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 haven't RTFT but your HV sounds more or less useless. I found this blog (by a paediatric dietician) helpful and reassuring when DS was weaning.
https://mylittleeater.com/my-baby-barely-eats-is-this-normal/
DD is weaning now - we started at 6 months and she's now 10 months. Some days she eats maybe 15 bites over the course of the day; some days she still eats 2. She still breastfeeds on demand though (with the caveat that we always offer solid food first if it's mealtime) and is on the 91st centile for weight.
Babies aren't stupid. They know what they need to eat and as long as you're offering them food and drink frequently, they'll take what they need.
I think you're doing fine.

Ignore.

Keep offering bits of whatever you’re having. A bit of bread, carrot, mash etc. Purée bits and bobs here & there where you can to provide different textures.

don’t tie your self up in knots they all get there.

my daughter refused nearly everything & I put too much pressure on her. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I’d just leave her to it and be relaxed if I could.

they eat when they’re ready. She suddenly woke up one morning at 9 months old and was keen to try more stuff. It was almost overnight.

(

Ds1 picked up a banana and ate the whole thing at 4 months.

Ds2 would spit out even purees until he was 8 months old.

Today (and at all times from when they were about a year old) they both eat totally normally.

Don't worry, he'll get there when he's ready.

Absolute nonsense and makes me v angry. I had three DC and the advice went from weaning at 3, then 4 and then 6 months. It is not late and my DD showed no interest really for the first year. Just let them develop a natural interest in food - they will get there in their own time. I do wish HVs would actually give the correct information.

“ Food is for fun until they are one “.

which means that they get all the nutrition they need from milk ( breast milk or formula ) until at least 12 months old.

so it’s fine for him to play with it / rub it in his hair / spit it out and play with it on his high chair tray. Thats what babies do, it’s totally normal.

It doesn’t matter if none of it goes into his tummy right now. Remember there is very little that you can feed him that will be as high in healthy fats as milk ( only avocados IIRC). So in the unlikely event that you fill up his tummy with broccoli , he will get FEWER calories not more than if he only had milk.

And no of course it doesn’t need to be purée. Just nothing hard and big that he can choke on ( although you will be with him all the time ). So grapes for example need cut in half lengthways (not across ).

I just gave our kids bits of whatever we were eating ( minus the salt of course ) . Rice, pasta, potatoes , veg, fruit, toast, grated cheese, eggs. Just dont salt anything when you are cooking it and don’t give him highly processed food like “ baby yoghurt “ or biscuits or tinned or jar sauces. Just take some out the pan before you add them for you .

Dont waste your money buying special baby food, unless it’s for convenience when you are out and about.

I agree with the others that your Hv sounds unhelpful, to say the least. There is no one correct time for babies to do things, only a range of what is average.

Lots of babies do things outside that range and it doesn’t necessarily mean that anything is wrong or that they are “ falling behind “. If your baby does something ( sitting up, crawling, walking ) earlier than some other babies, it doesn’t predict anything about his future , it doesn’t show he’s smarter or more athletic than other children. A baby who walks at 10 months isn’t more advanced than one who walks at 18 months.

For your sanity as a mother I suggest you learn this now. There are a lot of competitive parents who can inadvertently make other feel bad “ boasting “ about their kids. My advice is to smile and nod and know that your baby will do things in his own time.

If you are worried about your baby being “ late” at anything, post on here about it and the hundreds of wise mums here will be quick to tell you if it’s normal or ( highly unlikely ) that you need to consult your GP.

Mine didn't start earing until 1.5. He had and still has issues around food for health reasons. He hated to be fed and skipped purees etc. He really responded to just having open access to finger foods day to day, rather than more pressurised meal environments.

Your baby is still so small. Try to relax, just have (safe) foods available to explore at their own pace. My HV was awful to me about my first too, despite his allergies and reflux. Really put a dampener on his babyhood. Don't let anyone steal that from you.

If you feel any better the second ds discovered food he refused milk although, bottle or breast, basically weaned himself overnight. And I got plenty crap about that as though somehow I could force him to breastfeed when he was practically making himself sandwiches. Turns out babies are all different, and all get there in the end.

It provides pretty much all their nutritional need for the first year. The introduction of food at that point isn't for nutritional gain - it's to introduce taste, texture, chewing development, hand to mouth co ordination, seeing how their bodies react to ingredients etc.

They don't get to six monyhs and suddenly develop a raft of additional nutritional requirements which cannot be met with milk.

I'm not sure if you're bf or ff op, but I incorporated expressed milk into things like ds porridge etc to get a bit extra into him, you could try this if you're wanting to try him with solids before milk.

I wouldn't say 7 months is that late, we were away on holiday while ds had just turned 6mths and my hv advised us to wait until we were back.

I set lots of time aside and just tried to let him play with the food. It's completely new to them so they need to investigate it first and that takes time. I just let ds play and 'eat' as much as he wanted until he got bored and then stuck him in the bath and fed him milk after. I didn't put any pressure on either of us because milk is still their main source of nutrition until 12mths. When ds got a bit more confident and had tried most things I started spoon feeding and I'd still introduce new things in a way he can feed himself.

Sometimes even now ds will refuse to be fed by spoon and act like he doesn't want it so I'll put the food on his plate and generally he'll happily feed himself. We also did lots of singing and chatting while he ate to give him a distraction and make it fun for him.

Have you tried giving him things that are, well, nice too? I know the advice really hammers starting with cauliflower and broccoli but...pureed broccoli is basically disgusting?

I don't mean cake (obviously) but at that age mine liked little strips of steak, chicken, bananas, avocados, mango, greek yogurt...

Obviously if you're not comfortable with finger foods, disregard that!

Mostly just don't stress and ignore the HV. There's no adults that have no idea how to eat. It'll all be fine.

Thank you all for the amazing supportive messages , you have all given me hope and helped my mood massively!

Between 6 months and 12 months this is literally just an experimental phase. Don't focus on whether or not he's eating it. Just introduce him to it for tasting. That HV doesn't really sound like she knows much about babies yet has very stupidly strong opinions. I don't use the word stupid lightly.

For my child baby led weaning really didn't work. I know it's all the rage and everyone is doing it but it just wasn't her thing. In the end she appreciated spoons and purees more so you really just have to experiment and go with your gut.

Some days will be better than others and they'll be very interested in their food and other days they'll just want milk.

I found that when mine only wanted milk it turned out she didn't feel good for one reason or the other.

Also some advice that really calmed me down about the whole thing was that babies generally have to try a food at least 17 times before they can form an opinion about it! Mine used to HATE HATE HATE bananas but after I heard that advice I would try out Bananas once or twice a week even if she straight up rejected it and now she loves bananas! It's one of her favourite foods.

Don't give up!

Over the years I've had some good health visitors but the one I have now I don't trust any advice from her at all.
When I took Ds for his 8 month check she tried telling me he should be having 6 small meals a day and only having milk in the morning and bedtime.
You sound like your doing the right thing keep trying and eventually little one will eat.

Understand people don't all raise babies now as they did in the 70's & '80's when I had mine. But I'd try strained fruits baby food at 6 months. It did not put my dc off of veg. I introduced one new food a week in case of an allergic reaction. Apple sauce, pears bananas. Your baby may like those.

I forgot to say, ask for a new health visitor, she sounds like a bad egg. My kids thrived on rice pablum and strained fruit as first foods, and were eating veg and meat (strained) by one yr old.

Or just don't think you are doing it wrong.

DS2 'weaned late' as we were going away for a couple of weeks and I couldn't be bothered with bibs/highchairs/managing salt/packing food. He was fine!

I agree with pps, just keep offering him things...some he will eat, some he will spit out. I found some babies prefer BLW and some prefer purées, it's trial and error. And there will be gagging, DS1 was terrible for this, and I found it distressing to start with so I watched some videos of what was normal. But milk really is the main source of nutrients for them at the moment, keep going as you are.

mine was same at that age, he's 20 months now and eats like a horse. don't worry it takes time.