10 month old never eaten solids.

[Lucia201837]

Hi just wondered if anyone has experienced the same problem as myself??? My 10 month old has never eaten any solids including purées ever since I tried to wean her at around 5 months old! She had colic and reflux when she was younger but now seems to be symptom free and has been for a few months.
Every time I try to feed her she bats the spoon away and clamps her mouth shut shaking her head. I’ve tried baby led weaning and she doesn’t put any in her mouth. She doesn’t really mouth any toys either just her fingers.
She’s meeting all her other developmental milestones and is nearly walking but I’m at my wits end with the feeding! It’s making me so depressed I cry most days. Please can anyone help or let me know of any similar experiences that get better?

You have had some good advice about food play and stress free eating.
How is tooth brushing? Can you get tooth brush in to clean her teeth? This may be clue to if she is particularly orally avoidant (although my 2.5 yr old eat anything HATES it.)
Keep going. Consciously try to not be stressed- some nice music, sit together- at a table, pic nic style, at a cafe, with other kids. Whenever, however. If she picks something up, smile but don’t get over excited.
You will win. She is still very little. Good luck!!

I have an almost 10 month also and while he will put food in his month it is literally in the past couple of days that he is eating any volume of food and it does depend what it is.
I tend to give him toys in his high chair while we eat and sometimes he decides to join in too but I figure at least the toys keep him happy in the chair and he gets used to being at the table..
I also teach in a special needs school and I have a couple of kids this year with issues around food and eating but occupational therapy won't look at them until speech and language have seen them and ruled out an oral problem. Speech and language have advised that I introduce food based sensory play in my classroom to just get them used to seeing and feeling food. No pressure to eat.
There should also be feeding clinics you can be referred to. It might be worth asking your gp to refer you to both of these although I wouldn't be surprised if they say they don't see the need for that yet and try to advise a wait and see approach.. If it was me and you are worried about it I would push for the referral to be put through now and you can cancel if you don't need it as the waiting list may be long depending on where you are.

Hi sheepyfun- she was on similac until last month as her GP thought she may be lactose intolerance. I have now put her on cow n gate formula 2 (6-12 months) she seems to be tolerating it ok which I suppose is a positive!
Just worry that she will be getting all the nutrients she requires especially if this issue continues for some time.

There will be a specialist feeding clinic or feeding speech and language therapist . Ask for a,referral.

Onalongsabbatical- that makes me feel so much better. By what I am hearing this sounds a common issue.

My DD would only have milk until she was one. She's 2 and a half now and eats everything! Try not to worry OP!

Cantchooseaname- I can hardly get a toothbrush in her mouth. She’s got two teeth a the bottom so far but I’ve hardly been able to brush them as she just screams when I do so and wasn’t sure if I continued trying it works make the feeding issue worse

Hi OP
We had the same challenge with our ds. He didn’t eat anything until 15 months. We had been referred to the feeding clinic at 13 months where they checked his mouth, tongue, throat etc. Nothing physically wrong so they made us a follow up appointment for 3 months time and told us to go home and not worry. They also said we’d probably cancel the follow up appointment as they were sure he’d start eating.
The break through came at a friends house - a lunch of various bits on the table with us sat around. He grabbed the smoked salmon and simply put it in his mouth and ate it!!! Apparently there is a Stone Age instinct in us all to be attracted to smokey and highly flavoured foods. We cancelled the follow up appointment!!!
We ended up buying a load of smoked salmon over the next few months, but at least he ate!!
He’s now 10 years old, we had Indian at our local restaurant tonight - clearly none the worse for his delayed start to solids!!!

I will definitely keep preserving with the messy play/ food play- it seems this activity is widely recommended by the experts in this field. I will also ask for a speech therapy referral and feeding clinic referral when I see the GP this week, will push for one if she refuses.
Out of interest with any of you that had the same issue as me with there children- did they mouth on toys even though they wouldn’t eat?

Theonlywayisupbaby- I might go and get some smoked salmon lol. It’s always the unexpected in babies isn’t it lol.

DD did mouth on toys, though she was never as keen as others to try to eat things she shouldn't. At 10 months she wasn't mobile at all. One thing you'll be told is that not eating can affect developing the muscles for speech, and that speech may be impaired. I'm sure that's the case for some, but my DD shows that it isn't the case for all - there's one other girl in her class who was similar, but again her speech is fine.

Nutritionally, formula milk (as against cows milk) is pretty complete, so I don't think you need to worry from that point of view.

Yes sheepyfun- I’ve been told about her speech- they don’t half try to worry you don’t they. She is very vocal at the moment and babbles constantly throughout the day so I’m hoping that will make up for not eating and using those muscles so much

May I ask if your DD mouthes toys? I definitely remember the frustration that my DD would put wood/plastic/metal etc. in her mouth, but not food!

No she doesn’t mouth anything apart from her fingers/ hand. She did use to mouth the odd toy a few months ago but she doesn’t even do that now

My ( now adult) daughter barely ate any solids until she was 10 months when she had a few biscuits ( we were on holiday with GPS). It seemed to give her the idea that food wasn't poison and within a month she had gone from fully breast fed to no breast at all and eating meals. She drank water and milk from a beaker and ate adequate amounts of food. She was more conservative than her brothers in her tastes but no real problem. The change was really rapid , try not to worry.

OP my DS wouldn’t eat until over ten months. Specifically: until he could feed himself. He never once allowed a spoon of purée to pass through his mouth!

His first foods were (I kid you not) pappadoms (crunchy!), water biscuits (crunchy and dissolving) and olives (flavoursome). He wanted texture not purée.

I had to leave him with a childminder for whole days before he’d eat.

I think at this stage it’s in the spectrum of ‘normal’ - but we all expect them to be desperate for apple purée at six months so it doesn’t feel like that.

Babies are eating food as an addition to their milk and main diet until 1 year- so maybe see it as a really experimental time?

A tray of morsels on the floor? Some stronger flavours?

Also: do you have a high chair that sits at the table like a Tripp Trapp or similar? I think they need to see dinner time as family social time. Feeding baby separately never worked for us.

Ds2 did not eat solids until around 18 months. He is totally fine and developed normally apart from not wanting solid. He was checked by peadiatrician at the time and was totally fine and peadiatrician not worried. My HV aas hysterical about it though🙄

Girlwhowearsglasses- yes she has a high chair which can pull up to the table however the last couple of weeks she has not wanted to sit in it.

Beardedmum- yes the health visitor only makes me worry more. Last time I saw her she said she’s never known any baby not eat at this age ( she was 9 months at the time) it’s all I wanted to hear and only added to my anxiety

Just wanted to add to my previous post and answer one of your questions about toys - my dd didn’t put anything in her mouth apart from her fingers/thumb, until 12ish months and now (14 months) she is shoving all her toys in. It entirely coincided with when she started putting food in her mouth - she just wasn’t interested in the slightest before that. At 10 months she had put absolutely nothing, food or otherwise, anywhere near her mouth. Please don’t listen to your HV and please try not to worry. She is still so little, you can’t force her to eat and she’s obviously not ready. My dd does have a tongue tie (it has been snipped twice and reattached) and a lip tie but I asked a speech therapist and they said neither should have any impact on that actual act of wanting to put things into her own mouth; that is developmental and she just wasn’t there yet. As someone who has been exactly where you are I would say please don’t stress, just let her get there in her own time because the chances are she will. Ignore what everyone else’s babies are doing, give her lots of food to play with and explore and just step back and let her figure it out. It might take a couple more months but the more you stress over this, the more of an impact it’s going to have on all of you. Is she happy/alert/ gaining weight? Those are all the things to focus on. She will get there!

Ohpleasesleepbabysleep- thank you so much for that! It’s really helped and cheered me up. I’m going to try and not to stress so much.
She’s generally a happy baby. Extremely alert, babbles loads and has actually taken a couple of first steps over the last few days. She has been gaining weight well but due to be weighed on Thursday and I reckon she may have dropped a centile because she’s had a bad cold and not had so much milk together with her being more mobile.
Just a question- did your child hate baths? She absolutely hates them and I mentioned this to the health visitor and that’s when she said maybe it’s a sensory thing with the food too. I think that is what set me up worrying so much to be honest.

She’s not bothered by baths, she’s baby #2 so she doesn’t get that many of them but she quite likes them. People kept telling me that her non eating was a sensory thing but I just don’t see how it can be, because she wasn’t even putting the food in her mouth to be able to have a sensory reaction. (If that makes sense) Similarly I’d have people telling me to give her things that were vv sweet or wrongly flavoured; what was the point when we couldn’t get past the first hurdle of actually tasting it?! I really do think it was just an entirely developmental process. As soon as it occurred to her to put the piece of food in her hand, into her mouth, she realised it was tasty... and so the next time she had something in her hand, she put it in her mouth and so on. And she did sit with us while we ate and I made sure she watched me put food in my mouth, she just wasn’t interested in the slightest in doing it herself, until v recently. And now there’s no stopping her!

*stongly flavoured not wrongly...

Strongly, even!

Gosh OP I could have written this! So glad I'm not the only one with a completely disinterested feeder. DS is 10.5 months and only in the last week-ish is he FINALLY starting to accept some puréed food. He's just not interested. Like yours he doesn't tend to mouth things so there's no exploratory or "accidental" finger feeding, it's mainly me trying to trick his mouth open and shove a spoon in.

Mechanically he's definitely been capable of eating since 5 months, he just doesn't WANT to! The older he gets the more worrying it becomes, and mealtimes feel so messy, frustrating and extremely drawn out.

He is JUST beginning to properly accept a few things. Weetabix in the morning, and lumpy slop through the day. He's prepared to taste a Bourbon biscuit or similar (does seem to have a bit of a sweet tooth!) but discards it pretty quickly. Prior to the last 10 days or so he ate practically nothing. So, solidarity!! If you do crack it please share!! 🤪