Weaning - DS doesn't want to eat and HV made me feel crap

[Gigi89x]

Please help i feel awful started weaning DS at 6 months he is now 7months, he got very upset and showed no interest, i took a 2 week break and restarted with porridge. He ate it at first for a week and then i moved onto carrot ,sweet potato purees. He would not eat the veg and turns his head and gets very distracted, i also tried baby led weaning with broccoli and cauliflower yesterday. He put some in his mouth and spat it out. Today he wouldn't put any food in his mouth nor would he eat his porridge.

I called the HV, she said Im weaning late and i should only have been doing purees. ( i have tried both purees and finger food) she made me feel like a bad mother by repeatedly telling me I'm doing things late and i felt awful by the end of the call.

She suggested i feed solids before the bottle as he is "WEANING LATE" as she said 100 times.

Im very distressed by the whole situation and i feel like my DS is falling behind.

What can i do to help my DS eat? 😰

I'd definitely try offering food before milk if you're not already - he won't want to eat if his tummy is full of milk.

He's not falling behind and nothing bad will happen because he weaned at 7 months not 6.
Just trying food and having a mouthful or two is absolutely fine.

Offer him purees and finger foods, and try sitting him on your lap at meals so he can try from your plate.

1. ignore the health visitor. I cannot emphasise this enough.
2. STOP STRESSING
3. carry on as you are, offer variety etc, make food enjoyable. 7 months is early days. He will eat.

Ignore the HV. I can pretty much guarantee he won’t be drinking breast milk and eating purées by the time he’s a toddler. Babies do things at their own pace. (I’m a mum of 2, aged 20 and 11 now, my youngest has autism and was a really difficult eater, he had a very restrictive diet and was under a dietician until 4 - we were very laid back about it and just offered all sorts with no pressure and he now eats a huge variety of things). Honestly, just keep offering different foods and you’ll soon find things he enjoys.

That sounds like a very unhelpful conversation
with the HV.

My DS made a strong start with eating at 6 months and then went off it completely and wouldn’t touch anything until about 8 months.

Just keep offering different things a couple of times a day. And the very most important thing - Do not get stressed if he refuses them all.

It will happen eventually, babies are contrary little creatures. Stressing about it won’t change anything (this is my advice to my past self).

She doesn't sound very good. Milk provides all the nutrition they need in the first year, and any meals they get into them on top of this is excellent, but is a bonus!

I did BLW with mine so strips of chicken, brocoli, potato, omelette etc all served with my meals at the table then plenty milk morning afternoon and evening to get the calories in.

Putting food in their mouth then spitting it out is exactly normal. Just keep offering it, for the next few months food is just there to learn from, they are still getting the majority of what they need from milk.

You'll find that day by day the amount of food eaten will increase, you just have to be patient.

Every day, at every meal put a few bits of food on the high chair tray and then leave him to pick them up and squish them and lick/chew/spit them out.

Bread and butter or toast fingers were a winner early on for DD, she also really enjoyed the process of chewing on and gnawing at corn on the cob, scrambled egg was good, made quite firm so it wasn't too slippy, chunks of banana (beware you do end up with weird black streaks in their poo so dont panic), steamed carrot batons work well too as they are soft and sweet.

Bloody hell, food is just for playing and tasting at that point! My son wasn't interested in food at 6 months so I waited 6 weeks and tried him again and he liked it. You're doing exactly the right thing. I think I did bottle when they first woke up, then ready brek at about 9.00am. I just spaced out milk and trying food until they became more interested. Don't worry, you're doing a great job.

He will eat when he's ready. And you didn't start late-6 months is perfect. Just offer him a variety of food in a completely relaxed, no stress manner. Oh, and eat something yourself at the same time. It's companionable and something for him to copy.

Milk provides all nutritional needs for the first 6 months and then is the main source of nutrition up to 12 months but doesn't provide everything - babies do need solids from 6 months, although initially of course that is quite small amounts.

Have you looked at the nhs guidelines? They’re all about from six months on and start with fingers of roasted veg.
https://www.nhs.uk/start-for-life/baby/weaning/
I think your HV is about 20 years out of date. I’d actually want to complain about that.

I'm not really sure how the BLW weaning works as I fed my DD until around 16 mo (apart from finger food that she did herself from around a year). Have you tried sweet stuff yet? My DD use to love yoghurts or just sweet pot on its own. I never really did the try one thing at a time as I'm a FTM and didn't really read up on it or know that's what you're meant to do (please don't shame me). So a lot of what my DD had was just the same meals as me just blended and she's now a pretty good eater. Weetabix were a winner with her, she's always refused porridge just pop milk on and in the microwave for 20 seconds and it's basically like porridge anyway. Also please stop stressing eating will happen when it happens. My DD was brill at first and even now sometimes will have days where I feel like I'm cooking just to throw it straight in the bin. Don't like to the HV every child is different!! You're doing amazing! Xx

Just ignore. Weaning is an area where HVs are particularly poor I think. It sounds like your DS is doing what most other 7 months old do with food. Try a bit. Spit it out. Play with it. Go days surviving on just milk. It's all part of the process.

The mantra "food before one is for fun" really helped me - just keep offering lots of different things and keep the atmosphere at the table light and relaxed. Anything that goes in their mouth is great, and spitting things out is fine - they're just learning to taste and chew and getting used to the textures.

Look for 'Solid Starts' on Instagram, it's run by doctors and paediatric experts on nutrition and has tons of helpful tips and guidance. Your HV sounds rubbish so try not to let her get you down.

Ignore the Hv

carry on as you are offering food

do offer food before milk as he isn’t going to eat it if he is full of milk

try and eat with ds so when you sit down with breakfast/lunch/dinner he is sitting down with food as well. (Dinner this might not work out if you eat late) often food off your plate is much better than the identical food on his plate

don’t stress if he doesn’t appear to eat much/anything. His main food is milk and a baby portion is tiny

OP you and your baby are doing fine, by the sound of things
It's a great shame that your HV is being so unhelpful.

Let your baby play with his food and he'll get used to eating eventually. Milk is the most important foodstuff at his age.

I weened on of mine at 7 months because he had chickens pox really badly at six months. Our youngest wouldn’t eat much until she was around 9 months old. If she’d been my first, I would have really panicked.

p.s. just to set your expectations on portion size… eating one or two baby spoonfulls of something in one go is fine. I would consider that a success.

So do I!
He's tiny. Two spoonfuls is good.

Don't stress, take deep breaths, your child is not "falling behind" because they aren't interested in vegetable purees as a 7 month old. Your 5 year old is not going to get pulled to one side by their teacher and told they can't start reception class with the others because they'll only take milk. It's not going to stop them walking or talking or teeth coming in.

Food before one is just for fun.

Are they showing all the signs of being ready to wean - which the NHS does say is "FROM six months" it's not instant:

• stay in a sitting position, holding their head steady
• coordinate their eyes, hands and mouth so they can look at their food, pick it up and put it in their mouth
• swallow food (rather than spit it back out)

It's perfectly normal for a baby to just want a teaspoon of a mashed food to try in one "sitting" and then they're bored and want to get out of the highchair and off doing something else.

Are they interested when you eat food? If you're not already, sit them at the table with you when you eat so they can see you doing it, and talk to them and involve them in what you're doing - give them cutlery to hold and chew on, offer them to sniff and touch and lick what you're eating (if suitable). Most babies should be interested in taking a piece of buttered toast and experimentally sticking it in their mouths to gum on. They probably won't actually eat much of it but it's all practice!

Ignore them. I started putting bits of whatever I was having in front of my baby at every mealtime from 6 months. She didn’t actually put anything into her mouth until just shy of 8 months. She’s now 8.5 months and is finally seeming to enjoy food and having three very small meals per day. I haven’t rushed her, I’ve just let her explore and eat at her own pace. She has always point blank refused to be fed purées or anything on a spoon.

My now three year old was exactly the same and now eats well and is very adventurous in her tastes.

My boy is 7 months and isn’t a fan of food either.

I started with veg purées and he was not liking them at all. I did BLW too with broccoli and cauliflower and he didn’t eat anything. Even now sometimes with food he is hit and miss. I’m trying to get comfortable one meal at a time so we just do an evening meal. This is approx 1.5 hours after his last feed which gives him about 2.5 til his last bottle.

ignore the health visitor, babies go at their own pace. Even things we like and know a baby will like eg fruit as it’s sweet is a big taste and texture difference from what they are used to. I just keep offering the veg purées and only the past few days he has started to have a bit. Still pulls a face at the beginning and isn’t a fan until around 5 tastes in and even then he doesn’t have a lot. I’m just going with small wins!

Milk is the primary source of nutrition before 1 and 6 months is the minimum age to start weaning unless medically advised otherwise. Is she quite old? I had a health visitor who had come out of retirement during covid and was severely out of date in her knowledge…she advised purées at 4 months but I stuck with BLW at 6 months. DD is 19 months now and a great eater.

You're not "late" with weaning, you started at the recommended time.

I would continue to give food, maybe about an hour or so after a milk feed so that he isn't starving but also isn't too full. Try for once or twice a day. Just put food on his tray and leave him to it whilst you eat your meal, or have a drink or something if you don't want to eat. Ideally you should be eating the same as he is, so he can watch you.

If you want to do purées then offer him a spoon to hold and play with as well as the one you're using. Give him finger food as well, alongside the spoon feeding. The idea with weaning is to let them explore and learn about food and taste, without any pressure.

Ignore your health visitor, this sounds like a normal part of weaning. Spitting out foods can often mean that they don't yet know what to do with them or experiencing a new texture, not necessarily that they don't like them.

Do you eat the same foods at the same time? It's great for modelling to your baby what we need to do to eat a meal so they can learn and trust it.

I found the free resources by Solid Starts were fantastic. They show you how to serve foods by age, building good foundations for healthy food relationships and reducing the risk of picky eating. I felt it took pressure off and I ended up quite enjoying it

The best advice.