Weaning at 25 weeks & has lost interest.

[LUCIA22]

I started weaning my 25 week old two weeks ago. At first she couldnt get enough, she ate baby rice, sweet potato, carrot, banana etc and was on two meals really quickly. Now all of a sudden she has lost interest. I was going to try introducing breakfast as recommended by my HV but she wont eat anything now. She just clams up and we get tears. She has developed a cough & a cold today and has been really tired but stopped eating before that became apparent, could there be a link?

[WitchTwoOh]

totally could be the case, my dd completely went off food before getting sick. if she continues to clam up in the face of a spoon there are loads of recipes at www.babyledweaning.com

[LUCIA22]

The cold is now gone and we have started trying the BLW thing but she is still not interested. Screams when put in her high chair if we put a bib on her. She will knaw on a bit of crusty bread but does the same thing to the tv remote so I dont think she really sees it as food. I am running out of ideas!!!

[Habbibu]

Perhaps change how you do meals for a bit? One idea is to picnic on the floor, put a range of interesting foods within her reach, that you also like so you can share, and let her play, suck, chew, see you eating etc, so that she finds food fun again - the cold may have thrown her a bit. Is she still drinking plenty of milk?

[terramum]

When DS started solids at 29 weeks he was initially quite enthusiastic about them & happily chomped on whatever we gave him...then he seemed less bothered about it...so I just didn't offer him an solids for a few weeks. Saved me all the stress and hassle & he was fine on just bm for the time being. He went back to having one 'meal' a day when he was 8-9 months & we just carried on from there.

[AitchTwoOh]

well you don't want him setting up horrible associations with the highchair, so i'd definitely go along with hab's suggestion that you just ditch it for a while, leaving food in reach. like terramum says, it's not essential that they're getting zillions of food at this stage (by all means hand him a spoon of multivitamins or fish oils in the bath, that's what i do to make myself feel better when dd's off food). don't worry, really.

[LUCIA22]

I thought it was important that they started taking solids now so that you didnt miss the window of opportunity. I was too relaxed and missed the opportunity to get dd to take a bottle and so she wont at all and I didnt want to make the same mistake here. She is BF and taking that well but dont want to let her get away with just having that and not moving on.

[ruddynorah]

there are no such things as windows of opportunity with these things. some cultures don't wean until much later than we traditionaly do. with regards the bottle, why not skip that stage altogether? lots of bf babies don't take to bottles. try a sippy cup instead.

[witchandchips]

perhaps put her on your knee while you eat and let her pick food of your plate.

[LUCIA22]

She will pick at things and taste them if left alone but doesnt seem to want to swallow anything. A piece of bread will be well sucked but still remain in lumps around her and when spoonfed puree the small amount that she lets into her mouth gets spat back out once she has churned it around for a bit!

[witchandchips]

doesn't seem as if she is particular hungry to me. Keep offering the food but don't worry about it. She will start eating it again when she is ready. make sure she watches when you eat though and is aware of the social aspect of eating

[colditz]

She's probably got a sore throat. Leave it for a week.

[colditz]

Lucia, I don't know any child who misses a 'window of opportunity' and never eats solid food because of it. There is no such thing. they all do it when they are ready.

Cold comfort, but ds1 was weaned at 17 weeks, and has a speech delay. I can't see that it would have been any more of a speech delay had I waited until 9 months, although he wouldn't have held out that long, I think.

[ruddynorah]

but she's only 27 weeks old yes? it will take a while before she gets good at self feeding, which seems to be what she'd prefer. ahev you looked into blw?