To ask you for help regarding my 9 month old who won’t eat any solids!!

[CaptainDamaged]

Hi there, I know I’m being v unreasonable by posting here with a weaning question but I am absolutely desperate! Tried posting in weaning with no responses.

Dd is a big baby, on the 92nd percentile and was exclusively breastfed until 6 months. She’s never been a good solid eater, much prefers the boob but she’s had a few (very short) phases where she will happily it. However the past few weeks she is refusing absolutely everything. I’m so stressed out, the only things she will willingly eat are sweet things (yogurt, fruit, jam etc) but refuses anything I’ve made her. I’ve tried finger foods and she used to be much better but now it just ends up all over the floor 😔 everyone says it’s supposed to get better not worse! It also doesn’t help that my friends baby who’s a week younger eats like a machine. Her day kind of looks like this:

Boob 8ish

Breakfast 10ish weetabix/ porridge / eggs/ avid on toast / jam on toast etc

Lunch 1ish some kind of finger sandwiches and either a fruit or a yogurt

Dinner 6ish pasta with homemade sauce, homemade blended casserole, egg omelette or beef stew. Occasionally she will have what we have but that’s only if it’s suitable (we eat a lot of salads).

All of this recently has been refused, I’m scared she’s going to fade away! She still feeds roughly ever 2 hours (sometimes less) at night and whenever she wants during the day so that may be the problem, though even with big stretches during the day she doesn’t have any interest in eating. Please please help me sad

If you are feeding her whenever she wants she isn’t going to be hungry, so won’t want solid food.

My breast fed baby was massive 92nd-100th centile all the way and he was exactly the same. I found this age so hard because there is alot of pressure for things to be getting 'back to normal' and for your baby to be eating proper food.
Nothing really helped except maybe sticking with it, and mainly mist definitely just relaxing. At about 1-14 months he suddenly dropped all day feeds, went to one at night and ate everything. He's now 2.6 and eats absolutely everything and dropped boob completely at 18 months.
I'm so sorry OP it's a tough age. But remember they are only little for a little while and 9mo is still very little. She will get to it in her own time . Good luck, you sound like you're doing a great job

Dd2 genuinely refused all solids until 9 months. If by a complete fluke I managed to get anything in beyond her lips she just worked with her tongue until it was all out again.

At 9 months her dsis gave her a chocolate button. It stayed in. About a week later I had an ice cream and she leant forward and had a lick. A few days after that she decided solids weren't the end of the world and would eat a little.
When I'm saying a little, I do mean a little. A good day might be a bite or two of a sandwich at lunch time and 1/4 a baby yoghurt at dinner. If she had a good day for eating, I could guarantee that she'd eat nothing the next day.
The only thing she ate consistently well was tinned sweetcorn.

When she got to about 5 or 6 this changed and she then started eating properly.

Dd1 otoh ate everything and anything as a baby and toddler. She turned into a very fussy teen who can happily go days eating very little.

I'm wondering though if you're putting too much in front of her. I found that if I put too much in front of dd2 she wouldn't touch it. A typical meal for her would start off with 2 x 1cm square pieces of sandwich, 1x cucumber slice. If she ate that, then I'd put another single piece of sandwich on her plate.

Or dinner maybe 1/4 fish finger chopped into 4 pieces, 5 peas and a single chip sized piece of sweet potato.

She also refused anything with middle texture. So she'd take complete slop (4 month jars type) or finger food, but absolutely not something like mashed potato which was mush, but bittier than the slop.

She won’t starve. But I imagine if you bf on demand she’s unlikely to feel hungry. If she starts to feel a bit hungry and then has a bf it’s going to stave off the hunger for long enough for her to not be interested in solid food

DS2 wouldn’t consider solids until about 10 months. I was going back to work and beginning to panic as he wouldn’t take a bottle either. To our great relief this changed overnight and he’s now a fairly standard 3 year old (so needs encouragement to eat vegetables!). Unless there’s a hard deadline I think you’ve got a few months before you should worry. Try not to compare to your friends!

Relax. Easy to say but very hard to do, I know.

My first child wasn’t interested in solids, barely took in anything of substance until she was 13 months old and I went back to work.

My second child was even worse 😭 and was utterly disinterested in solid food - and I didn’t go back to work until she was 18 months old! I was lucky to find a very supportive childminder who wasn’t phased by a non-eating toddler. My daughter barely ate anything during the day for the first few months, just had a huge feed when I got home. She was absolutely fine - healthy, masses of energy and hitting all her milestones.

Both girls were breastfed and simply preferred breastmilk to anything else. It was hard but I learned that you really can’t force them to eat if they don’t want to. Both girls are now strong, fit and healthy and eat a variety of foods. Child no.1 eats just about everything, child no.2 is admittedly pickier (doesn’t much like veg) but is on the go all day long and has boundless energy - she’s a real Duracell bunny. So neither child has suffered from their slow start with food.

I would ditch all sweet food and only offer veg sticks and other savoury food as finger food and give her a bit of anything she looks at on your own plate (unless it is salt laden). Also offer foods you might not think of as child friendly. DS loved olives and a friends DD chomped her way through a jar of pickled onions one Christmas. No stress if she doesn't eat a bite, just take it away when she is no longer playing with it. There is a very twee but true saying "Food before one is just for fun". DS was a boob monster too but now at 9 he does eat real food

My eldest was a boob fanatic and not really bothered about solids until after he was 1. He was also 99 percentile for height and weight. I used to stress endlessly but he got there in the end.

Food is fun until one. Honestly if she’s feeding from the boob whenever she wants that’s where she’s getting her nutrition and actual food isn’t anything you need to worry about Really,don’t worry!

Have you tried offering snacks and a beaker of water in between meals to reduce the amount of boob? My DD is 8 months and currently has
7am milk
7:30 breakfast - finger food (often toast or omelette chopped up) and a yogurt pouch or porridge. Beaker of water.
10:00- snack (melty puffs, baby crackers, cucumber etc) and water.
11:30- lunch - finger food, meal and fruit pouch with a beaker of water
1:30- milk
3:00 - snack and beaker
5:00 - dinner - finger food, meal and fruit pouch or similar with a beaker
6:00- milk

It's quite food and drink heavy but really does keep her hydrated and fed. Shes between the 25th - 50th percentile but was born on the 0.4th so shes doing a hell of a lot of growing and os a hungry kid!

My son refused all solids completely until he was about 9 months when he decided pouches of puree were OK after all. Of course at that point the HVs who'd been giving me grief about him not taking anything gave me grief that he wasn't taking anything with lumps in it. I was told 'it's because you're breast feeding him too much' despite the fact that he physically wouldn't allow anything into his mouth, and I'd tried all the possible combinations of timing of boob and food and so on.

Anyway, at 13 months he decided that proper solids were OK after all, and he's not stopped eating since.

All of which is to say don't worry, they get there eventually. Unless you think there's something physical that's an underlying problem, it's likely to be a matter of time. She'll get there.

You say she started on some solids but is now refusing. Has that coincided with any particular teething probs?

DD4 (5 now) was really late getting her teeth. She hated lumpy food and wouldn't use her gums on solids. I stressed for ages!

I echo what a lot of pps have said - she feels no need to make an effort with solids because she's happy enjoying lots of breast milk.

StickChildNumberTwo - My son refused all solids completely until he was about 9 months when he decided pouches of puree were OK after all.

Oh lord the puree pouches yes! DD would eat those. Not any homemade version though .... I was 50% overjoyed she was eating something and 50% madly frustrated to be buying expensive organic pouchy things for a nearly one year old!!!