Mumsnet Talk

My lovely 11m old has never accepted anything I've cooked for him from scratch, whether pureed or lumpy. He eats Hipp 7m jar food happily, but isn't impressed by 10m (lumpy) food. He spits baked beans right across the room. Small lumps of anything we eat gets poked and left on his tray. Fruit and sticks of steamed veg won't be touched. The only 'home cooked' thing he does eat is marmite on toast cut into small squares.

I work full time so am restricted to weekends in trying to coax him on to mainstream food, but am keen that we don't get stuck in this rut for too long. Am I worrying too soon, and does anyone have any advice for expanding his (hideously expensive!) menu?

Thanks.

Bless you, this sounds just like my first ever post on here, I got some obnoxious woman saying how personally she never had this issue and had I thought of chasing ds round with chick peas - I mean WTF!!

Lets see if I can be of more help. My ds would not eat anything I had made, it was like he had a home cooked radar! After the stoopid reply that I had, the first thing I did was leave mn for ages, then I made veggie mix for the freezer, just the usual mash potatoes, peas, carrots etc, in small ice cube trays to start with, and when I warmed up his jar, I hid the small amount of veg in there, gradually upping the amount of veg and reducing the amount of jar food so he gradually got used to the taste and texture of our food but didn't realise, then I tried to match his jar to our meal eg pasta or chicken meals, and added some of our meal to his jar food, again getting him used to the taste and texture, eventually I realised I was not using the jar as a meal, but as a 'sauce' or favouring to what I had made. Do not worry about his ability to eat lumpy food, it took my ds ages to get the hang of It.

I hope this has helped, if not, you could always chase your ds round the house with chick peas!

I'd take the fact that he likes marmite on toast and work out from that. Put other things on toast or go for similar textures like slices of crusty bread or rice-cakes with toppings.

buggerit that is ingenious! What a lovely post.

Good luck OP

Thanks debka, hope it helps.

My friend's DS ate jars only for ages but branched out quite quickly when he went to nursery. She then gave him a jar in his own bowl but offered him bits of her food too and he started trying them. He eats a great diet now. She thinks the problem was partly that he ate on his own a lot, once she started eating with him he wanted to copy her, and his friends at nursery too.

But I think mixing jars and home cooked is a great idea too.

Great idea buggerit (love the name too )

my boys were fussy monsters, almost 11months now. They started off on a mixture of jars and home made. They liked home made then they hated it and then they hated weetabix until I heated it up in the microwave now they hate jars and only eat homemade unless they see me eating and steal from my plate! found out they love sausages too oh and the rice pudding (jar) gives them very smelly poo so I stopped that one!
Isn't this stage fun!

Good luck!

mumof1plustwins, thank you <allowing myself a small courtesy> thought of the name all by myself

Mean curtsey not courtesy! silly predictive phone text

Thanks so much - I tried the stealth approach yesterday and it went really well UNTIL he came across some onion, which got immediately ejected and then the rest was refused! So perhaps it's more that he's anti specific (slimy?) foods? Hilariously, he saw us eating a bowl of chilli crisps yesterday and helped himself...even though his eyes started watering and his face went bright red he not only kept on chewing but came back for seconds I had to take the bowl away in the end.

I'm introducing him to anything we've got going on in the kitchen and no doubt it'll start to stick at some point. Roast beef for lunch today!

Buggerit your help is wonderful and we will persevere. I feel a lot more relaxed about the whole thing now.

Anthony - you've also given me a lot of comfort.

Tanks very much everyone. Really appreciate you taking the time and I'll now stop being such a anxious (though first time, so slightly allowed?) mum.

I'm finding my bits tastes differ to eachother and they change they're minds monthly! They don't like too much broccoli in their meals now but love meat and will eat anything they can feed to themselves. Finger foods may be the way to go, sometimes I can sneak in a few spoons of they're usual meal whilst they're about to take a bite of their finger food!

Boys* not bits!

DS was a bit like this. I kept the jars and made him food, trying to copy the ingredients and textures of the jars. Then I put it in the old jars. He ate it. I have to say it was a bit of a faff (e.g made bolognese, pureed in magimix, then cooked and added tiny pasta shapes. Made meat part of shephards pie. diced and cooked carrots really tiny. added to meat then put mash on top). But I did massive batches which I froze in the plastic containers from Hipp and Organix jars. So I spent an evening every couple of weeks doing this, but then never had to cook anything, just microwave.

Stick with it oneof4, I promise you will get there! Mumof1, I hope your bits are sorted soon!

Oh buggerit

The link didn't go blue...can't click on it :/

buggerit you are a genious, I would never have thought of that. We went down the other route of offering something you know they will eat along with something new, so the jar would go into a bowl where he could feed himself, but he would have other things on his tray to try if he wanted too. DD has always been a bit tricky but she was in the kitchen while I was cooking at that age an always ate better when she could see what was being cooked.

How does he go on in the week? If he's at nursery/childminders what does he eat there?

I send jars to the childminder for lunch and she gives him a bit of whatever the other kids are having at tea, which he doesn't eat....except this week he ate some cucumber!

I'm defrosting madly for this weekend's stealth-feeding.

Felling a lot better about this since I posted on here and think he's coming on okay. Would be great if we could get him on to regular food before he bankrupts us though.

Thanks everyone.

Glad you are feeling better about it One. Have you spoken to your childminder about this? She might have some ideas on how to get him to have something else at lunch.