Are all 6mo this difficult to feed?

[Bellie]

DD is 6.5months and is on 3 meals a day plus 4 bottles. She is gaining weight and is happy and healthy. However mealtimes are a complete battleground and usually ends with her and me in tears. Basically she will eat 2-3 spoonfuls ok and then I have to sing to get her to sit still! She will look everywhere apart from me and often is trying to escape from the highchair. It can take up to 50 minutes to feed her - is this normal?? I am at my wits end and am dreading going on holiday as dont feel that I will be able to feed her in public. Help!!
TIA
Bellie

[debs26]

are you sure she needs more? stop doing what you think you ought to be doing and try listening to your baby. unless she stops gaining weight i wouldnt get stressed about it and let her lead you. if you do think she needs more what about giving her a few spoons of one thing then trying a different flavour? or feeding her a tiny bit of food more frequently?

[hunkermunker]

Please don't fight her to eat - this will be the start of lots of problems for you and her.

Instead, put some pieces of food on her highchair tray and let her explore it (try toast fingers, steamed carrot sticks and broccoli florets, bits of cheese, cut up grapes (never whole ones!)). You shouldn't be trying to make her eat food at this age - she'll get what she needs from milk.

[dinny]

sounds like my dd and ds at this age, Bellie - perfectly normal. like Hm says, milk is the primary food for the first year anyway.

peel grapes for this age or not, HM?

[beansontoast]

just want to say that when my boy was small my mantra became...'just trust the blimmin baby'...cos i was always getting myself wound up about stuff that really didnt warrant it.so give up when the baby gives up...and certainly before either one of you cries
we all know what you are going through x

[Bellie]

Thanks all - it is a relief to know that I am not alone - I will definately remember the mantra and starting from tomorrow stop before it all gets too much and give the option of other foods on the tray - hm do you peel grapes or not?

[hotmama]

Bellie, as another Oct O4 mum I know exactly what you are going through.

Def peel grapes, as I believe the skins can cause choking? There was that story not long ago about a baby choking in a supermarket when it was eating grapes - but it may be because they were whole grapes - cut and peel just to be on the safe side?

[hunkermunker]

DS used to have them unpeeled but quartered (still does - what am I talking about used to!).

But he had teeth, so not sure if that made a diff? Peel if unsure, definitely.

[Bellie]

Just an update - breakfast was a pleasure this morning - dd eat her cereal but then when she was bored I gave her a rice cake and a rusk to chew on and we had no tears! Thank you all

[TracyK]

ds was exactly the same - until a couple fo months ago - we went through stages of me using my fingers to feed him, him using his fingers, me keeping his hands busy with clothes pegs thingy to get a spoon in, him wanting to use spoon, etc etc. My meal times also took up to an hour as he would refuse for about 10 mins - then just as I was giving up - he'd start to eat!!
But while they are still having a lot of milk - they don't really eat that much I don't think. it was only when ds started dropping mid morning and mid afternoon milktimes (about 1yo) that his appetite increased.
So don't worry about it - ds still goes through days of eating like a little horse and a couple of nights ago he only had 2 squares of bread and jam for tea. Still slept through the night tho.

[Bellie]

Lunch was better too - when she started to spit out her veggies we moved onto pudding whereas before I would have kept going with the veggies. However new worry - will she work out that by doing this she will get her pudding (which she eat all up) and end up stopping eating veggies altogether?? Sorry to keep on but as you can tell this eating lark is really getting to me.....

[NotQuiteCockney]

My DS2 is 8 months now, and I have entirely given up on purees. He has chunks of food, followed by chunks of fruit. Bananas, pear, apple, meat, gently cooked veg.

What sort of thing are you giving for pud? If it's just fruit, I would give it anyway. I tend not to give anything more sweet than fruit at this age (I think sweetened yoghurt or fromage frais has quite a bit of sugar in it, for example.)

[Bellie]

I am giving fruit puree with rice or on its on dependant on how runny it is when I puree it. I will keep on this track adding in chunks of food rather than just purees as I am starting to think that the spoon may be the issue

[TracyK]

ds had spoon issues as well - either teeth or pig headedness. Just give lumpy with your/her fingers.
ds loved eggy bread cut into little squares. Nice and soggy but didn't fall apart in his hands.
Also loved greek yoghurt dipped in Baby Organix fruit puree (strangely didn't mind the spoon for this!). Greek yoghurt has no sugar in it and is lovely and creamy.

[highlander]

bellie, if your baby's diet has been milk up until now, he will have a natural 'sweet tooth', as milk is very sweet. I personally think it is unreasonable to expect any baby to tuck into a plate of veggies and enjoy it, upon weaning. Green veggies are especially bitter, and are a very 'adult' taste.

My DS is 8 months, and I'm only just starting to reduce the amount of apple puree I mix into his veggies. His meals are on the whole, quite sweet. A good way to test if he is really not hungry is to offer him spoons of his fruit purees (always has this as a pudding). If he's not interested in that, it's a pretty good sign that he's not hungry. If he does eat the fruit, I mix a bit more in with his main meal.

Do you offer milk with the meal? I only recently discovered that DS gets really quite thirsty whilst eating. I offer sips of water for every 2 teaspoonfulls of grub. He'll normally drink about 4oz of water at each meal. I guess your baby is a bit young for water yet?

Good luck - it's a bit stressful isn't it?

[imation]

bellie, your words - a complete battleground - i think your dd is very young to have 3 veggie meals a day. i used to give 4-5 spoons and finish my milk. i've replaced one meal for my ds when he wsa around 8 months old:-)

[Pennies]

Had exactly the same problem with my DD and was also dreading going on hol - but it turned out that going on hol did the trick. Every lunch would be a battle and I dreaded it but the moment we were away she started eating like a horse and hasn't stopped since.

I think it was because DH & I were both more relaxed because we were on hols and so we had time to feed her at leisure and she really picked up on this calm.

Sounds to me like you've stopped battling with her - rest assured that it will start to fall into place soon.

Good tip re. mixing fruit in food. I also started to give DD organic greek yoghurt mixed with fruit at this age and she LOVES it.

xA

[ricecake]

I have found that my DS now 11 months old, only likes to eat when he is heavily distracted. He was always a very good eater, he likes his food, but he did not like being held on a lap or touched too much when he was eating. He likes to be independent !

I was putting him in his high chair (well strapped) even before he could sit on his own. Although I had promised myself not to put on the TV when he was eating (I was a bit naive !) I have found a good a very good compromise. I put on good quality TV, a soft music channel (Italian) on for him on satellite which he loves. None of us speak Italian in the family, but as I love the language and culture of Italy (I am going to start learning Italian soon !) , I soon discovered that DS liked soft Italian music too ! There are adverts in between which he is absolutely hooked on. He will often bend his head round the spoon to catch the adverts ! It's bizarre, but I am told by family that other babies love adverts too. I think they like the repetition.

While he is watching he will feed without any problems at all. Also it is important to have lots of things placed in front of him which he can touch and play with while eating. It works wonders ! He won't eat properly any other way. When I am out in a coffee shop or with friends, there is no Italian TV of course, but he will still eat well if distracted with a few toys on his tray. Good luck !

[ricecake]

Sorry, I forgot to add that it's extremely importnat to be relaxed and never in a hurry when starting a baby on solids. They don't like the pressure and it becomes a vicious cycle where the more stressed you get the less likley they are to eat. I find that we both chill out while listening nad watching the music. Of course it doesn't have to be music, but any method that will help you feel more relaxed will get baby to eat.

[sarah259]

Reading this thread with great interest. My dd is 15mths. 4 days a weeks I don't her any meals (the childminder does though!). She seems to eat much more when in the compnay of others and the focus isn't on her i.e. one-on-one (usually me). When this is the case though, as soon as I get the scrunched-up face and food being thrown everywhere I stop and move onto pudding or finish completely. For several months I would fret and worry about the volume of food she wasn't consuming but it was my SIL who I heard saying that she'd got over it a long time ago and accpeted that some days they eat lots and others hardly anything (her dd is nearly 4). I will try the good quality tv though - sounds interesting, particularly Italian....which channel?!

[ricecake]

Sorry, I forgot to add that it's extremely importnat to be relaxed and never in a hurry when starting a baby on solids. They don't like the pressure and it becomes a vicious cycle where the more stressed you get the less likley they are to eat. I find that we both chill out while listening nad watching the music. Of course it doesn't have to be music, but any method that will help you feel more relaxed will get baby to eat.

[ricecake]

Sorry, I repeated my last message twice unitentionally

Sarah259 - the Italian channel is called "Playlist Italia". It's actually a radio chaneel which has videos for the benefit of satellite viewers. If you are interested I can give you the Hotbird frequency. I think you can only get it on Hotbird ? Not sure, but Hotbird is the satellite we tune into.

[sarah259]

Hi Ricecake - is that on sky; not very up to date on things like this !

[ricecake]

I doubt it. I think you need to be able to tune into Hotbird. On Sky you can't switch onto Hotbird as well. But I will ask my DH and let you know. He knows this stuff better !

[vivie]

After 6 months of age babies need only 20 oz milk per day and this includes what they have as part of their food. So, 2 full bottle or breast feeds (say breakfast and bedtime) plus milk on breakfast cereal and yogurt or macaroni cheese for tea is plenty. Drinking much more milk than this will affect your baby's appetite, if you cut back the milk she will eat more food.

[bunney]

my boo was 7 mths yesterday. she feeds well and takes her cereals and packed solid foods but really does not take to proper foods especially our nigerian foods though she takes the occassional handfull from me.

how many times do u reckon she should be eating in a day cos on the sma progress pack it says they should have at least 540oz of milk a day which equals to about 3 bottles. what should a typical day of food be like for a 7 mth old baby