Health visitor has made me feel worried

[Molehillmountain]

Dd is seven months. Has been trying bits and bobs of purées and finger foods since six months but still gagging. I was not worried til today-shes bf and maintaining her centile weight wise. Now at belated six month check hv wants to refer her to feeding specialist if not eating within a month from now. Ds did not eat much at all til nine months, dd1 took to eating like a little baby bird. Should I be worried? Feels like rug pulled out. She also says she needs loads more tummy time-which she hates but that's a separate thread. Her legs are hugely strong, she bounces for Britain and chats away too. Grrr

no, don't be worried.
personally i just wouldn't go and see the health visitor again!

some babies just don't take to eating that quickly, and it's fine. presumably she is breastfeeding on demand?
just keep offering her food, she'll take it and eat it when she is ready to, and no-one can change that, not even a feeding specialist

some babies don't like tummy time. 2 of mine didn't. but it hasn't affected them in the slightest.

Thats the very reason why I no longer allow HVs in my house, fearmongering seems to be all they are good at! You are her mom and by the sounds of it she is feeding well with the bfing, as long as she is getting what she needs there i am sure the solids will progress in their own time too.
Some babies don't like being on their tummies! Mine loves it but that said all babies are different.
My best advice to you would be that you know your baby best and ignore the hv! As soon as mine gave me the option of her continuing to visit (and coming on the wrong days and trying to make out i had PND -seperate thread!!) or me accessing them at the childrens centre i took the option to see hvs at the childrens centre!

(Oh and if she thinks she is 'coming to see dd at eight months for her developmental check whether i like it or not' shes dreaming!)

one of the very reasons that is!

Thanks . Oh and her final crime-not a single comment on how lovely dd2 is!!!

Mine both hated tummy time too- so gave up in the end with dd2- carried her in sling loads and guess what...she walked at 11months! So no tummy time obv really held her back. My personal bug bear is overbearing health visitors - trust your own instincts- they are your children and they are all different, develop at different rates etc- why don't health visitors seem to incorporate this into their practice?

I don't know why I can get affected like this. I'm a fairly confident mum on my third child in. I have a healthy, very happy baby who is getting on nicely thanks. But now I am blaming myself for stunting her development by not doing enough tummy time as, apparently children crawl later now because they spend less time on their tummies. So my brain whirrs and suddenly dd1 and ds were later walkers because of my shoddy attitude to tummy time. But I'll breathe now and move on!

Marking my place here! I've not been threatened with a visit, but I took my 8 month old for a weigh in today. He's gaining weight beautifully, has been tracking just over the 50th centile for the last 4 months or so. He crawls, at speed and climbs on everything he can, so he clearly has bags of energy.

I got a bit of a telling off today over the whole weaning thing, because I should apparently be restricting him to just 4 breast milk feeds in 24 hours in order to take on more solids.

Part of me tells me to smile and ignore, (I was exclusively breast fed for 11 months by my mother before she bothered with any solids without any ill effects). Part of me worries that I am feeding too much and that he will never take to solids.

Well, having witnessed more gagging this afternoon, I can only reassume that dd 2isn't ready. I have seen dd1 opening her
Mouth and practically shoving the spoon in herself so I know what a ready baby looks like. Few hours between me and the visit makes me trust myself again.

Is it possible she's gagging because of something like tongue-tie?

My ds never had any tummy time either and he walked at 11 months, so I haevn't seen a correlation personally.

Don't think so Rita-would there be other signs too? But worth investigating.

My HV told me to cut down on ds's bottles (eff) as that's why he's not interested in solids despite being on the correct centile............He's a happy little 7m old who will put everything in his mouth except if it's edible!

I've tried cutting down feeds - he cries as he's hungry / thirsty and hates water.

I thinks when they're ready...........they eat. DOn't worry.

Agree re ignoring HV, but one thing on tummy time - my DS hated it at first, but we are advised to keep at it, going from 10 seconds at first and building up. Well I used to think "10 seconds?! he screams as soon as he goes down!" but we did keep with it, stopping as soon as he screamed.

Within about a week he was up to about a minute on his front, and then within a couple of weeks he was far happier on his front than his back, and would flip stright over onto his front. This was aged about 3 1/2 months.

I know the info on tummy time advantages is far from certain in terms of right/left brain interaction, building the muscles in the hands, assisting with co-ordination etc, but if you are keen to do tummy time, it was my experience that it really didn't take long at all for my DS to get used to it, and then actively prefer it.

OP, have you checked for upper lip tie? It's the stringy bit that we all have running vertically down from the underside of our top lip to the gumline. Lip tie can be a problem if this frenulum/stringy bit is thick, fleshy and anchors right above, between or even behind the two front incisors, and keeps the lip tied down. Apparently gagging at weaning age can be a sign of lip tie.

Don't be worried they're all different. My DD was scoffing food at 5 months but my Mum says when I was a baby I refused food until around 9/10 months and even then didn't eat much...I have managed to survive ok....as long as she is getting her milk I wouldn't be worried. I never did much tummy time with my DD either. She hated it and yes has been slow to sit up etc but who cares they all develop differently.

Oh bollocks to that gem of 'advice'! Grrrrr on your behalf.

'Food is fun 'til one' is a good adage to remind yourself when you get worried about amounts of food she is getter. Sounds like she is trying a variety of tastes and textures, so it's all good.

And re tummy time: yes, it's is a Good Thing - if your child tolerates it.
FWIW, DS1 absolutely hated tummy time with a fashion, walked at 11 months and learnt to crawl thereafter .
DS2 was on his tummy a lot (refluxy baby, slept on his front and spent a lot of time awake on his front because he liked it) did not walk until 17 months. Go, figure!!

IME with the HV I saw with my own babies and the ones I work/have worked with, a lot of them are hobbled and gagged by guidelines and policies. They are also actively discouraged to go with a lot of common sense as it might contravene something or other and leave them open to liabiltiy. The more experience 'old guard' were freer in their decision making, but are now often somewhat out of date with their advice...

DD1 screamed the place down if placed on her front. She hardly crawled at all, simply learnt to climb and walk, in that order.
She's dyslexic and not crawling is very common. Nothing to do with tummy time she just inherited my word mangling genes.
She'd only eat if all her food was mixed with yoghurt, HV probably wouldn't like that.
DD2 has never drank formula, cows milk (except as hot chocolate) or water and at almost 11years old still doesn't

Okay-so said non eating baby is sitting at the table eating (well gumming-perhaps not actually ingesting!) broccoli, carrot and noodles from our stir fry should I purée them?