Weaning 7 month old girl

[Sianmumbear]

Hi, I'm after some help or advice with weaning to solids. I started at 6 months, my baby seemed interested in my food, and always puts everything in her mouth. We started with smooth purees, baby rice, porridge, veg, fruit, yogurt with no success. She does not let the spoon in her mouth, and when I do manage to get the spoon in, she spits it out and her tongue forces all the food out again. She has a complete meltdown when we try. I've tried putting the food on the tray, in a bowl for her to play with, given her the spoon, had a spoon each. She just cries and has a meltdown. The only thing she will put in her mouth is a big crisp puff thing. For this reason- for that reason I thought I'd try BLW instead- everything I have tried she just gags and throws up. And brings up any water or milk shes had. She seems interested in putting it all in her mouth but gags and throws every sd single thing. Soft steamed veg, Rusks, toast. It's getting to the point where now she cries as soon as she sees the bib, high chair or food. I've tried making it into a game, giving her lots of praise, singing, using toys- nothing seems to work. The health visitors just say, "oh she will get it" but every single day she has a bigger meltdown and so on. What do I do? Shes obviously not ready but they keep saying she should be eating at this age!! Help...please....

Actually its not that shes not ready its that you missed the ideal window which is between 4 and 6 months ( yes I know, but the guidelines are changing) I think it might be worth persevering with her feeding herself finger food in pieces that slip down, eg banana and even let her mess about with a spoon with yogurt. And yes she should be eating at this age. You could also introduce a beaker. Once she has learned to push food around her mouth she will learn to chew, not just swallow. Try to be low key and not try too hard. If she tries she tries, if not forget it until the next day. Food can become a weapon if you let it matter too much. Just make it part of her routine. Offer the finger food before her milk so she is hungry

I've been having the same problem with DS. Health visitor advised today to cut back to offering food once a day, when he's not tired and an hour or two after having milk. She said not to worry if he spits it out as he will get the hang of it. Once he starts swallowing about 8-10 spoonfuls then increase to twice a day, then 3 times. By that time they're swallowing more than they're spitting out. Feels like it's going to be a long process. Good luck!

My first DD was like this. Absolutely refused anything from a spoon but happy to feed herself. Less gagging than you are experiencing, but there was definitely quite a bit at first.

Things I found that helped: really chunky bits of steamed or roasted veg she could suck on - sweet potato wedges worked well; fresh apricots, halved then turned inside out so she could suck flesh off skin; home made fruit leather type things (Google for a recipe but these are pretty high sugar so you may not want to); toasted pitta fingers; very messy but porridge / yoghurt / Weetabix eaten with fingers; rice cakes.

Basically things too big for her to shove in whole and too firm for her to break big bits off, so sucking / gnawing was required.

She didn't eat anything in any quantity until she was well over 1 - friends babies would eat whole jars of baby food, mine would mush up an inch of banana. But she's still here (teenager now) and absolutely fine.

Good luck.