Just started solids- he hates it!

[Jess785]

just started giving my 21 week old DS solids (a bit of baby rice and sweet potato puree) about a week ago. He has all signs of being ready, and I'm very keen to start as he is always hungry and so much formula is giving him a sore tummy and making his silent reflux worse. GP also agrees it is time. Each time I've tried to make it fun and relaxing, showing him what to do, etc. But as soon as he as a spoonful in his mouth, he screams and becomes inconsolable! Not sure what to do. I have persevered for a week and am now scared I am putting him off food. I"m reluctant to give it a break, as I'm a bit desperate to wean him.

Any tips/helpful hints much appreciated!!

[Jess785]

Oh yes, and i'm giving it to him halfway through his formula feed, as recommended.

[BrianButterfield]

If he won't eat it, I'd say he's not ready - it won't matter in the long run if you wait a week or two. I know reflux can be tough and you want to try and help it but if he doesn't want to eat baby rice (which is gross, so who can blame him?) then he won't. If you leave it a while you can do more BLW stuff which he might enjoy more - soft cooked chunks of fruit and veg, for example.

[Artandco]

I have never heard of giving food halfway through a feed. The current recommendation is to give milk then offer food an hour later. They shouldn't be 'hungry' when it's offered

[enderwoman]

Does he still have a tongue thrust reflex? If he does I would hold off.

[BikeRunSki]

Stop for a week or two and try again. Or wait til 26 weeks and do blw.

[Jess785]

Weaning Made Easy by Rana Conway suggests halfway through a feed for the first try, but I did also try to offer food about an hour after feed- same reaction. He doesn't have a tongue thrust reflex either; he doesn't spit it out, it just sits in his mouth while he cries :( I think he is teething, wondering if his gums are sore and the spoon makes it worse? i think tomorrow i will try giving him Calpol first, and if that doesn't make a difference i will wait a week before trying again.

[mrsmartin1984]

Yeah BLWing all the way. How would you like mush being pushed into your mouth?

[Emi06]

DS absolutely hated the start of the weaning process too and used to cry after every attempt I made to stick the spoon in his mouth.

So I stopped and waited until he was just short of 6 months and tried BLW instead. It took about three weeks of offering him finger food before he really got the idea but now (at 7 months) he's really got the hang of it (and still hates it if I try to spoonfeed him!).

If you don't mind the mess, then I would really recommend BLW. Don't expect your LO to "eat" anything much at the start though because he won't. He'll probably just play with it but it's no big deal. He gets his nutrients from the formula anyway. Just have patience.

[Patilla]

I'm doing a mix of DD feeding herself and giving puree.

I felt this gave her opportunities to learn the feeding coordination but also get protein into her earlier and help to deal with her silent reflux (it has).

With the greatest respect I think the waiting a nd then doing exclusively BLW may be a slight red herring. I think it's the waiting rather than BLW which marks the difference in peolel's experiences.

Certainly that has been my experience twice over and with friends too.

Try not to stress it and take it slowly. We found with DD that she just took her time to get used to flavours at that age and that's one of the benefits of starting a refluxy baby early with weaning.

So, deep breath, little tastes and try to relax a bit you will both get there. And if it persists and you war to carry on weaning, try cutting out baby rice and just do fruit
Purée. Baby rice made DS (now 5) vomit and there is a body of similar anecdotes on the internet.

I also tried pear first rather than apple as it is less acidic and so less likely to aggravate a sensitive tummy.

There are lots of people out there on mn with experiences of weaning a refluxy baby - it is a specialist subject. If you want to you're welcome to pm me with any further questions. DS was a vomiting refluxer and DD was/is a silent refluxer. DS worsened on weaning, DD improved. Each child is unique but there are certain similarities between refluxers.

Stick in there you are most likely doing better than you think you are!

[Patilla]

Apologies for the typos I was - rather ironically - feeding DD while trying to stop her shoving brocolli up her nose!

[EmmaLL25]

Before we started weaning properly we have our wee one tastes of things - so let him lick different fruit. He seemed to figure out that stuff had different taste and quite liked it.

Worthy go maybe before progressing to getting food in? I also second baby rice being bland/yuck and I suspect a causer of constipation. We did one day of it and went on to apply purée which he loved.

Our wee guy reluctant eater when teething so possibly good shout there on what the issue is.

[Sunnysummer]

If the reflux is bad I understand why you might want to start early - in which case BLW is not really possible, though some level of self-feeding certainly can be in time.

That said, 21 weeks is really tiny and I would be surprised if you are actually seeing all the signs - which is usually the ability to stay sitting unassisted, the ability to coordinate enough to raise food to mouth and loss of the tongue thrust reflex. It seems like a lot of people are told that being interested in adults eating is a sign, but it is not listed on official advice.

We also tried to start DS early on doctor's recommendation due to reflux, but until just after 5 months he really wasn't ready or interested. After that we started him on a mix of homemade veggie purées and very soft finger food which worked well, worked up quickly to 3 meals including protein and at nearly 8 months we are now trying to tip the balance more towards finger foods to try to get some of the benefits of BLW that just aren't possible if you need to wean earlier or faster than usual.

Also agree that mid feed is a tricky time, we started about 20 mins after a feed (so he wasn't stressed, and thought it was fun), then as he began to realise food was filling, moved to solids before milk over time.

[Jess785]

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice! i sat him in his new high chair this afternoon, he was happy and not too hungry, and i tried to give him a bit of mashed banana on my finger- again, screams and inconsolable for ages afterwards. I think i'm going to give it a good long break now and try some BLW when he is six months. luckily his reflux is under control with ranitidine so i can live with bottle feeding for another month... will have a look at Gill Rapley's book, though i would like to eventually mix that with purees, etc.