11 month old barely eats any solids

[Lou2423]

Hi everyone,

my 11 month old is breastfed, he’s never taken a bottle but will drink water/milk out of a cup if I’m not there (very very rarely). We’ve been weaning since 6 months, started with BLW but also have done the odd pouch and will spoonfeed him certain foods. The problem is, he just does not eat. This is a genuine typical day for us in terms of food:

breakfast - 6 Cheerios
lunch - 3 small bites of a sandwich or whatever he is offered
snacks - 2 rice cakes, or a melty stick and some banana
dinner - half a small corn on the cob, one cucumber stick and half a yoghurt

he still feeds like a newborn, every 2 hours or so during the day. I’ve started restricting his feeds in order to help him eat. For example, he will wake crack of dawn (5-6am) for a feed then go back to sleep, when he does wake up I offer him breakfast and don’t let him feed until nap time. When he wakes from his first nap, again I don’t offer a feed I offer food and water first but nothing seems to help. He will have his measly food, refuse anything else then the minute it’s away his clawing at me for boob.

I don’t mind the breastfeeding part, that doesn’t bother me but it’s obviously interrupting his eating and since he starts a childminder 3 days a week next week I’m SO worried he will be up all night latching onto me because he isn’t eating in the day.

has anyone had any similar issues, and have any advice? Or can give me advice on how to wean off boob and onto food?

thank you! Xx

You might find that being at the childminder works wonders. Watching other kids eat. my kids were fussy but would eat all kinds of stuff at cm they wouldn't try at home.

I would have been thrilled if my 11 month old ate this much! I get it's not a lot though. My daughter took until 13 months to engage with weaning. She ate her first meal at 13 months. Between 7 and 13 months she only put on 200g which was stressful! She needed food and milk (switched to formula at 10 months) to gain weight and it took until 20 months before she was eating enough to reduce the amount of milk she was having. She has severe silent reflux and multiple food allergies so we were under dieticians and paediatricians it was good to have their reassurance.

She's 4 now and still quickly goes off food. She's worse when her reflux and allergies are playing up so we have to keep an eye on that.

Keep offering food, keep an eye on weight and if you need any reassurance ask you HV for advice.