11 Month Old Food Issues

[Juniper93]

Morning!

My 11 month old first child has been on puréed food from 6 months. If we spoon feed him he will eat chunky food including pasta bolognese with the rigatoni chopped up. He will bite on toast, sandwiches etc and eat puffs. The problem is with the finger foods he just throws them after a couple of minutes and then won’t try eat anymore. So he doesn’t actually eat much, and calories wise won’t get anything new what he was. I obviously want to keep him full so worry he isn’t eaten enough when he just throws the food. How do I transition from chunky/mashed food which is spoon fed, to him self feeding.

I don’t know whether to make him food he can pick up and really promote that alone or whether to still give him spoon fed food and some finger foods on the side. The advice is so different across the web and it’s making it harder to know what’s best.

Anyone been in a similar situation? And what did you do?

thanks!

Have you given him loaded spoons or a spoon and a bowl full of food and let him feed himself?

I’d get rid of the chunky purees all together and just do solids. They are more of a choking risk than solids.

Have a look at this organisation- solidstarts.com/therapy-throwdown-challenges-from-spoons-to-fingers/

Thank you both!

@Flopisfatteningbingforchristmas We have tried this but he just spends the time trying to rip the bowl up. He did hold a spoon at the beginning of the week and try bring it to his mouth. We do keep trying this.

@fyn thanks for that. When you say give up with chunky and go to solids, if we have bolognese do we just give him it as we have it and he grabs what he wants?

My 10mo has ZERO interest in self feeding. He has literally only started putting finger foods in his mouth the other day, but now he just throws them away again. He's very keen on spoon feesing though.

Don't worry about self feeding - he'll do it eventually. Just keep gently encouraging him and spoon feeding to make sure he gets enough to eat

Yes, you can make adaptations if your baby isn’t used to solids.

solidstarts.com/foods/pasta/

If you scroll down there are videos of different stages and how to serve the pasta safely at each stage. It might be useful to serve penne for example to start with rather than spaghetti noodles.

I had so much trouble with weaning my daughter, it ended up in her dropping weight and NHS dieticians. Solid Starts advice is what helped my daughter get on track and gain weight again. She’s gone from throwing everything on the floor to eating again. Their Instagram is 100% worth a look.

I came to recommend Solid Starts as well - absolutely brilliant what they are doing and I'm sure you can find some advice on there. Might take a bit of persistence but will be worth it.

Don’t get hooked on how much he’s eating, if he’s travelling along a similar-ish percentile then he’s getting enough calories

he’s throwing the food because he’s had enough and isn’t hungry. It’s great he knows when to stop eating and can listen to his body

personally I’d offer a mix of mush and baby led weaning. Milk is still the most important thing at 11 months and the food is just extra

Thank you everyone!

The Solid Starts gives me a lot of what I was searching for so that is great!