6 months old and won't eat any veg, help!

[Lovejenny99]

I'm getting seriously frustrated, after the early stages of weaning and giving my son various flavours to taste and it going well initially he now refuses to have any veg! I've tried single flavours and combined, all the recommended veg including carrots which are naturally sweet and he turns his nose up at them all. It's really getting me down and I'm paranoid that he'll be living off banana, pear or apple til he's 21! He can't get enough of fruit and toast. What do it do?

How long have u been feeding him for? They're only meant to start at 6mths so I wouldn't worry yet.

Have u tried both finger food or chopped up on a spoon? He may prefer it one way or the other.

Continue to offer all food groups to him even if he doesn't like it one meal time he may like it the next

I started 5 weeks ago. I'm mainly doing spoon feeding with the odd finger food as well.

If he doesnt eat the veg meals should I offer something else that mealtime (like fruit which i know he'll eat) or just try again next time??

Honestly - don't worry. Relax.

The more anxious you get about it, the more he'll pick up on it and the less likely he'll be to eat.

6 months is just the beginning of his experience with food. It can take on average 15 attempts to get a child to enjoy something so don't panic. Like Hattie suggests, if you've tried it pureed on a spoon then try it as 'finger food' - a few stems of broccoli or a couple of pods of peas. Chunks of roasted sweet potato are usually a winner with most (not all) babies. If he doesn't want something, try it again another day - there'll always be some things he doesn't want to eat, just like anyone else! :)

Yes to offering something you know he'll eat as well though, he's far too young for you to be worrying about not offering pudding if he doesn't eat his main, or getting him into bad habits - at the moment food is food, and his main source of nutrition for the next 6 months should be milk anyway. Anything else is a bit of a bonus

DD was nearly 8 months old before she would eat anything savoury; would scream the house down until then.

She suddenly changed obernight when staying at GPs.

DS, on the other hand, was never a problem and would eat anything.

Milk is most important. I did baby led weaning with my 3 youngest and really for the first few months they just played with their food not a lot made it into their mouths until they were better coordinated. Have a read up on baby led to reassure yourself there's loads of info here on mumsnet about it

What veg have you tried? My Ds (almost 6 months) sometimes loves carrots broccoli cauliflower brussell sprouts or peas but sometimes spits them out and pulls a face like I'm poisoning him. He hates potatoes but loves sweet potatoes and strangely he adores pureed spinach. Have you tried mixing fruit and veg together in a purée then gradually reducing the amount of fruit? A tiny dollop of pear purée mixed in with the veg and he loves it again. Good luck x

Thanks for all the advice, I feel a bit calmer now. Ready to try again tomorrow... Another quicky, do I wait until he's feeding better before moving onto introducing another mealtime?? Or maybe do porridge and toast for brekky and persevere with lunch?

There's no right or wrong. But I've always sat mine with us at every meal and offered them whatever we're having. So if its a cooked meal give them as finger food. At breakfast some weetabix and toast. At lunch some chopped salad, cheese, bread. Just as examples. They each varied my dds mostly fed themselves but my ds wasn't so disarray about food initially so I mashed and spoon fed him in the beginning.

Dissaray? Meant to be fussed!

Lovejenny99 With DD I just offered food whenever I ate - my feeling is very much if they eat, they eat, and if they don't they don't. I didn't bother introducing one meal at a time :)

My DS, now 3.5 ate pretty much not a single vegetable between the age of 1 and 2, maybe longer. Prior to that, as a baby, he had pureed veg but would never eat veg as finger food. I just kept on presenting various veg time and time again and now unbelievably he will actually ask for carrots/cucumber/pepper etc as a snack and it will generally be the thing he eats first of his plate at lunch/dinner time. He probably eats more veg than fruit these days. The thing I struggle to get him to eat these days is carbs such as pasta/rice/potatoes. So it just shows their likes and dislikes change so much over time....I realise now I was worrying for the nothing!