HV reckons DS has a spoon phobia!!!

[jaybird]

am a bit stressed. DS 10MO and will only eat v.limited finger food, ie crumpets and fruit as will noot take a spoon. never bothered me as we both get on with this arrangement and he has his milk quota. but just got back from HV and DS has only gained an ounce in 6 weeks. he has gone from 50th centile (when breastfeeding, stopped at 6MO) to 9th. she has referred him to a dietician and also to the speech therapist as she says he may have a phobia about the spoon going into his mouth!!! nearley wet my pants laughing, but she was serious and we have to go. DS is nothing but an independant little bugger who doesn't like to be pressured into eating and will munch away at his own pace. HV made me feel stupid asking me if i'd tried giving him fishfingers, cheese sticks etc etc. i have tried giving him every bloody finger food known to man but if he doesn't feel like it he won't eat it and i just don't stress about it. til now. she made me feel like i was starving my child and giving him a spoon phobia!! he so obviously doesn't have this as he will gladly put a spoon and anything else into his mouth. feel really crap. anyone else been referred for eating probs?

[Tissy]

jaybird,what would happen if you left ds alone with a pot of yoghurt? Does he eat that with his fingers? I wondered if he has a dislike of the texture of sloppy foods, rather than the spoon itself.

[jaybird]

have tried leaving him to his own devices with a spoon and a dsih of fruit puree. he just happily chews away on the spoon then tries to chew on the bowl. not interested in food inside it whatsoever. he will sometimes take the odd bit of yoghurt or fruit off a spoon, but only on his tems, so i do offer him the spoon every day - its hit or miss weather or not he fancies it.

[fastasleep]

Have you tried soft food in chunks? Ie, steamed sweet potato/potato/carrot/swede/turnip... soft enough for him to not choke on but not slop? Maybe he hates slop!

[fastasleep]

(Or boiled)

[tarantula]

you could try just not going to see HV. I like my HV but only ever went once in a blue moon as it was an hours walk away and didnt do dds 8mnth check till she was nearly 10 mnths cos I kept forgetting it. I have no idea what dd (now 16 mnths) weights or what centile shes on. I think what you are doing sounds good and Id just keep offering him food and letting him use the spoon or his fingers. Dd can eat a yogurt and her porridge quite well without a spoon . Have you tried thick cold porridge with raisins in BTW ??? Its dds fav food (after chocolate).

[fastasleep]

Oh by the way my DS is 14 months and just on the very lowest line on the centile chart, but then again he always has been so we haven't needed to go to a nutrionist or anything, he eats loads though, and everything under the sun...especially with grated cheese on... just goes to show that if they want to be skinny they'll be skinny!

[jaybird]

have tried the works. he hates any type of veggies and just lobs them over the side of his high chair. there is not a finger food known to mankind that i haven't tried in all shapes and textures. he will eat: buttered crumpet, hot cross buns, any kind of fruit, chocolate and quavers. he's just a clever little bugger who picks and chooses what he fancies, although with the fruit he practically hoovers it off the tray, sucks out the juice and then spits it out. i know he's not getting a lot of nutrition, but short of attatching him to a drip i don't know what to do! - HV has really worried me.

[fastasleep]

HV's manage to worry everybody, toddlers need suprisingly little to get by.... and I wouldn't take the centile thing to heart too much... he eats a more varied diet than some children I've heard of!

[emkana]

WTF is the HV talking about? Spoon phobia?????????
My dd2 has never ever ever let me feed her with a spoon. In fact during the first 12 months of her life she didn't have anything other than milk. Just refused to eat, full stop. It worried me a bit, but now she is 21 months and eats fantastically well, feeding herself perfectly with spoon and fork.

My advice to you would be, and I hope it's okay for me to say this: Keep offering him finger foods (but stay away from Quavers and chocolate), keep offering him other foods and a spoon for him to try using it at his own pace, and keep away from stupid ridiculous HV's.!

[hunkermunker]

Totally agree with Emkana.

Your HV is mad.

Spoon phobia? Mental. He's eating food, so don't stress about it (stress + food is a bad combination, which I am sure you know).

Please don't feel crap. DS did the same "useless in the eyes of the HV weight gain" and even lost weight twice.

As for the speech therapy - that's totally mad. Is she one of the old school "if a child doesn't swallow purees at 4 months, they'll never talk" doom merchants? Should be bloody shot.

[hercules]

I would not bother going to her again. What a load of rubbish!

[NotQuiteCockney]

The only thing your child needs, other than formula, is something with iron in. So if he'll eat, say, dried apricots or figs, you're fine.

The HV sounds bonkers, frankly. Time for you to develop an HV-phobia, methinks.

[snafu]

She is clearly barking and tbh I would completely ignore her. WTF does a 10-month-old need to see a speech therapist for??

I stopped seeing my HV once ds turned 1 as she drove me up the wall and reduced me to tears of utter frustration almost every time I saw her. Like you, I had a pretty laidback and generally sensible attitude to ds's food-fussiness and she managed to make me feel like a neglectful mother every time.

[jaybird]

thank you all, you have just backed up what i was thinking. he's 10MO and we have to see a speech therapist - she was adamant - i'm actually more p**d off than worried - she was asking me, have i tried giving him a bit of chicken or potayoes when we cook a roast? have you tried fish fingers? she was onlyt about 12 too and speaking to me like i just wasn't feeding him! anyone can see he's perfectly happy and healthy - bit long and thin but with chubby legs and arms(he's on 99th centile for height) but he's also using up loads of calories crawling as he's very active.
Notquitecockney, thanks, he will happily eat any kind of dried fruit, although has a chew and spits it out, so not sure how much vitamins he's getting, but i didn't realise they contained iron so will keep that up. i think i may too develop a HV phobia!!

[donnacb]

hiya HV definatley mad. Fingers invented before spoons. If you are worried about vitamins, iron etc. You can get them in liquid form to add to milk. vitamins is abidec, sytron is iron ( think you need to ask gp for that one) and Folic acid. My ds is on because he was premie and idnt have enough stores. Abidec tastes fowl and stains but he takes it allright. but it sounds like your little one is eating something and formula milk has vitamins etc added. also my ds dropped from 75th to 25th centile. dietician suggested more meat protein etc also fromage frais. good luck and ignore your hv. speech therapists normally v nice go once smile and dont go again

[NotQuiteCockney]

The easy food sources for iron are meat, pulses (lentils, chickpeas etc - hummous counts) and dried fruit. Oh, brocolli is good, too.

HVs depress me. Some of them are lovely, but many of them are bonkers. One of our local HVs told a mum with a 12-week-old to give solids! He is exclusively breastfed, and nice and fat. But he was a bit off-colour with a cold, so, yeah, give him baby rice. Grr.

[knockin]

You say he likes hot cross buns. Could you try making your own so that you can put plenty of dried fruit in, and you could keep the sugar content down too.

[Aragon]

jaybird,

I'm a HV too - your HV is talking crap. Your ds has dropped from the 50th centile to the 9th because he is crawling and also because he is growing (on the 99th centile for height sounds like he has had a spurt in his height to me - no calories left over for the weight bit). He sounds fine and I certainly would not be worried. You're doing all the right things in not stressing about it and letting him do his own thing. He's 10 months old for goodness sake. What does she expect. At this stage food is about exploring as are all other objects - he'll use a spoon when he's good and ready.

Honestly - believe me when I say his weight is fine. The drop is due to increased activity (crawling) and a leap in his height. My DS spent lots of time on the 99th centil for weight and dropped to below the 50th by the time he was 10 months - a drop in centiles is fine if it's not accompanied by any other worrying symptoms (and by that I mean things you would notice -not the HV).

Get a HV phobia - some of them talk absolute crap.

If you feel your ds is fine I'd be inclined to cancel the dietician and say you'll contact her in six months if you're worried.

Mandy