Baby struggling with food!! :(

[Mumma2be7727]

My daughter is 7months old coming onto 8 months.
She was doing brilliantly on food untill it was coming onto the soild parts. She struggles with the 7mnths + food, she gags, and sometimes chokes on it and starts having coughing fits. Not all the time just seems every other dinner she does.
Even the 6mnth + baby snacks, she seems to struggle with too, it seems as though they are too hard for her or she's just not quite getting to grips with this whole soild food part.
For example she even struggles to eat the rice paper snacks or rusks.
I'm just worried about why it's taking her so long to get on board with it all, especially when I have comments from other mums saying "she's behind" or "What she can't handle 6mnths snacks and she nearly 8mnths" which makes me feel awful, kind of like I'm not doing very well at this whole parenting thing :(
So, I come to my trusted place "mumsnet" :) any advice anyone can give that I can help her with I would appreciate it so much, I am a 1st time mum, so bear with me if none of this makes sense or I sound silly but thank you in advance!! :)

Rice paper snacks and risks can be very dry and sticky. I'd imagine she may be helped my more " wet" food first, think bits of strawberry, lumpy banana, also sips of water during mealtimes. The other mums sound weird.

My DS is 8 months and has been pretty 'slow' with weaning too. He currently exists on milk, 4 + month Ella's kitchen pouches, and wafer rice biscuits/ toast!

Honestly, try not to worry about it. I know the phrase "food before one is just for fun" isn't strictly true but if you try to get into this mindset then it does help you relax about it.

Do you have a 9 month health visitor check? If you are still worried then then maybe chat about it as they will be able to give advice.

Bohonotbojo - Thank you so much!! I'm going to give the strawberries, bananas type snacks a try, I like the idea of that. I just can't believe that never entered my mind sooner :/ but thank you :)

Coffeeforone - aww, thank you. I'm so relived it's not only my little one then. It's just the comments from other mothers that make me feel that I'm doing something wrong and I hate the whole " she's behind" comments too, but thank you. I will try to relax about it, hopefully :)

Silly and unhelpful comments from other mums! At 7 months my DD only liked really puréed foods or the non-lumpy porridge. Now she still isn't great with lumps and gags and spits them out, I also give her sips of water to help her with the dry food.

I also have a 3 year old who never liked 7 month lumpy baby food. He went straight from full puree to normal food, so I'm happy to skip the lumps with DS2 too.

It worked out ok in the end. Between about 1 and 2.5 DS1 was a brilliant eater. Only recently he decided he doesn't like any vegetables except peas and sweetcorn

Paediatric swallowing SALT here! Your little one sounds fine but probably hypersensitive or a 'taster' so her ability to sense new things in her mouth means she is acutely aware and probably unsure. This means she will hold back.

Try not to panic. Bite and dissolve foods are great for texture without the need to chew and swallow the texture - organix puffs etc (think what wotsits do when you eat them)

Plenty of wet purée food and move much slower than you thought toward the lumpy. For most children 4+ comes first, then 7+ fairly quickly but your child will need much smaller gradients of texture - 1 second less on the blender, 2 seconds less etc.

LOTS of messy play. Lots. Food and non food.

No anxiety. The vast proportion of parents who come through my feeding clinic have anxiety which has transferred in to full scale aversion in the child. Put messy food on the high chair tray and potter round the kitchen without drawing attention to anything that is eaten or not eaten. Offer spoon feeds but let her hold the spoon and explore herself.

It'll come in time but all children develop at their own rate.

Ella's kitchen melty stick things are the best! Agree with PP about fruit and veg as well - we did BLW but started mine off on just sticks of veg and bits of fruit, he loved cucumber, all berries and sweet potato wedges. And toast. Lots of toast.

If you've got a baby who is very aware of texture and has a tendency to choke/gag - offering solids like BLW could make it worse. Oral aversion usually comes from a few chokes in a hypersensitive baby (plus reflux in the history)

@holdingonbyathread sorry to hijack slightly but could you point me towards any info/websites on this. Have a reflux baby with a very sensitive gag reflex (high palate) and am about to start BLW!!!

All my 4 were late to the solids game. Just remember 'food for fun until they're one'.

Meant to add that breastmilk/formula should be they're main food still. These next few months are all about exploring food and trying a variety of tastes and textures xx

*their...sorry I'm still half asleep :-)

I'm no expert but I really like holding 's reply, having weaned two DC with varying degrees of success (DC1 didn't eat any food except berries until 14months, DC2 was chomping away on food at ~9) that feels like the sort of advice which fits best with what worked for me.

I'd add also eating your meals with DC at the table whenever you can. I think this was a big difference with DC2 - he was up at the table on a lap or in his stokke baby chair with the rest of us for meals from day 1, so when it came to time for him to have some food he had already worked out what to do and was raring to go.

Maybe if you and your DC have a plate of eg strawberries each and you show her how much you like eating them, play a bit with chomping? It's the perfect time of year for strawerries too!

Also generally properly ripe fruit us going to be better than the slightly under ripe a lot of adults eat, so let the pears go squishy etc, and let baby make a huge mess. Having food mush on her face is all part of the learning. If you wipe away every little smear she'll get the message that food is dirty and will be scared of taking bites

The best generic website around feeding is www.infantandtoddlerforum.org

It's often the reflux that makes the child hypersensitive although there is some evidence that different people have different taste thresholds so if you are a 'super' taster you sense things orally (spice, sour, sweet, texture, horrible taste etc) significantly more than someone who isn't. This would suggest a much more slow introduction to feeding is needed with gradual exposure.

Reflux can often improve with weaning but not usually with BLW solids, more with thicker/smoother textures as it weighs down in the stomach and creates a barrier. With BLW, your baby will probably only take small bits so wouldn't have the same effect.

High palate is often tricky. Some babies don't like solids because food gets stuck there all the time and I've had parents fish about dislodging things regularly which again is really distressing for a hypersensitive baby.

The more things a hypersensitive baby doesn't like can build to an oral aversion (which is when they come through the clinic so I see the more extreme cases!)

Hermano - absolutely - excellent advice. I forgot about all sitting round a table! So important for a baby to learn what to do - they need to see you do it first!!

The advice and tips are brilliant
( can always rely on mumsnet )
I feel a little relieved after reading all the replies, I guess I was just worried that she didn't seem to progress with foods or snacks like other baby, the other mums don't help that either but you guys are right she'll get there when she's ready!! Also, i think i became anxious about her choking and not be able to get to grips me with it all, that I probably didn't help being like that either. So today after reading all the advice, I'm ready to relax, take it all on board and see what will work best for us.
So thank you very much guys!!

absolutehush If it helps, I had a very vommy baby with a sensitive gag reflex and he was fine with BLW. He had to be, because he refused absolutely to be spoon fed and insisted that he did everything himself, so there wasn’t a way to introduce solids otherwise. Yes he did gag and brought food up, but did not seem to find it distressing. So not all babies like that will be unable to cope with BLW

(Obviously mine is a sample of 1 and I am not an expert like the PP, but wanted to let you know you may have some flexibility about what you can offer your baby)

Tbh I'd gag on a rice snack😉

Food is fun until they're one is something to remember as a pp said.

Thank you for all the excellent advice everyone (and sorry OP for thread stealing)

Absolutehush - aww, that's okay :) I'm glad you got good advice and help too!! :)

LoafofSellotape - That did make me laugh. I suppose I can't blame her, they are not the nicest of snacks :)

Don't stress it and don't compare to
Others. My lil one also wolfed her food when first weaning then went completely off it at nine months. We just went back to milk for a few weeks and returned to food later and she appreciated it much more.

My little one didn't start enjoying food until he was 10
Months - we BLW, just keep offering !

Am I missing something here - food is categorised as 6 month + food and 7 month + food etc?

I'm weaning my 10 month old ds and had no idea about any of this! Can someone please shed some light on this for me, I'm a ftm!