Bad association with home food?

[TheSkiingGardener]

DS is 8 months and up to now has been a pig good eater. Eats anything except broccoli, and any texture.

However, the other night he was sick, very sick, and as it only lasted the night and he was absolutely fine the next day it looks like something he ate/licked/chewed the day before. We were out all day so could have been a number of things.

He now seems to be refusing his home food though. Nursery say he eats fine there, he will eat yoghurts at home no problem, but when presented with food in his bowl that mum has made he cries, refuses and gets quite upset. We tried putting my lamb stew in a yoghurt pot and he had two spoonfuls, but then refused again, he has eaten it before and loved it.

I'm worried that he now associates Mum's food with being ill and really don't know how to approach sorting this out.

All and any ideas and suggestions welcome

It would be surprising if at 8m he is able to make that kind of association so quickly.

It is quite normal for babies to go back and forth when it comes to eating solids. Someone on here told me you often get a good bit at the start of weaning when food is new and exciting to them, then they lose interest in this new toy and their interest picks up again around 9m when they realise that solid food sates their hunger. I find DD (9m) behaves very differently when we are and out about or when we have guests at home. So the difference between nursery and home may have nothing to do with the food you are offering and everything to do with the environment.

If this behaviour has only been going on for a few days I really wouldn't worry. Keep offering, stay calm and relaxed yourself, and if he is still feeling a bit clingy and fretful because he has been poorly make sure you are still offering lots of milk to get the calories in.

Thank you. I'm hoping that's it, but it's the way he wolfs the yoghurt but rejects anything in his home food bowls.

Will keep doing as you suggest, and keep offering everything we eat so he gets enough food, we can worry about balance in a while.

Ok, he's not off food! We're out and he's just had half my chicken breast and some ahem potatoes. And naan bread, and biscuit. Gah. Glad he's eating but upset he won't eat at home.

It is great he is not off food. Maybe he is just bored at home and would rather be out of his chair and playing rather than eating? Or he is too tired to eat much by dinner time? Or he is just being a little weird and tomorrow he'll refuse to eat anything at nursery and eat you out of house and home in the evening?

DD will often eat nothing but plain yoghurt in the evening. So long as she is offered other stuff I don't think this is a problem.

It sounds like you are doing a mix of finger food and spoonfeeding? If so and you can cope with the mess the other thing I'd suggest is offering even sticky mucky food as finger food and seeing what he does. DD will eat Weetabix for breakfast if they are moistened with milk and popped onto her highchair tray, but she won't eat from a spoon in the morning.

I've found DS is generally a better eater at nursery, possibly because he likes eating with other toddlers? We've had quite a few evenings recently when he's refused evening meals (homecooked), but just when i started to worry, he's started eating again.

Thanks both. I think you are on to something with the spoon thing. He'll now eat sometimes from a spoon, but when he starts screaming he will happily eat it dumped on his tray. He was BLWed but once he could chew and eat anything I tended to spoon feed sloppy stuff.

He eats his dinner from a bowl with a spoon at nursery. I guess I was hoping he would do the same, how wrong I was!