Help my baby won't eat any savoury food

[moose234]

My little girl is 7 and half months, we are doing traditional weaning, she loves all the fruit purées but won't eat any vegetables, savoury or textured purées, she gags and then won't open her mouth again! Does anyone have ideas?

Is she only eating purées?
Can you try her with savoury finger foods - toast, cheese, sweet potato wedges etc? And maybe give some Greek yoghurt with the fruit purée, to lessen the sweetness.

At 7.5 months she should be having finger foods and textures as well as purées. Try giving her cooked carrot batons or broccoli florets.

Have you tried mixing in the sweet purées with the savoury?

Does she vomit?

Try roasting veg before pureeing so it's sweeter - carrots, parsnip, sweet potato, peppers etc
Try other ways of broadening her palate - fish, meat, cheese, yoghurt, egg, lentils etc.
I'd also be giving some finger foods, even if you're doing trad weaning.

@DownWentTheFlag She is only having purées, with a bit of finger food like the puffs etc which she will eat them.

@Hungrypuffin I can't do baby led my husband had a massive phobia of gagging and choking and panics even when she gags.

@gentlyscented no she doesn't vomit.

@HoustonBess tried all the sweeter veg, she still won't eat them!

Baby led weaning isn’t just about no purees. And traditional weaning doesn’t mean no finger foods! It means a mixture of purées and finger foods. She is more than capable of handling them at that age. When are you planning on introducing textures? She probably doesn’t like purées because they taste bland. She will be much more likely to accept soft finger foods and is at the age where you should be offering them.

Start with just steamed and pureed carrots, leave them quite liquidy
Same with peeled courgette (slighty sweet, not strong flavour).

If she likes these then you can slowly add another vegetable one at a time with the carrot or courgette - mushrooms, aubergine, brocoli for example.

Plain white fish partially mashed up is good.

later you can try soft cheeses, yogurt, small pasta shapes with grated parmesan on and rice.

Try just leaving the plate in front of her whilst you eat at the same time (mine all eat more if i'm eating as well). Make conversation or funny noises. Does she have a fun bowl to eat from ?

" I can't do baby led my husband had a massive phobia of gagging and choking and panics even when she gags."

Then he needs to go out, so she can go on to a normal development stage and build up her gag reflex.

His issues shouldn't dictate that your DD can't to what she needs to.

Would it be acceptable for her not to walk, if he had a fear of falling over?

We never did baby led weaning for the same reasons. It was pureed food for a long time. Both eat fine now.

Finger foods will help your baby negotiate textures. Try sandwiches made with very soft bread cut up into little pieces. Grated cheese in a pile. Scrambled eggs. Rice cakes and peanut butter. Yorkshire puddings. It gets much easier at 9 months, many babies do not really "get" weaning until then.

Thanks for the helpful comments, just spoken to health visitor, she has is to mix them, so going to give that a go! Thanks @gentlyscented she agreed that I need to start at a high fruit to savoury content and then gradually lower it!

Send husband to peadiatric first aid course so he can feel more confident how to manage choking. Babies are not a high risk group for choking. Older adults are actually at much higher risk.