10 month old refusing the spoon..help!!

[Fifilottie]

My Dd has always been ok with food. She has had on days and off days and I will normally feed her mashed up foods, stage 2 or three jars and always include some finger foods like meatballs, veg etc...

Thing is, in the past week she has refused anything from a spoon, before she even tries it. She would eat finger food but now she will only eat solid chunks if I place them in her mouth with my hand. She will drop foods I give her. She tends to just want to eat bread and she is eating hardly anything compared to before. What is happeneing??I am hoping it is a phase, she will still take her milk. I thought it could be teething but she seems to have no problem with eating bread etc...Has anyone else had similar problems or have any advice?? I am starting to dread mealtimes :(

Hi there,
No words of wisdom just some consolation that you're not alone as my 10mth old DD is exactly the same.

We can now only get her to eat with a serious amount of distractions to play with while we spoon things into her mouth. I feel like this is tricking her which I am not that comfortable with, but she does open up her mouth for the food and doesn't spit it out so she must want it?! She's very selective over finger food now as well - she'll eat about half of a small finger of toast in the morning whereas 3 weeks ago she was eating about 4 fingers. Rice cakes / Carrot sticks / sweetcorn rings are about the only snacks she'll eat. Everything else gets swiped onto the floor.

She's also totally gone off her milk so we're having to give her a pot of yogurt (about the only food she will eat without a fuss) instead of her bottle of milk in the afternoon. Before bed last night she took 1oz of milk (which took about 40mins), instead of the usual 8oz (usually taken in about 15mins).

Like you I am hoping this is teething related but I am a bit clueless!

Massive sympathy for you lisbapalea...I am depending on the fact that DD still has her milk(was going to try with a cup but am giving that up until this food phase passes). Does your DD accept yoghurt by a spoon? Might try that to see if she will start realising the spoon is not her enemy. I haven't had any in so best get some!! Last week I also had to start giving her toys...or let her throw her topmug of water around so she would then eat. NOw she wont open her mouth even in that situation....shuts it tight. Have spent lunchtime hand feeding her baked beans...oh dear. Lets hope someone comes along with some good advice....let me know how it all goes etc...

Will she feed herself with a spoon? Maybe she wants to exert a bit of control over the situation...I seem to remember DS getting quite opinionated at 10 months.

Otherwise maybe change the mealtime setting - have a floor picnic with stuff she can pick at (put an old sheet down so you can just bundle up the mess and get it in the bin afterwards). It is frustrating but if you keep offering, and remain neutral towards whether she eats or not (even if inside you are screaming!), she will eat when she gets hungry enough.

Let her pick the food from the tray of her high chair. You can try a plate and a spoon and let her feed herself but DD2 just turn the plate over. She is probably getting independent and teething at the same time.
DD1 refused all puree at that age, so everything would be with big chunk, she would eat with her spoon and I gave in between to speed up the process. DD2 also like more chunky food now (11 months), but will still eat puree, and she needs finger food at the same time.. Will only eat with her hands though.

I also thought it may be a control thing but she still accepts some food if I feed them to her by hand. I tried to offer her the spoon to hold. She used to always try and feed yoghurt to herself this way so she can do it...with help. However this time she just tries to offer it to me. Of course I play along but she will not eat it herself even if I guide it. May try your picnic idea at tea time. I guess she must know it is stressing me out or something.

They always know DS is 2 and it still stresses me out when he decides to be fussy or refuse to eat. And he's great most of the time, so take heart, you're not alone and it is very very annoying

Also, do you eat with her? I did BLW with DS so it was a bit different, but I found (and still find) that he is much more likely to sit down and eat if he sees me doing the same, and eating the same thing. At teatime I often do myself a tiny bowl of whatever he's having, just to play along with it since I don't want to eat my tea at 5pm.

Finally, a good stress-busting tip is to look at what she's eating over the week rather than meal to meal or day to day. You will probably find that it's more than you think. I always found this helped me to disengage with the food stress (although tbf DS is, um, rather a solid child so it was always pretty obvious that he wasn't starving).

I try to eat with her when I can. Often in the evenings if DP is back from work. Has made no difference to her eating habits as yet. At lunchtime I will often have pretend food with her even if I have eaten or am not hungry yet if you see what I mean. Think I wil have to stick to chunky finger foods at the moment and see if she wants to use the spoon herself...Good tip about considering weekly intake....oh and will try and be a bit more relaxed and not put so much pressure on DD at mealtimes...Try to make it experimental and fun I guess :)

Oh dear...tried the picnic with no luck. Had loads of veg sticks, roasted pepper, meatballs...made a lot of effort but no luck she refused most of it and would only eat toast and the mini banana muffin I had made. I don't wnat her to live on sweet food adn just bread. Breakfast no joy either. Tried to let her feed weetabix to herself. Gave her apple sticks and even some apple puree...refused all. Agsin settled with bread. Should I just not give her bread and hope she is ok. She is still on 500 to 600 mls of milk a day but think I should be cutting this down by 10 months.

Can't offer you much practical advice, I'm afraid, but the do go through strange stages. We refer to DS either having a pigout day or a diet day - and sometimes he'll have a worrying number of diet days in a row!

Try cutting things up differently, using a fork instead of a spoon, finger foods, food from your plate, food in a different setting as sometimes the funniest little thing can interest them (my DS took against chunks of banana one day, but now loves eating slices with a spoon).

Given that she has been eating fine, and assuming she's not showing any ill effects, I'm sure she'll be back to eating well again soon.

CAn she have a sore throat or mouth ulcers? When my DDs are only eating bread and cakes, milk, that is usually a problem.

Let me rephrase, they only eat those things when they have a problem, not that those create the problem IYSWIM.

Hi again Fifilottie - I spoke to a HV about this last week as it was my DD's 10mth check anyway. She said it was definitely a developmental thing, and completely normal so she told me to relax about it (as the baby will sense that and you can end up creating all sorts of issues apparently if you treat mealtimes as a battle, which I definitely have done), and she said to just keep offering a variety of finger and spoon foods, as she will take stuff eventually if she gets hungry.

She did also advise, as someone else has above, to look at things across a month rather than across a meal or across a day, which I think I am guilty of.

My DD has a cough at the moment, and I think she has more teeth on the way, so I am convinced that she is less keen on food and therefore more keen on refusing my attempt to feed her because of that.

Thankfully she is doing better with the milk though, but we have reduced to just 2 bottles a day, with a yogurt as her mid-afternoon feed, which she is much happier with.

Guess we just need to persist in a relaxed way - if that's not a contradiction!

THanks lisbapalea. Seems from different threads we are going through the same thing at the same time. I am just trying to offer loads of finger foods and hoping for the best. My HV pretty much said the same thing. IN honesty this new independent fussy eating is a normal part of their development(does make it more difficult for us though :) )....Good news with the milk!!! Let me know how it all the persisting in a relaxeD way goes..I will try the same :)