Baby won't eat! 22 September 2013 at 4:19PM in MoneySaving mums 36 replies 2.9K views

SmlSave

I can't say I'm not worried that he seems to have a rather strong sweet
tooth...

I watched this really interesting programme about how baby's/children are programmed to like sweet things and hate anything even slightly bitter which explains the problem at lot of us have getting kids to eat veg!
The conclusion was that as long as you keep offering different foods eventually their taste bubs develop so they eat more choice.

Lol, thinking about it I was a kid that lived on air until I hit college and now I eat everything.

Make-it-3

We were BLWers - some great advice on here from others. Just to say the average age for BLW babies "getting" food is around 9-10 months.

Babies need calories, calories, calories. No wonder they reject pureed carrott and apple (that's diet food). The easiest way for them to take those calories on board is milk (with booby milk being the gold top variety

olgadapolga

applecrumble24 wrote: »

... 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!!

This is completely outrageous advice. She's basically telling you to starve your child in order to force him to eat something he's not ready for? How would she like it if HER food was withdrawn so that she had to eat something she didn't want? If this treatment was applied to a child/adult it would be termed as abuse. This woman should be reported to her superiors as clearly her information is not up to date. Report her to the Nursing and Midwifery Council as well - part of their standards state that nurses/midwives/HVs need to have current information and that it is up to the individual to maintain that knowledge.

Absolutely disgraceful. Nearly as bad as the HV would told me that I would cause my DD1 to have brain damage if I continued to breastfeed her (she was slow to gain weight, I have since discovered that this is a trait in all my children).

olgadapolga

SmlSave wrote: »

I watched this really interesting programme about how baby's/children are programmed to like sweet things

Might also explain why breastmilk is sweet to the taste.

Aimless

Round here it's all BLW, health visitor produced a lovely stack of pics of babies tucking into takeaways I was slightly shocked at the thought of all that salt!

I had another not too fussed one. BLW wasn't really for us, he'd have some purees but would not touch the stage 2 or 3 shop ones. Still won't touch those shop shelf toddler meals. He'd have a go at finger foods but gagged easily. Anyway, he was probably a year when something finally clicked and he started eating what I class as a significant amount. Oh, and at 20 months or so still loves a breastfeed or 3!

I think I heard the advice is generally to wait till they're one and see if there's still an issue.

heyboo

Hi

My LO is 8 months old and I'm 'still' BF! I'm also doing BLW (although not quite as evangelically as some...he has some stuff on a spoon!).

To start him off I used to put him in his high chair and sit him next to me while I ate - he became curious and so I started offering little bits of food.

The Baby Led Weaning cookbook is full of good ideas and the website is great too.

And your HV wants a slap - withdrawing feeds...wow!

I started with easy stuff - bananas, avocado etc. Babycorn is ace as it's quite grippy! Ditto broccoli. As was mentioned above, carrots, apples etc have very few calories. A microwave steamer has been brilliant.

Anyway, don't force it, mealtimes should not be stressy, keep offering and ignore that HV! x

Mrs_Imp

My son scoffed puree from 4 months and couldn't get enough. My daughter was just not interested until about 7 months. Now we give her finger foods to chomp on while we eat (bits of what we have) and top it up with puree afterwards. She'll only eat from a metal spoon, so it might be worth your while trying metal rather than plastic. Even so, she doesn't eat a great deal and prefers to have mummy milk.

If you go down the BLW route, be preapred for a lot of mess. If you go for mush, be prepared to be told that BLW is the only proper way to feed your child (I got it so often with my son, and I get it now with my daughter when I say I use mush too)

All babies are different so don't worry too much.

babymonster2

So, after seeing two health visitors(one who also suggested dropping milk!) and three breastfeeding specialists, went to GP today and my baby has oral thrush! Not surprising the poor little mite doesn't want to eat!

GP not entirely useful though as she omitted to mention that I may have it too, luckily some other mums but me wise to that one, read up on it and have every single symptom myself!

We now both have medication so hoping we'll get better and he might start to enjoy food a bit more.:)

sooty&sweep

Hi
My daughter hated purees she much prefered to have proper pieces of food to eat. Preferably that she could pick up with her fingers.
She didn't get her first tooth until she was 13 months but she still managed really well with just gums so just made sure that things were fairly soft.
Jen

applecrumble24

olgadapolga wrote: »

This woman should be reported to her superiors as clearly her information is not up to date. Report her to the Nursing and Midwifery Council as well - part of their standards state that nurses/midwives/HVs need to have current information and that it is up to the individual to maintain that knowledge .

Thanks for that. I already put in a complaint to PALS but i'll follow it up with the NMC. The same health visitor also told me absolutely all 2.5 yrs old should be potty trained and that in order to get my son (2yrs 7mths) to use the potty I should just put him in pants and make him clean up any accidents himself as he was being stubborn and manipulating me?!
I'm getting a new health visitor now so hopefully this one won't be quite so hardcore!