11mo doesn’t eat anything- any one experienced the same?

[Itsrainingfrogs]

Looking for some advice from any parents who may have trod a similar path before…

My daughter is 11m and we’ve been introducing solids since 6.5m. We offer a variety of food 3 times a day and have done since she was around 8m. (She’s exclusively breastfed and has never taken to a bottle or a dummy either).

She is interested in food, but will just pick tiny bits off and put it in her mouth to taste, and move it around until she finally pushes it out of her mouth. We do a mixture of letting her feed herself and occasionally feeding her with a spoon.

This evening I gave her some mashed up veg on a spoon (about 1/4 of a spoon), and she gagged so hard she was sick a little :(
Was a bit of a breaking point!

She will eat a few spoonfuls of pureed fruit or yoghurt (we don’t offer these often because we want to try and get her used to “chewing”), so I’m not sure if it’s a sensory/textural thing?

Her first teeth only just came in last week so I don’t know if that makes any difference?

If anyone has experienced anything similar, when did you seek any professional help? And did you go to your GP or health visitor? (We saw HV at 9m check and she said don’t worry until closer to one year).

I’m just worried about her starting nursery in Jan, and what that means for food etc. Thank you in advance for any tips or insights you may have!

I'd agree with your HV's advice. DS2 had no interest until 12 months. We did baby led weaning though and never had a problem with gagging.

Should have added - DS was also exclusively bf.

My DS was exactly like this. You’re doing everything right and she will start eating, very soon. The best advice I was given was not to allow my DS to see my anxiety. At 12 months I reduced the breastfeeding and introduced a sippy cup. Gradually he started to eat more. My DS is now over six feet tall and is a massive foodie.

Can I ask what you put in the sippy cup?

I’m wondering whether, if she’s still not eating much by 12m, if I’ll need to express breastmilk (or start formula?) to keep up her nutrition? Or can she switch to cows milk?

DC was exclusively breastfed and did BLW, no interest in food until older than 12m. Probably more like 14m.

I remember the slogan was ‘food is for fun until one!’

I experienced the same with my now 6 year old son. As PP have said the best thing you can do is not to show you're stressed (I definitely failed to do this!) My son was exclusively breastfed too and at nursery he ate much better compared to at home. Keep doing what you're doing. There is a lot of expectation set by all the lovely Instagram weaning pages out there that all babies are going to love food straight away when for some babies/young toddlers it does take longer!

Introduce a sippy cup with water now (just for fun / mess at first!) Then at 12 months you can give full fat cows milk in a sippy cup. No need to express by that age unless you particularly want to!

DD was like this, if anything worse - she never chose to put food in her mouth, and if I got any in on a spoon, she vomitted to get it out (lots of vomit).

We got help at 12 months, but it's been slow. She didn't go to nursery until she was 3, which made things a little easier.

DD was on formula by 12 months, at which point we switched to cows milk (by slowly adding cows milk to her formula, we didn't do a hard switch). This gave her awful constipation. Switching back to formula solved it, and also meant she was getting a good range of vitamins. Just worth being aware of, in case you encounter the same.

They can have cow’s milk from 12 months.