8 month old gagging on eveything/current diet bad - advice please

[stressed2007]

I was wondering if anyone can offer an advice. We are having some issues with weaning my son. We began to feed him at 5 months (on HV suggestion) as a hungry baby he was up to nearly 2 litres of hungrier baby milk a day. He took to food very well (both home made and jars). However now at nearly 8 months and despite our persevering we don't seem to be able to get him to progress pass very very sloppy food. He gags on everything -stage 2 jars, home made and blended mince meat and potatoes, white fish and potatoes - everything. He won't take weetabix and I tried today on readybreak (as HV said don't use the Heinz porridge anymore) and he gagged on that. He will have loads of yoghurt and fromage fraise but it can't be healthy just for him to have this and over the last 6 weeks though he is not jumped up that far up the lines on the growth chart several people have noticed he is getting podgier. I checked today and the fromage fraise (which I knew had too much synthetic sugar but which I fed as it is one of the few things he will eat) has 60 calories each (i.e. as much as a jar of baby fruit) and he has at least 5 of them a day on top of other food.

Has anyone any suggestion as I feel in a complete mess with this and it is not fair on the baby. The last thing I want to do is make him chubby. There is no point in saying go to HV as the service simply does not exist in our borough - you just get 5 mins if you go to the weighing centre. She did say give him cornflakes and rice crispies (I could not believe this!) and finger food like carrot sticks to eat though not sure how he is going to eat this when he has no teeth! Even of I can't get him to take more solid food can someone suggest how I can make his diet healthier then what I have been doing?

Is there anyone out there who can offer some advice? Many thanks

[Romy7]

you can give him cooked carrot sticks - they are really easy for small gums to squish.
someone will come and offer blw, but i just wanted to say don't fret - just keep offering different stuff and eventually he will adjust his feeding. at 9 months ds1 lived on cheese, watermelon, fromage frais and breast milk, but at 6 he eats everything in sight...
i'd offer cheerios rather than rice crispies tbh - easier for little fingers and more interesting!

does he like stuff he can feed himself? rusks or arrowroot biscuits etc?
we used (don't laugh) quavers and cheesy wotsits to dd2 later on - she has oromotor difficulties though. they are all bite and dissolve, and quite safe, but maybe not the 'healthy' alternative you were looking for, but maybe something to stimulate his interest in textures later!!! he's very little, you have plenty of time

[stressed2007]

no he gags on the rusks too. My m-in -law is sayig he has may have something physically wrong but doctor says he is just slow to get used to food.

[MummyToOneForNow]

hopefully it will pass - dd used to gag on then vomit anything that had the slightest lump in it (this was about 7/7.5 mths) although she was happy with smooth purees. I just kept trying every few days with extremely soft/small lumps. I think we had some luck in the end with a stage 2 fruit jar that had small lumps of well cooked apple in with the puree then went from there. Soon afterwards she was happily eating everything so I wouldn't worry too much just yet - it may just be the stage of development that he is at.

[bethoo]

keep him on stage 1 for while longer. atthis stage as long as he is eating something it does not matter what it is.
keep him on puree and you can puree virtually anything
dont add lumpy food til he is ready as does not sound as though he is ready yet.