8 month old with zero to little interest in food

[Hell0daisy]

Anyone have any experience with this that they can impart some wisdom/support with? :(

my eldest was the opposite so I’m not used to this. We can’t spoon feed as the baby refuses so doing BLW and while most of it gives me heart attacks, we do give him suitable food and he’s just not got much of an interest in it.

I’m worried I’m not exposing him to enough food/tastes as he’s just either not trying them or only barely. What do I do?

Apologies if you’ve tried this already, but are they strong/enticing enough flavours?
e.g my 8 month old has zero interest in a plain omelette, but will wolf down one with finely chopped tomatoes (tasty vine ones from the greengrocer)
She loves a flavoursome curry but is ambivalent about a lentil dal
Sticks of cooked courgette nah, add tomato/herb/onion sauce and suddenly best thing ever

I think with no added salt it’s such hard work to make flavours enticing, it’s why the poucH manufacturers put sugary fruit into everything

Would he eat off your plate? He may find it fun to share & copy you eating with a spoon.
Sometimes a little picnic outside (even inside) can be fun with little pots of yoghurt or moose, chopped up boiled egg or omelette. Again with you & maybe his sibling eating as well so that he can copy.
Perhaps start with Dhal (lentils) & Rice, fish cake chopped up with a little parsley sauce, or mash & gravy. Build up gradually until you find a few things he likes.
I think the important thing is to keep light hearted ( hide your stress if you can) so it doesn't become a battle for both your sakes. And keep the portion sizes small so that he doesn't feel over faced.
It's obviously easier for him to eat finger foods versus using a spoon & maybe he prefers feeding himself hence why he pushes you away when you try to spoon feed. Babies are naturally curious
so before long he will start to copy his family & their eating habits.
My eldest used to be a fussy eater & I used to stress about. He is now a strapping 6ft 21year old who absolutely loves food, big portions & all cuisines.

Try not to panic. DS2 refused all food (other than to play with) until he was nine months (and I was almost back to work). We panicked and tried every kind of home made and bought food we could think of. He only wanted milk.

Of course, he then ate beautifully for the childminder from day 1. She wondered if it was eating with the other DC.

Mine has only just started getting into his food at 9 months. To be honest it's a real faff, mess and he tends to eat better than us!

Keep persisting 🙂

He rarely lets us spoon feed, but happily takes the spoon in his hand and "feeds" himself.

Fruit was fine but everything else really needed to be quite flavoursome to get him interested. The savoury baby food pouches were vile and he wouldn't touch them from the beginning and still doesn't.

The foods that turned the tide for us (although I'm sure you've tried everything):

Steamed fruit so it's soft (e.g apple or pear halves) or soft other fruit then roll it in some dessicated coconut and ground almonds so he can pick it up easily. Also works well with avocados.

Sucking on a sweet, ripe strawberry.

Soft, ripe mango slices.

Peanut butter mixed into full fat natural yogurt.

Natural yoghurt with anything. If I can't cook.

Peanut butter on toast. Peanut butter on anything really.

Creamy curries.

Roasted pepper with olive oil, bit of dried herbs, blended with bit of mashed potato or yoghurt.

Soft fishcakes (just mashed potato with bit of tuna or salmon, maybe some philadelphia in there, fresh dill).

Omelette with finely chopped onion and pepper, fried in butter until soft.

Hi guys,

thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it.

i haven’t tried half of these things so I’ll give them a go. It’s such a faff when you have a toddler, I just feel like I don’t have the time/energy to dedicate to weaning like I did when my first was a baby. Maybe that’s just laziness talking 😆

he likes banana, banana pancakes, he tried a bit of raspberry yesterday which I was surprised about as it is quite bitter, avocado on toast he had a small chimp on yesterday. He doesn’t even entertain pasta with various sauces and yeah, despises pouches and being spoonfed.

he’s very fussy and never takes a bottle of formula of any kind, only water. I had plans of being able to combi-feed but they were scuppered 🤣

I don’t know why I’m worrying so much about it, I guess I’m just not used to it and I clearly took my last weaning journey for granted. I guess I also worry about autism etc with the food aversion because he just seems to struggle with it so much but o know that’s my anxiety there!! 🤦🏻‍♀️

Honestly I wouldn't worry! My first ate everything we gave her from 6 months old, she's 2 now and the only thing she won't eat is cauliflower. Our DS o the other hand refused to eat more than a mouthful (sometimes 2) of anything till he was 10 months old, then woke up one morning absolutely ravenous and has been eating us out of house and home since! 😂

My one year old has only just started eating really. Keep exposing to textures and smells so baby will get that variety from playing with the food and eventually, will eat some!