Help - I’m failing my baby and need a kick up the bum

[rubbishmum33]

I have a 7 month old baby and started weaning him about 4 weeks ago. I was determined to give him the healthiest start with food after not BFing (I had a horrendous birth and just couldn’t) but I’m really failing.

So far all he’s had are single bits of fruit (strawberry, watermelon, banana, pear) and sticks of veg (broccoli, carrot, cauliflower, butternut squash). He also had toast with Philadelphia but it seemed very dry for him.

He loves grabbing the food and putting it in his mouth, but has barely swallowed a thing since we’ve started - it all goes on the floor. I tried spoon feeding but he prefers to do it himself.

Since starting I’ve had about 10 days where I’ve given him no food at all (apart from milk obviously) because I just could not face the mess.

I’m a hopeless cook and suddenly feel I need to be making all these meals for my baby. I tried pancakes the other day but messed up somehow and they stuck to the pan, so I had to throw them away.

Water is also not going well - we have a Doidy cup and he ends up drenched in water, even with me holding it - which just adds to the mess.

I’m so worried I’m screwing this up by failing to feed him every day and only giving him single sticks of fruit and veg. He’s also still on one meal and I know I should probably have moved to two by now.

Does anyone have any advice?

@rubbishmum33 I replied on your last thread too, sorry you're still feeling the same. Just get a Tommy tippee cup without a valve. They sell them in boots and other places. If you haven't yet then maybe get Gill Rapley's book baby led weaning or the associated cook book. Just think about offering 2 or 3 chances to eat a day. It doesn't have to be a big messy full on meal. Make yourself a list of things on toast. Put a slice of cheese or a bit of meat with it and a bit of fruit. Done. Next time, do pasta instead. You're doing fine, this is all normal. Please please stop worrying about this and don't yourself down.

Could you start saving some of your dinner for your little ones lunch the next day. Then that's one meal done. Tea could be toast or pasta based.
Why don't you list out 3 breakfasts, 3 teas. Do them on rotation until you get more confident.
Breakfast could be eggy bread or porridge fingers or wheetabix.
Tea could be tomato pasta with broccoli or something on toast with carrot and cucumber sticks.

Pouches!

Try not to worry. My second daughter didn't eat anything until she was 8 months old. Just refused and loved her bottle. She's 12 now and eats like a horse.
I used a mixture of jars and homemade food. I also brought a huge plastic painting mat and put that under her chair.
It will get better.

Firstly it's not your fault you can't take your little one to baby groups 3rd it's shut but not on you , so what you can with sensory stuff and playing together .. The weaning thing grab some ellas kitchen pouches for when you can't be bothered , make porridge for breakfast(or even ready break) with stired in frozen fruit pureed and a small amount of agarve syrup for sweetness or weatabix , for lunch I used to do things like rice cakes with dairy free cheese spread part boiled carrot sticks and sliced up fruit or toast with a scrapeing of marmite and fruit then for dinner whatever we had or if it wasn't appropriate id make pasta with a quick sauce or pesto , jacket potatoe and dairy free cheese , pitta bread with hummus and crudates nothing difficult also i d batch cook a few things like Bolognese, tangines, casseroles etc and freeze then i d have them on hand ... Your not failing your child I think your being very hard on your self though which is a shame , life is very full on right now everything is different and more difficult give your self a break x

I really wouldn't worry @rubbishmum33. I weaned DD a week after she turned six months and she mostly ate banana for the first month. I was so scared of her choking! But determined for her to do BLW. Also there were days she just had milk too.
Now she is 11 months and she eats three meals a day with full variety. She eats all the veg and stews and loves pasta and has started nursery where she has a huge variety of foods and has seconds etc. She is such a good eater and there is very little she won't eat. My slow start had absolutely no effect on her.

For the mess; I tried all sorts of solutions but the best one turned out to be putting one of DH T-shirt's over her to completely cover her. She hated bibs or any sort and will take them off at the first opportunity. Also I let out a plastic table cover on the floor so it's easy to clean. She still gets messy and covers herself with water but it's so much easier to clean.

Lastly, just keep repeating that under one is just for fun. It's about trying different textures and tastes (bitter, sweet, sour etc) much more than actual three meals a day.
Just make sure she doesn't get overloaded with sugar or salt and you will be fine xx

You'll be absolutely fine reheating a small portion chicken casserole tomorrow, in fact you could freeze a few portions for other days. Just reheat til piping hot in a pan or microwave and cool before feeding. Honestly it's fine.

You are definitely not failing your baby. 7 months is so tiny they just need to experiment. Mine took til 11 months before it clicked and now at 4 I can't stop her eating. Get a big washable shower curtain under a high chair (the IKEA one like PP have suggested) then shake bit of food into the bin and wash every couple of days, they dry really quickly. Feed bits of what you eat (low salt sugar etc) but don't stress too much. Have a few pouches ready for when you can't be arsed.

I get it though, I was so worried at the same stage and I look back now and realise how disproportionate it was. I built up great expectations as so many people around me said how things would get easier when she was on solids, she would sleep better, be more content ...it made no difference whatsoever! I hope you've got some good support

Change your name OP, you are NOT a rubbish mum! I have two DC, DD15 I tried to BF but gave up after a few days as neither she nor I were keen.. She's healthy, tall, sporty and doing well at school. DS7 - didn't even bother trying to Bf, he's a very sporty, popular and clever boy. I am a totally crap cook and I'm positive I fed them both ready made baby food, both happy eaters, both fine.
Stop making life so hard for yourself and him, give yourself a break and whatever you do, he'll think you're the best ever.

@rubbishmum33 Everything about your post makes it so obvious that you're an amazing Mum! Weaning is honestly so crap and worrying and at 7 months old mine always still preferred their milk whether its breast or formula. My son (will turn 4 in Feb 2021) used to wolf down all his meals when I was weaning him and I was so smug 😂 now he refuses all food other than cereal and wotsits 🙈 hes had cereal for tea every night for the last month as that's all he will eat at the minute. Just keep trying and doing what you're doing 💕

You are not rubbish, you are doing absolutely fine.

My DS barely ate for months when starting weaning. This is what I did to make it more bearable:

Use pouches for single veg tastes. He would have odd tastes and I got a sense of what he liked without spending loads of time and effort in the kitchen.

Porridge was a quick win for us.

Work out what meals you can eat that you can give him bits of, low salt etc. Even if it's not the meat, give him a bit of potato or veg. You aren't cooking twice and you can eat while he explores his food. This is how we cracked it in the end, he just gradually ate more and more.

Don't sweat missing a day. I did the same.

We abandoned the doidy cup after about two uses. Didn't see the point at this age. He just had a sippy cup and now can easily drink from an open cup if required.

You don’t need to do BLW if you don’t want to. I spoon fed mine pouches (quicker and less mess). When they were ready they took over the spoon and managed well at feeding themselves.

I batch cooked and reheated loads, I think DS thought ping was what cooking sounded like! So your chicken casserole shred some.of the chicken up a bit, freeze a few toddler size portions voila quick dinner for other nights. Throw whole sweet potatoes in the oven when you've got it on for something else, scoop out, cool and freeze, DS loves it still. Cous cous, just add billing water and it's ready in a few minutes, add whatever freezer meals you've got and microwave some peas or switched, another quick dinner. Some of these are obviously aimed at older babies/toddlers but it's the penicillins I used from the beginning, bung something in while you're already cooking or freezer some of what you've made yourself, then reheat for DS. Fir ages he had what we'd had for dinner the night before for lunch the next day. We also tried a doidy cup, went everywhere even though he'd had early success with those baby cups (like plastic shot glasses), used a tommy tippee free flow cheapy thing instead (I was worried about Anti leak and continuing the sucking motion), DS is nearly two and happily uses an open cup (he still occasionally tips it over on purpose or dips food in it) I gave him his doidy cup the other week and after looking at it for half a minute, he said funny, then 'broken' then pushed it away. I gave him a normal open cup and he was fine.

We also have a fancy wooden highchair we don't use and an IKEA antilop that we use every day, and goes in the dishwasher... I got a sheet of oilcloth I think it is from eBay and in the early days it was used for meals, easy to wipe, it's now used for painting etc

I started with the evening meal and would give single vegetables first, I spoon-fed dd though and did a mixture of baby led with ds. I then went to breakfast and started with porridge, then weetabix etc. After that I went on to lunch and added two snacks and gradually reduced bottles. It takes time and every baby is different. I did make separate meals as we eat well seasoned often spicy food but if we were having a vegetable curry I would make the same meal for baby but with minimal seasoning, this meant babies food looked similar to ours and that nothing went to waste. I used pouches when out and about and I used the titles of different pouches to give me ideas of different things I could cook. I did use purees initially and then just mashed the meal as they progressed.

Don't put pressure on yourself, with the baby led route it is all about giving baby different textures and exposure to different foods, very little will actually get eaten initially.

I used to hate the effort that cleaning up after weaning meal times involved. Eventually we settled on using a munchkin 360 cup, a bibado bib and having a wipe clean sheet on the floor underneath him. The bib and mat could go in the washing machine. For the first little while he did not eat much, and I started off with one meal a day and then built it up - starting with the meal where there was help to tidy up afterwards.

Weaning is a big change for parents - before that you can eat on the go, and the little one is fairly portable. I found it was not just the act of offering food that was tiring but the fact that with weaning came an adjustment to yet another new way of living. Being able to plan ahead for meals took a bit of time to figure out. The phrases that helped me were:
"Under one, food is for fun"
"You are responsible for proving a balanced meal, the child is responsible for choosing what it eats from what you provide".

These took the pressure off for me. There is no rush, give yourself space to make this adjustment at your own pace, and know that it is okay not to always get it right.

Oh, we did baby-led weaning which made it much simpler. Just give him little bits of what we ate. Helped us to eat more healthily and cut down on frustration at wasted food/effort.

Echo everything here - you're not failing at all because you care about trying to do your best for him, their nutrition is all from milk at this stage, and food is just for playing and squishing and learning what food is. Couple of other things that might help:

1. If you hate constantly cleaning a highchair and your baby sits up strongly, ditch it. Wipe clean mat, pop baby on floor and have carpet picnics. There's time for him to learn sitting at the table and nice manners later, and he'll get there sooner or later - no developmentally standard child is still smearing carrot in their hair in restaurants at 19.

2. I'm not convinced I could drink out of those Doidy cups without making a mess and I'm 36. I use sippy cups for my 8mo and also have some little stainless steel cups from an Asian grocery store which only hold about 30ml tops, so she can't physically drench everything. Something like this but mine are smaller. www.popatstores.co.uk/st-st-decent-glass-no-6-5.html

3. My daughter rips off all bibs immediately (including the Bibado), so I bought some old long sleeved T shirts in the next size up off eBay and she wears those instead.

Try not to be too hard on yourself. You're a great mum and you can do this 🙂

Ooh, further to my point 1) - even easier, sit them on the floor on a big towel. When they finish, shake solid food off into bin, put towel in washing machine. Job done.