ella's kitchen addiction

[juniorcommonroom]

Hi all. I'm a first time poster, long term lurker looking for some advice. A little bit of background:

My DD is almost a year old. We started her weaning just before 6m and it wasn't particularly successful from the start. She refused the spoon consistently for a few weeks so we began BLW. This again wasn't that successful but she was much happier with it.

The only way to get any quantity of food into her was squeezing it directly into her mouth from an Ella's Kitchen packet. I knew at the time that I was making a rod for my own back but I was just desperate to get food into her.

A general lack of eating persisted for about 3 months during which time she didn't gain an ounce of weight and dropped 2 centiles.

Eventually, she was prescribed hydralised formula due to a suspected cow's milk intolerance and since then has eaten much better - she now takes the spoon and happily eats a large quantity of Ella's Kitchen or yoghurt or similar. I figure she had a poorly tummy because of the intolerance which was affecting her appetite? She is back on her centile weight wise as well.

My problem is that she won't eat anything except Ella's Kitchen, definitely nothing with texture. Its costing me a fortune! I've tried adding lumps of veg and meat to the Ella, this is spat out. My homemade purees are rejected outright. She throws her finger foods on the floor.

Basically, I'd like some advice as to how to proceed - should she go cold turkey on the Ella? What if she begins to lose weight again?

[HerculesPoirot]

We had a problem introducing lumpy foods too. We kept offering the ella's pouches (10 month ones) every meal and dd would have maybe a couple of spoons then refuse, then we'd give a 7 month pouch and try again next meal. DD also loved yoghurt and fruit and so we put chopped up fruit and crumbled weetabix in yoghurt and introduced it that way. Eventually she just started eating it, but it took about 4 weeks. She also went through a phase of taking the food off the spoon into her mouth and then pushing the lumps out with her tongue and eating the rest of it! We found the caribbean chicken one and salmon risotto (although we avoided the peas in it initially) the best. Dh also used a fork to mash up the lumps a bit more on occaision. I don't know if that will work for you, but it did eventually work for us so might do... good luck.

[HerculesPoirot]

ps she does not eat almost anything about 6 weeks down the line including food cooked by us!

[ICouldHaveWrittenThis]

Have you tried the lumpier Ella's pouches?

We had similar with DS, he would only eat about 4 different jars. I WISH I'd persevered with my own food... even if it was just finger food. He's really picky with food now and it's completely a texture thing. (He'll eat meat, mash etc, NO veg or fruit whatsoever because it's too slimy .

Not saying this will happen, but I would go cold turkey on the pouches and offer plenty of things like ready brek with fruit puree, yoghurt with fruit mixed in, mash that she can eat with her hands.. she'll get there :)

[juniorcommonroom]

Thanks for your advice, its really good to know she's not the only one. I have tried the 'lumpy' ella's pouches but they have also been rejected! However, we had a small breakthrough this weekend - she ate her weetabix (though with lots of milk)! I will persevere.

[MorrisZapp]

I grew up convinced that weetabix was one of the major food groups - I still am :)