Liquidised food ideas?

[elliejjtiny]

DS4 has various issues, including hypotonia and a cleft palate. Hecan't suck so drinks high calorie formula from a bottle that I have to squeeze so that milk squirts into the back of his mouth. He takes a long time to feed and dribbles a lot but his weight is finally ok after a shaky start.

He's now nearly 9 months and so far weaning has been a disaster. Finger foods get ignored, bite and dissolve foods fall out of his mouth. He can't seem to be able to move his tongue to get the food to the back of his mouth and anything that moves from the front of his mouth goes straight through the hole in his palate and out through his nose. This week I have discovered that if I feed him liquidised "solids" with a syringe then some gets swallowed, although still less than half but I need more ideas of what to give him, he's had home made soup, and various liquidised fruits so far but it's really hard to find foods that aren't too thick but are varied enough.

He has a dietician but he is useless and patronising. He keeps telling me that I shouldn't give in to DS4's "fussiness" and gave me a recipe book full of things that are too thick for DS4 to eat. DS2 has hypotonia and I have weaned him successfully, the bite and dissolve foods worked best for him, but DS4 is much harder. The dietician seems to think I have no idea about weaning at all and gives me standard advice on how to wean a baby. I don't know how to convince him that I know how to make purees and all that stuff, I just can't get DS4 to eat from a spoon. We are seeing him and the paed (who thank goodness is more sensible) on Thursday.

I think there's an ongoing thread here about tube feeding real food as opposed to manufactured food supplements. I bet a lot of the ideas in there would work. I think it's the gastronomy thread.

For making a start with savoury stuff, butternut squash and parsnip make a good soft puree and cauliflower cheese would work well. I think the difficulty would be keeping up the calories, but you have the formula while he gets used to the idea.

Just found this that suggests blending some foods with a bit of the formula - might work well for introducing tastes, smells and checking a food agrees with him etc, if they don't work well on their own.
www.foodfortubies.org/blended-diet-basics/getting-started/
In your hunt for information "blended diet" seems to be the term that throws up all the useful stuff.

DS3 (5) still has all his "good for you" foods blended due to extreme tactile defensiveness and was EBF until he was over 12 months because he was impossible to wean. He also had an aversion to spoons being put in his mouth. For a while the only food stuff I could get into him was fairly runny yoghurt. I think the soup ideas are good ones. I make lentil soup (really just lentils and four or five veg plus water) frequently which provides protein. This can be blended so it's not too thick and I think would be syringeable. I have always avoided potatoes ( though sweet potatoes are good) and anything cheesy as it's too claggy and thick and used to make DS3 wretch. It's really hard and I've also found 'experts' unhelpful. Now DS is older, he eats a lot of crunchy foods, but they are all things like breadsticks, crisps etc that don't provide much nutritionally so I am still blending his main meals.

Thankyou, that website looks really good. I'll have a go with yoghurt as well