Weaning 7 month old

[Redkite11]

I am a first time mum and I have a 7 month old boy. For over a week, he has been INCREDIBLY fussy with feeding. He cries at the sight of the spoon and baby led weaning doesn't really work (he usually just smashes the food around). He only enjoys fruit, courgette and porridge. He used to like carrots, sweet corn and peas but now he refuses these. He also hates all fish, chicken, lentils, potatoes, sweet potato, parsnip and butternut squash. Obviously broccoli and cauliflower are also hated. He cries and howls the whole time. He didn't used to do this but it's a new development. How do I get him to enjoy his food? What have I done wrong to make his eating so much worse than it was?

Thanks Qwetywerty3. How do I let him play with the food if it's mushy? It just falls everywhere. Should I give him harder food?

Smashing the food round is fine. It's all part of the learning process. Are you giving a range of textures? Mine loved crunchy things! I found it hard to get the timings right to start with round naps and milk - my DD ended up having her evening meal at 4.30 for a while because that suited her best.

My baby is now 11 months. She only started half heartedly eating at 9 months. She's only started wolfing her food down and eating full portions in the last 2-3 weeks. Both advances in her eating just seemed to happen overnight. I swear it's developmental.

I agonised over her eating for months.

If I could go back and tell myself one thing, it would be not to worry.

I found the more I left her to play and squish and smoosh all the different textures, the more she'd actually then attempt to eat it the next time I offered it her.

I think you have to remember they don't really understand the concept of food yet. They have no real desire to eat or try things as they're getting enough calories and nutrition from milk and it's normal. Like I say, at some point I think it just "clicks" and they get it

You need to give them time to explore their food and keep offering the same tastes over and over again. It took my DS 10 attempts to like cauliflower cheese but now he’s 11 months old and it’s his favourite dish.

To answer your question above, we offered a mixture of things she could hold and things we'd put in a spoon. Usually two meal times.

So if we were having a roast, I might mash up some cauli cheese and give her some boiled carrot battons.