7 month old won't eat solids - help!

[MummyHarris]

hello, I am having a bit of a hard time with weaning my 7 month old. He is exclusively breastfed and wont take a bottle, and purses his mouth shut when offered food on a spoon. He also gags and is sick when he gets lumpy/stodgy food at the back of his mouth. I am trying with the BLW approach too and offer him all sorts, and although he seems to prefer to feed himself, he is not consuming enough (just little nibbles and sucks). He is dropping in percentiles weight-wise, and both GPs i have spoken to have said i need to increase his calorie intake but i just dont know how! i dont want to force / trick him into having a spoon of food in his mouth but what else can i do? my GP said that breast milk alone is not enough, yet i keep hearing the 'food is fun until they are one' mantra... Can anyone help me please? thank you!

I can't help you a lot, my DC did not eat verymuch at that age either, and not really significant amounts until she was 9mo. She didn't drop centiles though, hopefully someone can come along whocan help with that.

Same as Invaderzim, my dc did not eat much until she was 9 or 10m but again did not drop centiles. Bf was enough for her and she remained round and sturdy. She started eating lots at 11m.
Have you thought of offering more bf to increase calorie intake? Have you looked at kellymom which has lots about bf and nutrition.

My DD still does not eat very much at 10 months - at 7 months it was virtually nothing. She has continued to be an avid bfer though and has stayed on the same centile despite not eating many solids. She refused a spoon for many months (but funnily enough will sometimes accept it now) so we have largely done finger foods.

Some high calorie foods that my DD does like are quiche, cheese omlette, lentil bake (made with butter, cheese, bread etc), full fat yoghurt, clotted cream, cheese, some cereals, avocados and bananas. I try offering all these regularly - even though she eats very little (and sometimes refuses entirely) - so maybe that helps. We also still bf very regularly for her age. I offer snacks too (things like rice cake) so really she's eating on and off every 1-2 hours. She won't eat much at a time but will just graze on and off most of the day.

Remember the only thing you can do is keep OFFERING food - you can't make them eat it. I think you should go back to your GP and stress that you do keep offering and ask for more help if he continues to drop weight wise.

Unfortunately I don't think you have had the right advice from your GP. BM is more than enough to support your DS at six months, there isn't a magic switch which turns off its nutrional content when they reach 6 months.

Agree with bumsnet, the best thing to do if you ware worried about his calorie intake is to up his bfs. if you are concerned about his bfs perhaps talking to a BFC on one of the helplines might help?

As for the weaning, keep offering the finger foods but don't worry too much if he doesn't eat. Just make sure you bf an hour before the solids and give him lots of praise when he does eat.

Have you read this book MummyHarris? It has some good info on weaning as does Kellymom.