BLWer doesn't seem to swallow food - should I be worried?

[beancounting]

DD is 10 months old and we started BLW at 6 months - it took a while to get going but now she's usually pretty enthusiastic and is good at manipulating finger foods. She will also feed herself with a pre-loaded spoon (won't let me feed her even if I wanted to).

But she swallows barely anything: at first she just moved food round her mouth and it would fall out in the process; now she has top and bottom teeth she bites chunks off and then spits them out. Similarly, when offered water in a cup it all seems to dribble out of her mouth. She gets bored very quickly too, I've read that BLW meals can take 45 minutes but the longest she's ever been in the highchair is about 20, before she starts chucking food on the floor and screaming.

She still seems to breastfeed as much as ever and I was expecting her to be dropping some feeds by now (esp. as I'm back at work soon); I know food is supposed to be fun until they're one etc and I really don't want to make a big deal out of meals but I'm worried I've cocked it up and not sure if I should be doing something about it. Sorry for the essay but any advice would be appreciated!

DD didn't drop any milk until she was 1. I couldn't really see that she was swallowing any food until then either, but she was definitely getting some in as some was coming out the other end!

Water was also a bit hit and miss until recently too - and she has a very short attention span and she'll not sit in the highchair for too long without swiping everything onto the floor.

It was almost like a switch was pressed around her first birthday and she started eating more and dropping bottles. I wouldn't worry. :)

I was going to post a thread like this today - DD is 8.5 months and BLW feels like it is getting nowhere - not only does almost nothing get swallowed, a lot never even makes it to her mouth, or makes her gag (still! She has been weaning for 2.5 months!) She still has loads of milk feeds day and night too.

Sorry that is not helpful - but I wanted you to know that you are not alone, and maybe we just need to keep the faith with the process and give them 'til they are 1 before we actually worry...

(easy to say!)

thanks both, you're right - I think I just wobble when I see the babies we know in RL (who were all purees/spoonfed) wolfing down vast quantities and down to 3 milk feeds a day now. Will hang in there!

Boy's a bit like that. He's just 8 months old and only just now progressing from gumming and spitting out to actually starting to swallow anything significant. If he seems to be ignoring or refusing it I tend to just dump all the food on his highchair tray and go unload the dishwasher or something else within his sight.

Its amazing what goes down by stealth if he thinks i'm not watching

dd didn*t eat much at all until she started nursery at 10m and consequently was not bf during the day. she then got the hang of it very quickly and now at 18m eats more than her older brother.

Same here, especially the not water drinking and screaming in the highchair. Think I've talked to you beancounting about this on another thread?

I have some limited success letting him gad about the living room pulling things out of drawers while I get to shovel the odd bit of yoghurt in. Then have to do a lot of yoghurt removal from most of our possessions. I wonder if he gets bored and/or frustrated eating in the highchair.

Looking forward to the first birthday switch Flisspaps.

Ds was 10 months last week and its nice to hear I'm still not the only one.

I have a similar situation with my DD. I have had some good advice on my post dated 13th May. Take each day as it comes. :)