Just Not Ready?

[Flossie69]

My DD is currently 28 weeks, but was 3.5 weeks early, which may or may not be relevant. She is on 5 7oz bottles of formula a day, and of these, it is only the 6pm one which she finishes, the others she has about 5oz a time.

I have tried about 4 times now to give her some baby rice, but each time she shows no interest whatsoever, and still sticks her tongue out to push it all out.

She is still not very strong with holding and grasping things either, and bringing anything other than her own fingers to her mouth is very hit and miss.

The question is really should she be more ready for weaning by now? My HV said she should definitely start by 7 months, and whilst I am not worried yet, it is only another 2-3 weeks until she will be 7 months.

I should add that she is also I think teething at the moment, and trying to roll over and to sit - so all in all she is very busy - perhaps she needs to sort these things out first?

Sorry this is such a long post, but so much is said about weaning early, and trying to keep going on just milk until they are 6 months, I expected her to be ready by now.

Any advice gratefully received. :)

My DD was 5 weeks early but I actually starting weaning at five months. Am quite pleased that I started early as it took a long time to get her to get used to baby rice etc and what to do with it. Just keep perserving I'd say and finally she may keep it in her mouth and try to swallow it, it may take a few weeks...Have you tried mixing some apple puree or something in with it. Baby rice doesn't taste that nice after all...or just try offering the apple. Good luck!!!

I have tried mixing the baby rice with apple puree but this does not make a difference. She is also very fussy with her bottles at the moment. She is a bit refluxy, which in general is kept under good control with Gaviscon, but occassionaly when she is having a growth spurt, it is worse.

My main concern is that she still has the tongue thrust reflex, which I think should have gone by now. Also, the HV said that she needs to be eating the solids by 7 months as this will help her oral development, needed for speech.

No baby wakes up on the morning they are 6 months and has a "Oh, I'm ready for food!" epiphany.

Some are ready bang on 6 months, some a bit early, some a bit late.

Have a read up on Baby Led Weaning (BLW) as this is all about letting your baby lead the way.

From everything you've said, she doesn't sound ready for solids yet. But they change so quickly! I remember a friend who'd BLW'd her 1st child commenting that her 24 week old was neeeeeeeeeever going to be ready to start BLW at 26 weeks. Wasn't interested in food in the slightest. About 3 days later she'd pinched my friends Croissant and was going at it like she'd been weaning for weeks!

Her starting weaning in 2 weeks or 5 weeks really isn't going to make a difference to her speech in the long term. In fact BLW is said to be better for their speech as they have to practice chewing and knawing much sooner than if they are slurping puree off a spoon

Hi again..shame about the apple. My DD also had the tongue thrust reflex for a while, she then went on to sucking food off the spoon and then she managed to just take it in and swallow. May be follow tillymama and try BLW. I don't know much about this as my DD has just been spoon fed and given lots of finger foods to practice with . I guess with BLW approach it might be easier to discover whether your LO is ready. But again I don't know much about it. I agree that you shouldn't over worry about the speech development that your HV talked about. i presume most HVs have a set list of things all babies should be doing month by month and I am not sure babies can be judged on these things as they are all so different....

Let us know how you get on :-)

Sounds just like my ds, I offered food occasionally but it just dribbled out, then one day at 27 weeks (he was 2 weeks late) he just decided he wanted to eat. From that day he ate. I didn't stress, offered about twice a week and dropped it if he wasn't interested then one day he was very clearly ready.

Just wanted to add, keep trying with the finger food but don't get disheartened if she doesn't manage anything. My LO was very definite that she didn't want any baby rice off a spoon thank you very much, but was happy to play at pushing carrot sticks round the tray until she got the hang of getting them in her mouth for a good suck, and eventually, a little gnaw.

Also, one thing that I think helped us was keeping a weaning spoon with her toys, so she could practice picking it up and getting it in her mouth all the time, not just at meal times. For a while I swear it was her favourite toy!!

Don't worry, she'll get there.

my dd was 7 weeks early, and i was never convinced by the idea that i should wean her early as well, it just seemed so unlikely that her insides would be more mature than her outsides.

i waited until she was ready to pick up her own food (BLW) and went from there. there is no one date that they all wake up and are READY, any more than there is a date when they all start walking.

Have you considered just letting her play with some food to see what she does? BLW? I wouldn't worry too much, some babys are ready earlier than others.

hello flossie

this sounds like my dd3. She is 6 mths next week but 3 weeks early. I have been trying her on a variety of purees but she has no interest. I also tried her with a very soft carrot stick to hold in the beginning and she nearly choked on it which put me off BLW a little ( but maybe it was too soon?)

I guess I'm keen for my dd to be on 3 ok ish meals a day as I want to drop her night feeds ( 1 to 2 at the mo) as I am going back to work very soon.

Should I keep persisting with BLW and pureesa and see which she prefers?

( sorry if I have hijacked [embarrassed])