9 month old prefers breast milk to solids...

[lilasimpson]

hi have done blw with my now 9 months old dd....she has been great at chewing without too much choking but she eats barely anything...she will have for example a bite of broccoli, a tiny bit of cheese, a tiny bit of yoghurt....if i feed her baby food, she will have 2 tea spoons in a day....she will always ask for breast milk, even middle of the food and i don't know what to do as she gets so easily fed up with food....she weighs 7.8 kgs and measures 68cm....she used to be on the 7th centle and now on 25th...what should i do? is it normal she does not get much if she is baby led weaned?starting to stress out now

Mine was't blw but it did take him a good few months to get used to anything other than milk, and I believe that's pretty common, so I wouldn't worry yet.

7th to 25th centile - wouldn't this be getting bigger not smaller?

Stop stressing. This is how they learn. Of course she prefers breastmilk - it's a darn sight nicer than broccoli and will always include a cuddle with mummy.

It will change over time. Repeat the mantra 'food before one is not fuel, it's fun' again and again till you believe it :)

Food is just for fun/exploration at this stage. Your milk is fine! :) She has even jumped up through the centiles, which is more than is expected.

Keep feeding on demand and offer food at normal mealtimes, she will get there. My DS was the same at 9 months and had two big jumps of eating - one at 15 months where he suddenly went from eating barely anything to 2-3 small meals a day, and one at 22 months where he will now eat 3 meals (though is usually fussy about one or another of them) AND snacks. He's 2 now.

Breastmilk is really really good for her and should form the bulk of her nutrition until she's at least 1 anyway so please don't worry :)

no no sorry!! i meant 75th to 25th centile!!!

thanks all for your advise, it just feels like she should really be having at least one good meal a day, which she doesn't...she really like breast milk which is nice for me but am scared of iron deficiency...she also seems to wake up more often at night so it bothers me....

DS was then same and then suddenly almost overnight it seemed, he began to devour everything put in front of him.

I think his desire / ability to eat coincided with reliable sitting balance which came reasonably late (9-10 months ish)

If you are happy to continue bf on demand and go with the flow of BLW I would recommend it, it's such a short time in the whole scheme of things

Don't worry about that - quite often once they start to move they can plummet down the centiles. It will change. Also don't rule out teething - this will seriously interrupt the whole weaning experience. Suddenly they just want breast milk and nothing else for ages and then suddenly a new fang and an obsession with eating one particular food constantly

Quite often their weight gain does slow when they start to get more mobile.

Thinking back although we started at 5 or 6 months with BLW DS only really started to swallow anything at about 9 months. Like Montifer's DS this was when he started sitting unaided.

Re iron - I was told once on here that babies have stores of iron from birth which last until roughly 6 months. Breastfed babies are getting iron all the time anyway as the iron in breastmilk is very easily absorbed, so in breastfed babies the stores from birth last longer (have I got this right?) either that, or the iron in breastmilk is enough again up to a year. I know that the insistence about needing iron by formula companies is exaggerated anyway. If you keep feeding on demand there is no reason to suspect she may become iron deficient. Actually DS still eats no green veg or red meat (he's 2) and his iron levels are fine (he is a marmite fiend which probably helps )