Worried about baby only liking very sweet things!

[Portlypenguin]

My little boy is now 5mo old and I have been weaning him for a month on instructions from his hospital consultant. He is demand breast fed. I started with baby rice then moved onto creamy porridge in the mornings and fruit/veg purees in the evening. He isn't the easiest to feed - only likes it if sitting on my knee (rejecting bumbo seat or high chair for feeding) and sometimes just cries and won't eat at all. If interested he opens his mouth and slurps off the spoon with gusto. The things he really likes are apple, pear, carrot and butternut squash. Totally refuses baby rice now. Initially he liked the baby cereal but is now refusing it, even when I mix in some fruit puree. I have two quite old books about weaning and both suggest that I should push the less sweet options to avoid him only liking sweet things long term. Any thoughts about this? I'm finding trying to give him the morning porridge quite stressful as he doesn't really want it and keeps crying all the time. Thanks for anything about your experiences with this.

His behaviour sounds completley normal. There isn't any rule that says you have to eat porridge in the morning - why not try something else? Yoghurt / any fruit or veg puree / anything at all. Definitely rather than having a battle about it. I'd be surprised if he hates porridge for the rest of his life if you just stop it for a while now.

Not sure about the sweet things issue - he's still very young and you are just getting him used to eating, so plenty of time to introduce less sweet veg.

Obviously this is all presuming your consultant isn't insisting he has as much porridge as possible or something?!

He will eat what you offer and will chose sweet things if that is what you are offering. They soon learn. Each part of the mouth is receptive to sweet, sour, ? and ? so feed to the right side of the mouth to fit.

I found alternating the savoury/ sweet options helped. One spoonful of savoury- cue crying then one spoonful of sweet which is devoured then savoury again and so on. Build this up to 2 savoury then one sweet- u get the idea
Mayb cut back on milk a bit ESP in am might help improve his appetite? Hth

I'm with Wigeon on this. There really is no need to battle over food. Babies naturally prefer sweet food. I haven't tasted formula but I know breastmilk is very sweet. From what you say he is having veg, like carrots and butternut squash anyway. Tbh I don't like porridge without sugar either . And I'm really good with food - will eat anything and am a huge fan of veg. If you want to give him porridge, maybe try upping the amount of puree? Like a lot of apple puree with a little bit of porridge?