Suddenly contrary about food at 10m

[Cerubina]

My DD is 10 months but as she was born 2 months early has a corrected age of 8m. I started weaning 4m ago and it went pretty well with purees progressing to more textured food. For the last fortnight she has been delighted to be offered her spoon to hold for the last bit of the meal and was brilliant at getting it in her mouth.

But for the last few days she's become very contrary - screams when I put her bib on, tries to avoid the spoon if I'm feeding her, blows raspberries to eject what does go in her mouth, but also completely refuses to hold the spoon and feed herself (which was my first guess at why she was being awkward).

She's got no teeth yet (must be coming though) and doesn't seem to care for more solid solids like toast or veg- they get spat out too. No real interest in picking up finger food although it's early days for offering it.

I'm just wondering what might be behind this. If she's gone off being spoonfed then she should be happy to hold the spoon or pick up finger food. If she's gone off smooth textures then the more solid stuff should appeal. Is she bored with having a bowl of mixed up stuff? Again the finger food should be more tempting then.

Any ideas? Should I just keep offering mush and finger foods and let her decide what mood she's in that day? She's one of twins so I don't have the time or energy to provide endless options as I still have to get food into her brother as well!

Thanks.

Teething?

Also it's not early days for finger food, some people offer it from day one, others offer it any time.

Keep offering food - and don't worry, babies are contrary

But at 10 months she definitely won't be being awkward.

Agree with Fliss, my first thought too was to check her mouth as, from what you've said, it sounds like she has got a sore mouth, throat or ears. Have you checked her temperature.

Also agree with Fliss she's not doing this to be awkward, she sounds like she is uncomfortable.

Thanks for your replies. Wow, semantics. I guess I should be careful which adjectives I use: "awkward" was not implying I believe she is doing anything deliberately. Just that getting food into her was awkward compared with recently.

And I have only begun offering finger food recently, which was what I meant about early days. Some success this morning when she ate a few little toast fingers, so hope we will continue to make progress.

Does she have some signs of teething? First, feel around her gums with your finger and can you feel the edge of some very sharp teeth? If not, does she have very very red cheeks and dribbling lots? Mine dribble crazily (wet a top in 1-2 hours) for about 2-3 weeks before I can feel the teeth in her gums. So maybe she's really teething.

It's hard to say if it's teething as she has had hot red cheeks on and off since July with nothing to show for it. Periodic nappy rash but not huge amounts of dribble and no evidence of teeth just below the surface so who knows . It would be nice if some made an appearance and especially so if this is behind the difficulty with getting her to eat.

TBH I would just go with the flow. Let her eat what she fancies for now, don't battle with the bib, just feed naked or change her after. Feed her if she won't feed herself. This phase will pass. DS is very unpredictable about food. At the moment he is eating everything in sight (so much so he eats too much and makes himself sick or gets diarrhoea from all the fruit). Other times he will only eat yoghurt for days on end.

If you really think it is teeth you could give her calpol an hour before meal times.