Help, I'm in a muddle (long, sorry!)

[sadnoonie]

hi, ds is 8 months. Started weaning at 20 weeks to see if it would help his severe reflux (and his sleep - hollow laugh). Started with very thin baby rice and expressed bm. He took to it really well and we had built up to 2-3 times a day. Didn't notice any difference in reflux or sleep.

Then I got the flu and stopped spoon feeding him for nearly two weeks. After that, he refused all spoon feeds. Ok said me, you're over 6 months, you've been sitting up since 4.5 months, good hand coordination - blw here we go!

We're going nowhere . I can't believe how hard and frustrating weaning is. I'm very dispirited and therefore getting into a muddle.

I offer him 1-2 'meals' per day +/- snacks like rise cakes. Mostly blw - toast with cream cheese, cheese 'bricks', bread sticks, raw or steamed or roasted veg (peppers, carrot, squash, etc), bits of meat, fruit. I also offer spoon feeds - yoghurt and those ready made pouches (both the 4month plus purees and the 7 month plus 'textured' meals).

He likes yoghurt and if he is in the mood, he will eat and swallow it. Occasionally, he will eat 2-5 mac spoons from a pouch. Again, if he is in the mood, most of the finger foods will go in the mouth (more often they go on the floor or down the side of his high chair or he enthusiastically smears them over the high chair tray!).

But he still gags on nearly everything (bar yoghurt). Any wee lumps or bits of food in his mouth are retched or choked then vomited out. He choked on a rice cake at a baby group yesterday and projectile vomited everywhere.

Should he still be so averse to lumps and texture / gaggy? I want to progress to giving him what we're eating but can't see the point if it's just going to make him choke and gag.

Please give me your wonderful advice / a kick up the bum on how to unmuddle myself....

Sorry this is long! TIA .

From what you say I think I'd feel like I was in a muddle too. Just remember two things, all babies are different and food is fun until one.

The first thing that sprung to my mind is what times are you feeding him? You say he will eat if he's in the mood but could it be that he is just not hungry or over hungry and wanting his milk? I feed DD her milk seperately to her meals but I know some people give milk just before or just after. Why don't you try experimenting with times.

I am in a bit of a muddle myself, I do purees with finger foods and some days I'll do more finger foods and she'll get into the swing of it and other days I'll mainly do purees and then the finger foods hit the floor before she's even tried them. I think you need to decide what you're going to do and the stick with it and start out slowly. My DD also favours yogurt and so I cut it back because she stopped eating her savoury things. Now she's eating her savoury things again. If you know that at some point he will take yogurt (i.e. smooth) and is gagging on all finger foods then perhaps BLW isn't for him. Do you just do pouches or do you make from scratch? I've heard some people say that their LO's won't eat pouches and have better luck with homemade, just a thought?

Not sure I can help but my DS choked/gagged/vomited lumps at similar age. He just wasn't ready and so I stuck with puree for a little longer as the last thing I wanted was to put him off food altogether. I would just mush up what we were eating if possible, so within the mush there was still some range of texture.
By the age of 1 he was happily eating everything we were.
Also pick times to offer food carefully, not when tired, just filled up on milk etc. my DD is 1 and she will play with food and chuck it all on the floor if she isn't hungry-won't eat a thing! Finally, try not to stress over it too much at this stage as lizzywig said, food is fun until one. HTH

Are you feeling worried and stressed? So common, eating comes with so much parent guilt! Nevertheless this could be the greatest barrier, without making you feel worse! Try your hardest to make it fun. Don't beat yourself up.

Can you use some plates and spoons etc as play things. No food. Just fun. Same with some spaghetti etc. Make a mess without eating (but all stuff that wouldn't harm if he did eat it!)

Thanks for replying ladies. I do keep reciting food is for fun until they are one but when I stupidly compare him to babies the same age who are munching away it does make me feel like I'm getting it wrong (again - he's high needs so feel that way a lot in my sleep deprived state). It's not that I feel guilty, more that I'm doing something wrong, missing something, that there's something I should be doing and when I work it out - pouff it'll magically be brilliant and he'll be tucking into a roast

I'm feeling that particularly just now after catching a huge puke (in his bib, phew). He's adept at dodging a spoon when he doesn't want one - so makes me when I have frozen home made purée and shop bought pouches all over him/me/ kitchen and precisely none in his mouth / tum. He can even defeat my mum (who has a lot of baby experience) when she tries spoon feeding. He will sometimes clean a loaded spoon, more often it gets turned around, chewed and the contents flicked.

He gags on mush and purée too - a mushed banana provoked that last puke. I do try to make it fun as much as possible - I'll try ur suggestion señorita but I do find it hard to sustain when it's as fruitless a day as today.

Thanks for the reassurance, dozens, it is a relief to hear ur baby was the same at this age but has caught on. I kept telling myself ds will too, just hard to believe today!

Ha ha, lizzie, we can have a muddle together! I try to feed him after a sleep and a feed, at roughly the same times but there's little consistency to his receptiveness to food. Think he just enjoys keeping me on my toes! We did start out slowly - I'm just tired of no pr

Whoops! No progress after basically 4 months. What age is ur dd?