11mth old refuses spoon and finger food - help!

[lisbapalea]

We've always had a fair few ups and downs with weaning our DD, who is now 11 and a half mths, but recently it's gone from bad to worse so I need advice.

She now steadfastly refuses the spoon - we have given her her own spoon and we've had some success wih that but she tends to take two or three spoons at most before getting bored. Being spoon fed by me or DH is an absolute no unless it's a yogurt or fruit puree - there is no problem at all with those. She used to accept shop bought (eg. plumbaby) puree / mush and reject home made, but now she rejects anything savoury.

Finger food works providing it's a "dissolvable" carbohydrate, so bread, toast, breadstick, rice cake, fruit loaf, baby biscuits or those weird carrot sticks that look like wotsits. Raisins are also OK. Toast is usually had with unsalted butter; philadelphia is rejected and she's suspicious of houmous being spread onto toast, but I have witnessed her eating that once or twice.

So basically she is now getting naff all in the way of protein apart from in her yogurt and her morning and evening bottles of formula. And vits and minerals is just coming from a fruit puree or the occasional raisin.

Please tell me this is normal and she won't be the world's most fussy child! And if it is going to get better what am I supposed to do to get there? I'm actually now getting really miserable about this so I'd love some advice.

Sorry this is so long.

oh it can be so hard can't it. DS was a very fussy eater around this age. He liked similar things to your DD too. He did have a slightly larger repertoir - would eat pasta with hidden veg sauce but I would get so frustrated. Because he was so tiny we ended up seeing a dietitician and I had to do a food diary. Some days there was hardly anything in the eaten (as opposed to offered) column. However I realised overall it wasn't quite as bad as I had thought. I was advised to put cheese on everything to help bulk up the calories and that actually helped as he loves cheese. Try looking at what she eats over a week rather than an individual day or meal. You could also give a multivitamin. At her age she will probably be wanting to self feed more so may be protesting at being spoon fed. Also I found DS went of solids every time a new tooth came. He is now 3 and although still a bit picky he eats generally quite well and happily ate
broccoli and carrots with his fish fingers for tea tonight. Try not to stress too much as they pick upbon that and are even less likely to eat. Just keep offering plenty of variation, don't make meal times too long and if she doesn't eat it just clear up and say something like "oh you're not hungry today" and make sure she gets sufficient formula. I still have to make sure I give meals I know he'll eat interspersed between new meals which he will sometimes refuse and sometimes surprise me and eat. Therefore he doesn't go too long without eating a decent meal.
hth

My DS did very similar at about same age. Basically refused to eat anything off a spoon we offered, but didn't quite have the skills to self-feed, therefore gave up after a couple of attempts.

We ended up just giving finger foods for a while till he mastered the spoon, and like you it was hit and miss. He would eat tonnes of peas, beans etc, but no carbs. But he's now 15 months, has mastered a spoon, and although he still has plenty of days where he messes around, he generally eats fine.

Try not to stress, just keep offering a good variety of finger food. If she's eating bread products and some fruit and veg, and dairy, then that sounds ok to me. She'll get vitamins in the formula.

It's a sign of an independent, confident little person if they want to do it all themselves, and that is no bad thing!

Thank you both. I do keep telling myself that her independence and strong will is making her a very bright, interesting character but I also really worry.

I think feeding of any kind is such an emotive issue, especially for mums as we have such pressure (in my case I think I put this on myself more than it is put on by anyone or anything external) to be the ones who nourish our babies. That's not to say DH doesn't get involved as he does, but I seem to feel more guilty than he does, as if it is my responsibility to feed her successfully.

I was really looking forward to weaning being fun as I am really into cooking and I eat a really wide variety of foods, but it's not quite turned out how I thought it would be and i just feel like I have failed. The mess I can handle, but watching my baby refuse food really gets me down.

But I will try to reassure myself that it won't always be like this - she can't exactly be just eating rice cakes when she's 35 can she?!

Update on this - she ate all of her lunch, fed by my husband! It was a ready made baby food pouch - Plumbaby's lamb and mint if that's relevant. She did a bit of self feeding but was also happy to be fed from a sppon by DH.

So I think the problem may be stemming from my anxiety when I feed her. Will no try to take some deep breaths and calm down before mealtimes and see if that helps!

Thanks for the advice so far - reassuring to know i'm not the only one.

Don't beat yourself up, maybe she was just hungrier today.

Yes, definitely stay calm, she won't starve herself. It is stressful when they refuse (and also very annoying if you have slaves over something only for them to refuse to even taste it!) but from everybody I know it's normal.

My DS has pretty much eaten only weetabix, yogurt and satsumas for the last 3 days. Was starting to wear a bit thin. Until tonight, he had roast beef, 3 kinds of veg and mash, which he had seconds of. And then a bowl of cake and custard. Yesterday, broccoli was the work of the devil. Today it is the best thing ever. There's no accounting for it, just try to go with the flow :o