To cry over a potato smiley?

[bigbodge]

I'm at my wits end with weaning my 10 month old. She eats basically nothing. I have tried spoon feeding, baby led weaning, a combination of both. I've tried so many different foods and the only things she will reliably eat are yoghurts, fruit pots and baby porridge. She hates anything too textured. If I spoon feed she shuts her mouth, if I let her handle it herself she throws it on the floor. I've just lost my shit over a potato smiley (not in front of her but fucking hell I could scream).

The amount of time I spend trying to make her nutritious or interesting food only for her to Chuck it on the floor is driving me insane. And im so worried about her development. Other babies her age are having 3 meals a day and dropping bottles but she's still having 5 over 24 hours because she's simply not getting enough food and when she does it's half a yoghurt or a bastard fruit pouch.

Has anyone else got/had dc like this? Does it get better? My elder two both ate like horses and would have bowlfuls of whatever I offered.

@Polkadotpolkadot spot on. This is exactly what my extremely practical paediatrician told me. I wish I could send him to you @BeeColourful.

Children reach milestones in their own time.

Food before one is for fun… Food before one is for fun… Food before one is for fun… something I have to remind myself with daily with my 11 month old. Who did not get the memo that food is fun 🤦‍♀️

That’s not at all what I said or even implied.

Spoonfeeding a baby does not teach them anything because they are not learning how to chew, swallow or take appropriate size bites/portions for themselves.

If they are allowed to, yes.

DS is 15 months and is a very fussy eater. Often throws food on the floor and eats little of what I offer. Whenever he is ill (which is a lot lately) he won't entertain the idea of food. The only thing that he does eat consistently when he isn't I'll is the little dish ready meals which he has a few times a week. He's very small for his age (only just coming out of 6-9 month clothes yet 9-12 are hanging off him) always has been so obviously this does concern me but I think it's so common and I try and never let him see how stressful it can be.

This is Feeding Littles. Sorry typo.

Spoon feeding might not teach portion size but they still have the chew or mush the food around and still have to swallow. BLW is not the only method.

It was a long time ago but my ds would only eat things thst were absolutely smooth. So basically jars of the baby pureed fruit were all he would eat. Wouldn't touch any of my lovingly prepared pureed and sieved Annabel Karmel recipes.

Seriously, how many adults do you know that can’t eat? Very few or none I would imagine.
just forget about it and she will do it when she is ready.

try to enjoy your baby and stop comparing. There is a Bluey episode about this exact thing. Have a rest and tomorrow is a new day.

p.s same goes for potty training!!!

Other people always say their babies eat 3 meals a day, sleep through the night, love to eat broccoli, can baby sign the national anthem etc etc. It’s all bollocks. People make stuff up to impress other people and make themselves feel better. Don’t stress, your baby will be fine.

Aww try not to worry OP. In all honesty I’m surprised you are so worried when this is your third child!

Put it this way - we don’t know many/any people who don’t eat solid food at all. Yes some are fussy but it’s highly unlikely she’s never going to eat solid food. She will when she is ready. Milk is what is building up her little body at this stage.

I agree. I remember my neighbour telling me their child was sleeping 28 hours a day or something ridiculous and I wanted to punch his lights out.

Hey op, don't stress! She's still very young.
My DS is 21 months and has just started spoon feeding himself. He's used hands up until now. He's a lot goes on the floor and they will develop a taste for certain things over others (mine ate veg whilst weaning, now hates them I have to hide them into foods to make sure he's getting them) I still use mashed/purées fruit in his weetabix, and I mash veg into salmon and potato with cheese sauce/cottage pie/curry etc. he also has a sweet tooth now so prefers pudding over main.
Oh well, as long as they are eating it's fine.
Infact, he still has a bottle for bed. He loves it, she will eat when she's hungry. Don't worry.
I remember having teary moments after I'd stood in the kitchen cooking for it to then be wasted but hey ho. If it didn't go in the bin it would have gone in his belly but either way, at least I tried.

She's still very young, don't worry she'll get there 🤗

I was going to say YANBU as assumed you were FTM but honestly getting this worked up over your DC3 weaning is a bit mental. 10 month old is still exploring food, learning how to eat, milk whether formula or breast should still be main source of nutrition, try to chill out a bit 😄

DD1 ate everything offered from 4 months whether it was puree, finger food or anything else.
Then I had dd2.

Just before 6 months I started offering purees as the current recommendations. She clamped her mouth closed whenever the spoon came near, and if, by any mischance, I managed to get anything in her mouth she just worked at it with her tongue until it all came out.
Finger foods were clearly designed to be flung on the floor without reaching her mouth. She did occasionally eat paper when she could get at it, and she once took a mouthful of red glitter. That made very pretty nappies for a few days. But food. No way.

Aged about 10 months, dd1 decided to slip a chocolate button in her mouth. This was the first food item that didn't come straight out. About a week later I was having an ice cream and she bent forward and took a lick... and then another.

After that she would take some foods. Not a lot, and typically she'd have a day where she ate something, then revert back to full refusal for a couple of days. By the time she was about 2yo I had found a food that she consistently ate. Tinned sweetcorn. So if she'd eaten nothing for a couple of days then I got out the tinned sweetcorn.

I also made a mistake with her aged about 12 months. We'd done a little bit of baby signs and I taught her chocolate. I think she asked for chocolate for breakfast, lunch and tea every day until she was about 3yo. Don't do that. It was funny for almost 24 hours.

She's 19yo and I won't say she has an amazing diet. I think given the choice she'd still live on chocolate, ice cream and tinned sweetcorn. She doesn't eat paper any more either. But she does eat enough to survive, and I could always tell when she was growing (and she did a lot of that!) because she ate more of things that were filling.

ps. The first full meal where she ate everything was a McD's happy meal. So there's another non-healthy option for you.

Don’t worry yet - but my son was like that, he is now 12 years old and still a struggle - he has food phobias and started in babyhood in exactly that way 😪I was very strict age about 2, on medical advice, took away his milk, yoghurt, crackers and he was offered same food 3 times a day until he ate it. Went to bed hungry / crying as wanted milk. He still won’t eat fruit or veg. Look up AFRID / selective eating.

But I agree with the other posters, don’t worry about it yet. I didn’t start to worry about it until around 21 months…

I know I sound a bit mental. And my older dc ate loads from a really early age so I guess im just experiencing something very unfamiliar this time around.

It's not the mess or the wasted cooking attempts or anything like that that worries me, it's just the thought that she's not getting enough. She's always been on the small side, still in 6-9 despite being 10 months now (and only recently gone into this size). So that's why I'm worrying a bit. But I will try to chill out and just let her eat what she chooses. Getting stressed about it is no good for either of us. If she were hungry I'm sure I'd know about it.

Another one with a (very) fussy child. I was very stressed when she was the same age as your DD. What helped me was separating nutrition from what she ate - my DD drank a lot of milk, so was getting all the nutrients she needed (she definitely wasn't underweight). Was she eating the diet I'd have chosen? No, but the nutrition was more important. She's still very fussy now (10yo) but a healthy weight, and otherwise doing well developmentally.

My now 13 year old was like this. She would clamp her mouth shit and shake her head.

I eventually discovered that she liked food with more flavour. Typical baby food had her gagging.

She now eats brilliantly and likes everything except cooked salmon.

Relax, experiment and she’ll get there.

Shut not shit! 😂🙈

My DS wouldn’t wean - he’d had oral antibiotics and wouldn’t let me near him with finger food or a spoon. All my lovingly homemade veg purées wasted.

My DM told me to try fruit pouches. I really didn’t want to as I thought it’d give him a sweet tooth, but I tried some peaches pears and baby rice on a spoon, got it on his lips and he was away.

The way I weaned him off the pouches was to try him with veg ones next, then made mashed sweet potatoes or avocado or boiled lentils and mixed the veg pouch in, in ever decreasing amounts, so he got slowly used to the taste, and eventually I was able to drop the pouches completely.

If your DD is on yoghurt and pouches already though try not to worry - she will get there. My DS wasn’t on three proper meals a day at her age. And don’t get too upset about the food on the floor, that’s just having a baby!

Be kind to yourself, and her. This too shall pass.

Maybe she's a grazer OP? Try more snacks/little and often

@bigbodge if you think about it this way even if she was eating 3 square baby portion meals per day … we’d probably be talking a what, a couple of hundred calories? That’s why ‘food is fun before one’. At this age her eating those meals is not the difference between her being a healthy growing baby or not.

None of my 5 ate reliably until they were two.
10 months is nothing. Remember food before 1 is just for fun!

You are overthinking this and worrying about nothing. Your child will not starve herself!

Contrary to the comments, I would be concerned.