10 month old feeding Not Going Well...

[Taranta]

Am finding the whole food thing a bit of a nightmare at the moment . Sorry this may be long...

10month old DS is cows milk protein intolerant and is EBF (I am on a non-dairy diet) as he would not drink the prescription formula. Because his intolerance were diagnosed only around 5 months when he was dropping through the centiles and a v unhappy boy indeed, we didnt start weaning till he was maybe 6.5 months (I had tried a few weeks before but no dice).

When he did start taking food, it was okay, veg fruit purees, rice cakes, etc, but the problem is we seem unable to make real progress towards more chunky foods. He will barely eat anything that is not practically still a puree, and will not tolerate baby pasta, rice, anything even slightly lumpy, without screaming till he is red in the face on the first mouthful, after which he will then generally refuse to eat anything at all. He doesnt seem to mind things that come to him in solid form - rice cakes, toast, pitta, but the range is still really limited, and quite often he will lose interest after a few chomps. He will like a bit of carrot, or cucumber, but will bite off a little chunk and then rill it around his mouth, hold it in his cheek hamster style for maybe an hour or so, before gobbing it out later. At the moment I am trying slightly lumpy and new solid foods every few days to keep the momentum, but we seem stuck and its getting me down.

Milk wise he is still feeding once during the night, but this is a lot better than it used to be as he was an appalling sleeper due to tummy problems/reflux and is still not brilliant. i am loathe to give up feeding him in the night, first because I dont know how I would get him to go to back down without it, and secondly because i think he still needs it. He's tall and skinny (on the 91/25 respectively) is crawling and now tottering, but with no dairy in his diet I worry he's just not getting enough food to keep him going...

Am stressed, as HV said to me at last check 'he really needs to be on lumpy food now' but i dont know how to get him there! It's like he's just not that interested in food, yet. Sorry as v long, but i dont know where to go with this now, and need some MN help...please?!

It really doesn't sound too bad. He'll eat rice cakes, toast and pita. I assume "doesnt seem to mind things that come to him in solid form" means they are finger foods, instead of spooned in? And he sounds like he'll try the carrots and cucumbers isn't it? (In his own way, which is playing with it hamster style).

I know you might find baby led weaning very hippy. But have a look at ways to get started with BLW. There are some really good ideas on what first foods to give. And the idea that it's very ok for them to just feel, play with and spit out the food.

It seems to me he'll actually eat lumpy food, but only if he feeds himself. So why not just let him have his way?

Hi. If he likes pittas have you tried stuffing them with a bit of hummous? If you make it yourself you can start by blending it really smooth, and then gradually go more coarse until he's happy to handle a bit more texture. It helped with my little fusspot - who's also dairy intolerent btw. I wouldn't worry too much about what the hv said re lumpy food - surely the content is more important than the form. Is he happy with the taste of rice or pasta if it is blended with some veg or a sauce? Try not to worry too much - if he's having purees, finger food and is being bf, he's going to be getting a pretty good mix.

RedMolly the reason the content isn't more important than the form is because it is believed that milk is the only thing a baby really needs to grow until at least 1 year old. The purpose of weaning is actually to introduce them to the taste and texture of adult food, not to stuff them full of non-milk nutrients. Otherwise, shouldn't we be feeding LO with protein shakes or something like that? (Look at formula companies for that all in one health shot). Have a look at the NHS start4life website.

OneLittleBabyTerror

I am still breastfeeding my baby at 15 months and am quite well aware of the importance of milk in the diet. The op asked for advice about introducing solids, and since her lo is struggling with lumpy food, I suggested using the same foods pureed, so that the taste wasn't an issue, and then gradually blending less so he can adapt more gently to the change in texture. It isn't advice, it is a suggestion. This was my first post so thanks for patronising me.

Sorry for the delay in responding both, had an epic teething day yesterday! I'm very grateful to you both for reading my long missive and replying, thank you.

OneLittleBabyTerror thanks for the BLW advice, I'm certainly not against trying it, and do try where I can to present DS with stuff he can pick up and try himself, though as you'd expect the various medical professionals he sees for the CMPI are all more interested in him gaining weight so not hugely supportive of it, other than as a complement to spoonfed stuff. I fear that if I went the BLW route alone, though, he'd eat very little indeed and would Bf more to make up for it. i dont mind that in theory, but Im going back to work imminently and for at least 3days a week theres going to be no BF available to him during the day (but thats another post...). I'll keep trying more foods and see how he goes :)

Thanks RedMolly I have tried a bit of hummous, he's not that taken with it - think its the texture of it - but will have dairy free spread and marmite, so Im gradually introducing things onto breads that he might like. You'll know what its like though, when you can't offer a stick of cheese or something, or yoghurt, the repertoire of foods seems so limited, especially as I'm a deeply unimaginative cook. i'm not a huge expresser either, so dont have much spare if you like, for making porridge, so breakfast foods are confounding me a little at the moment, for example...

Keep thinking he'll suddenly just 'get' food and become interested in it. Think I just have to stop myself from getting too concerned when all his peers seem to be chomping happily on anything they're offered!

Is he going to a nursery for the 3 days. The persuasive power of peer is very strong and you might find your DS eating just because the other babies are. My DD went back to the bottle after she started nursery. (When she refused for the 3 months previously). I know what you mean how difficult it is to cook without dairy. All the easy stuff seems to revolve around cheese for me! Well other than omelettes. I do lots of omlettes with veg in it. Have you tried that? Omlettes are pretty soft so hard to choke on if you are worried. By the way, I agree with you that you can just give both purees and finger foods and see which one he 'gets' first. (My DD got finger food really quickly and was stuffing her face from her first meal).

Another thing to try maybe is toasted pita fingers. Maybe spreading some avocado inside? It's dairy free and very smooth. Or peanut butter?

There are some lovely pear-based fruit spreads that you can get from the healthfood shop if you haven't tried them already. They keep for ages in the fridge and don't have any lumps and are 100% fruit, so no nasties. They make a brilliant quick sandwich filling. I don't know what anyone else thinks, but i'd go a bit easy on marmite as it has a high salt content. I second peanut butter as a good option.

I realise i'm very lucky as i'm home with ds all the time so I have the luxury of being able to make him everything from scratch. I tend to make things in a batch though and whack half a dozen portions in the freezer, so I don't have to produce culinary delights everyday!

You mention that you're seeing various medical professionals, and I wondered if you've seen a paed dietician? We saw one recently as ds is missing two major food groups (being both vegetarian and allergic to dairy), and while I know it's perfectly possible to have a healthy vegan baby I do worry that he's not getting enough minerals and fats in his diet (despite being a proper chunker!). She gave me a lot of confidence that I was doing the right things and had some good suggestions. I almost daren't mention soya as most of the advice you get is to avoid it like the plague because of perceived fertility issues, but she was adamant that it is absolutely fine to give a baby things like soya yoghurts and desserts once they're over 6 months, so that may be something to explore.

Also, I totally relate with what you said about expressing. I was still expressing milk for ds's cereal when he was 1, and after about an hour of pumping i'd have about 2ml if I was lucky. He's still bf now, and that is absolutely fine, but the pump and I have parted company! We have been giving him oat milk on his cereal instead and he really seems to like it. There is one that is fortified with extra vitamins and minerals but it won't give the same fat content of cow milk. Again, the dietician was happy that this is a good substitute, as long as you can add fats elsewhere in his diet. Hope this helps.

OneLBT, no DS has a nanny for 3 days, but does have some regular socialising on the other days, so I do hope he will look and learn, as it were. Omelettes I hope we can get into once DS has been cleared for eggs, which Im pretty sure he will be soon as I've reintroduced it with no problems so far for a fortnight now. Same with peanut butter, its off the menu until he's one, I think as its a trigger food. Avocado is a good one though, I will give that a go. i tried mixing up a bit of mashed potato into tonights meal - very smooth mash it was too - and we got two spoonfuls in before he started fighting the spoon. The same thing happened with weetabix and EBM this morning. Ho hum, I shall keep on trying....
RedMolly he really only has the merest scraping of marmite to add a bit of taste, so Im not so worried. We do see a paediatric dietician monthly and they're encouraging but really the advice is just carry on doing what you're doing and things will pick up . Did have a good tip which was to add in a little bit of olive oil into his savoury foods to increase fat content, though. Its interesting what you say about soya, as PDs advice was not to introduce it till he's older (and not as his main drink till he's 2) but I can cook with it, again once its been cleared an non allergic (still soya free at present). Will look into the pear spread idea too, thanks - at the moment I smear a bit of fruit puree on things...
Expressing. Jeez I will not be looking forward to a bit of lunchtime expressing whilst at work. No indeed :(

It's really frustrating when you get conflicting advice from hcps. My hv made me feel like my baby's testicles would drop off if he so much looked at a soya product, while the pd was quite firm that there really is no evidence to back this up. I am a bit of a pain with stuff like this - always want to know why, what the risks are, what the advice is based on....all I can say is having looked at everything I can get my hands on and listening to both sides, I've decided to use soya in cooking and to give the odd yoghurt or dessert. There is some useful info on the Alpro website, though obviously you may suspect some bias! It does give all the studies that the info is based on though if you wanted to pursue it further.

As far is i'm aware there are no issues with using oatmilk, other than the fat content that I mentioned before - it makes lovely porridge. Adding oil is a really good idea, and obviously you can put dairy-free marge on rice cakes or oatcakes etc, to boost his fat content. Rice milk shouldn't be used as it has a high arsenic content - sorry if i'm stating the obvious.

I wondered if you have tried swedish glace ice cream? It's totally dairy free, really nice and you may get away with adding some fruit to it.

I'm no expert on this stuff, but do understand how hard it is when you can't give your baby a full range, and they don't like what you can give them! If your ds is ok with eggs that will be a big help. Mine is ok with them and so has scrambled egg (with evil soya milk), omelette and eggy bread. Would you be up to making a carrot cake? That has a high egg and oil content, and carrot of course!

Sorry - also meant to say that there can be a link between dairy and soya allergies so obviously it makes sense to wait until your sure it's ok.