Advice needed - 9m old will not eat finger foods.

[georgie22]

Looking for some advice about my dd who is 9 months old. She started weaning at 6 months old. We're having problems with finger foods - if you give her fruit, toast etc. she either just messes with them or cries if you try to encourage her to eat them. I'm using a mixture of organic jars and home cooked food but she seems to have gone off my lovingly prepared home foods. She loves breakfast, fruit and yoghurt but will only eat these if you spoon feed her.
The HV team are hugely into BLW so made me feel like a rubbish parent for not pushing this more. I really need some reassurance that I'm not completely failing!

My 9 MO sounds just like yours. She loves mush from the spoon, she will also take mouthfuls of things which I break off and pop into her mouth (bread, potato salad, sarnies, soft fruit etc etc), but she finds it hard to pick things up and put them in her mouth. If she does pick it up, she tends to look at it intently, give it a squeeze, then drop it disdainfully.

I noticed today that if I left her alone, she was more likely to try and put stuff in her mouth herself - it seems that if I'm sitting with her, she expects me to feed her. But without me there, she'll have a go herself. So I pottered around, putting washing away, pretending not to watch her, and she munched on a sandwich with interest. I think I've made it worse, as I've always just fed her as I've not got the patience to watch her try!

I like the fact that she eats mush, as it means I know what she's had, and her weight gain is good so I'm consoling myself with the thought that she'll get there in the end, and in the meantime she's still eating well. So if you are failing, then so am I, but I think it'll work out OK! :)

Thanks for that - it's reassuring to know it's not just our dd who is like this! I've slaved over the oven again this afternoon and cooked what seemed to be a really tasty meal from the Annabel Karmel book. Guess what... she heaved and refused to eat it. Feeling very low about it all and not really sure where to go next.

Will persevere with finger foods and leave her to it a little more and see how it goes from there.

My DD is 9 and a half months and wont entertain anything if its not on a spoon! She wont even eat food with limps as she heaves and then clamps her mouth shut. I put toast fruit etc in front of her and she shows no interest at all. If I try to put anything to her mouth she clamps it shut and wont even hold it. I am getting stressed as the HV says she must start chewing to help with speech development but I cant see it happening anytime soon!

lumps even!!!!