although I made sure he had milk and vitamins because I had convinced myself that he would have rickets within a couple of days.

Also I used to prepare his food from scratch separate to ours because of the salt. I would invest time, effort and emotion into meal times all to no avail. In the end I switched to jars which at that time were 40p offered it, left it for 10 mins then took it away without comment. My reaction was the same whether he had touched it or not.

I really believe that this is the first of them pushing your buttons. If you plead, cajole and beg they soon cotton on and learn how their behaviour can influence yours.

Oh and it gets worse not better!!

applecrumble24

My first was like that, but somewhere around 10-11 months he just got food and he eats like a trooper now.

Try not to worry about what your helath visitor says, my yongest is eight months and I asked her for information on baby led weaning a couple of months ago only to be told she wasn't 'allowed' to talk to me about that and then proceeded to tell me I need to refuse him milk so he will be forced to eat through hunger!! Funnily enough my sister lives 5 miles from me, in a different county, and her health visitor will only offer baby ed weaning advice. Makes you scream!!