Losing the plot with weaning !!

[skeet29]

This may sound like a massive rant but basically i am desperate for any practical advice re weaning my 7 month old daughter onto solid foods.

According to the advice given by our health vistor our daughter is showing all the signs that she is ready to wean, she is sitting up on her own, watches us like a hawk when we eat, and has started to wake during the night for an extra feed (where she was previously sleeping through)

She currently has between 4-5 8oz milk feeds a day, which she happily guzzles down.

We have started trying to wean however she basically refuses everything we offer her clamping her mouth shut and turning away, we have tried pureed food, mashed food, finger food, home cooked food, food from jars, food from my plate - all met with the same reaction

We have managed to sneak a spoonfull of food in by making her laugh then whipping it in, she will swallow this but then quickly cottons on to our game and clamps her mouth shut no matter how silly our faces lol

i have asked friends and family for advice which quite frankly has left me totally confused. According to some they stick to the mantra "food is fun until one" and tell me to keep offering food as and when but to keep up the milk foods, others recoil in horror that my daughter isnt having 3 square meals a day!

I have tried offering food at different times of the day, again all met with the same reaction.

Today in total desperation i called the cow and gate advisors and was told that i was basically over feeding my daughter and that i need to reduce her milk intake to 20 oz's per day, so that she is hungry enough to eat food!

I then called my Health Advisor and they told me not to stress as there were no issues with her weight gain, (she is where she should be on the percentile charts) , to maintain her current milk feeds and to continue to offer a variery of foods but to keep a food diary before popping in to see them next week.

all the conflicting advice/info is driving me insane i dont know what to do for the best and generally feel a bit of a failure with this weaning lark, so if anyone has had a similar experience and can offer any advice i would be extremely grateful

Thanks

[Pascha]

This bit is always a bit terrifying. Can you just leave your plate near her when you eat and see if she plays with any of the food? Let her have fun with it and don't worry about how much if anything actually goes in her mouth, and be relaxed about the fact that she might just chuck it or spit it out. I would stay well away from spoons and go down the BLW route as she obviously doesn't want you to help her at all.

My son ate very little til 9.5 months when something just clicked and he suddenly started shovelling it in. Lots of babies eat bugger all at first.

[Pascha]

And the HV is quite right, you should let your daughter dictate when to drop the milk amount. She has half a year to gain an appetite for food and nothing bad will happen if it takes a bit of time. She will get there in the end, honest.

[skeet29]

thanks so much for taking the time to respond, i def think BLW is the way to go, and i will stry not to stress out too much !

[bramblina]

I would say just stop. Forget it for a week or two, relax, and try again. Maybe just put 5 peas on her high chair table and see if she puts them in her mouth- some kids just don't put things in their mouths.

Maybe she just isn't hungry when you do offer food, try leaving a bigger gap between milk and meals.

And, it infuriates me when people say the babies are ready to eat because they start watching you eat- if you lifted a piece of wood and put it to your mouth they would watch that too! If they have no idea what food is, why would this mean they are ready?! Just being hungry (ie what you said about waking up) is enough to say the milk may not be enough for her.

Just relax, don't worry wbout it, she will eat.

[SwedishMumInLondon]

No advice from me, just to say you're not alone! My DS is eight months and is still eating very little. It's driving me insane but I'm trying to keep calm and leave him to it. But It's not fun watching him throw my home cooked food on the floor and scream at it....

[Karoleann]

DC3 was almost 9 months before she'd take any solid foods. I know how you feel it was very frustrating.
I just gave up for a couple of weeks and then tried again.......it went on for a while, but she's a good eater now.
She would feed herself little bits and pieces of food before she would take a spoon, so its worth putting finger food on the tray.
Try not to let it worry you

[ShesAStar]

My DD is 7 months as well and won't eat anything I offer her - I did manage to get some mashed banana into her when she wasn't looking and she swallowed it but her face was a picture - as though she had sucked on a lemon.

She is my second child and my first ate everything I offered so I'm not used to this! I am not stressing about it - she will eat when she's ready!

[Goldmandra]

Whatever you do please don't try to trick her into eating again. It will just make her distrust you and feel far worse about food.

You know that she's getting everything she needs in her milk at the moment so the challenge is to get her to enjoy food, not to get her to eat it.

The best thing she could do with food at the moment is probably play with it. Try putting a blob of jam or a spoonful of dark coloured fruit puree on her high chair tray for her to explore. Do the same with anything she will fiddle around with, squish between her fingers, etc. Give her lots of different textures but don't try to get her to put any of it in her mouth.

If she won't touch it at first don't worry just keep leaving it in front of her.

Eventually she should start to explore the foods by tasting them and she'll repeat the action with the tastes she enjoys.

I remember feeling very stressed when my DD1 started clamping her mouth shut early in the weaning process. My health visitor really pursed her lips when I said I was stopping trying for a month but I didn't feel I had any option. She wasn't mature enough to feed herself or play with food like your DD is and I couldn't keep trying to force her.

Try not to worry. The food diary might show you that she's eating more than you thought.

[MrClaypole]

Ugh another food refuser here!

DS2 is 8 months and eats very little. A few spoonfuls of mush a day or a few licks of finger food. It's got worse since teething started.

DS1 was an absolute gannet so this is very odd to me. He's very chubby though so am not too worried!

[skeet29]

its so nice to hear i am not alone, all the friends and family i have asked have never had any trouble in getting their children to eat !!

[PrincessScrumpy]

I would play with food with dc and if some goes in then great. Eat together, you take a bite then offer it but in a very relaxed way. But don't stress, it will be fine x

[jaggythistle]

haha bramblina, so many people are currently telling me my 5mo DS2 is getting more interested in food. Mumsnet makes me a bit brave so i did tell one that he'd have a glass of wine out of my hand too, but I'm not going to let him.

he's starting to do wobbly sitting up, but still pokes Calpol out of his mouth with a disgusted expression. so I'm in no rush.

he is absolutely huge for his age, so it's actually easier than with DS1 to point out that he's doing fine on milk and no one needs to panic!

we started DS1 quite slowly at 6ish months and i also recall people being a bit that he was only on one or 2 meals a day.

the advice to let her play with different things sounds good, i think we'll be doing a bit more of that with DS2. :)

[F1rstT1meMummy]

Just a thought- have you tried sitting her in her high chair when you eat? If not, this may help. You could even try having some food for her on your plate to see of she would like to try some of 'yours'.
I agree with other posters, have a week off and go back to it. Good luck

[Iggly]

Yes let her join in with your meals. So she isn't the focus of attention. Let her grab your food!

[milkysmum]

Sounds like BLW would definatley be the best idea rather than trying to force/ sneak food in. I would just put a selection of food on her tray when you are eating and see if she fancies any- if not try not to worry- she'll take something eventually!!

[SlanketySlank]

Don't worry about it at all! DS1 didn't really take to solids until around 10 months old, he hated being spoonfed and wanted to feed himself. He didn't have 3 meals a day until he was 1 year old. He's now 2 and is a fantastic eater!
I just used to sit him at the table for meals and put some food on his plate, if he ate it that was great if not I just took it away with no fuss. He's a brilliant eater now.
DS2 is just over 6 months and has no real interest in solids but I do try and feed him some puree because he only has two breastfeeds during the day and feeds every two hours at night.

[AitchTwoOhOneTwo]

am at the cow and gate advice....

agree with the others, just forget about it and let her join on with dinner, when she decides.

[jumpingjackamo]

I had exactly the same issue and this was just a few months ago; now, it seems like a lifetime ago. DD eats everything now and wasn't even interested in pureed foods but was more interested in actual solids. I was amazed at how quickly she moved from being interested but clamming up to gobbling up everything in arms reach.

I got the same reactions as you and was totally baffled by it all including my DD's contradictory behaviour. I learned to relax and let her lead and within no time she was wanting to eat everything I ate.

My advice is just relax and keep on with the milk while introducing food gradually. let her play with food to begin with rather than expecting her to actually eat it. My DD still likes to examine what I give her and squish it in her hands before actually eating it. If I try and give her something straight to the mouth that she hasn't examined in that way, she clams up again. I gave my DD thinly cut and peeled pieces of grape and soft pear and oranges to begin with and she soon moved from this to savoury foods along with her milk feeds.

Another thing that really helped and I still do, is let her get very messy with the food. I let her tip the food out onto her tray or all over the dining table (or even floor when at home) and let her eat it in her own way while completely immersing (yes very new age sounding I know) herself in getting to know the feel of different foods. Now she knows which foods we regularly eat that she likes and does not like just from seeing what is on offer.

[BooBumpDaddyandMe]

Amazing how they are all so different isn't it. My ds was the exact opposite, never very interested in milk - never managed 1 8oz bottle in the whole time before weaning & couldn't waiting to be on the hard stuff, so to speak.
Weaning should be and certainly was for us a fun time - I think the best advice given has been leave it for a few more weeks and take the pressure off all concerned. Your dd sounds happy and healthy which is all that matters, she'll get there eventually .