6mth3wks... Won't move onto food?

[LalaDipsey]

Hi
I have b/g twins who are 6 mths and 3 weeks old. Dts has embraced food with great enthusiasm. I am going for a blw type approach but offering stuff on a spoon too but not pureeing. He will eat anything!!
Dtd refuses to take anything off a spoon at all - clamps her mouth shut and very rarely will have a bit of finger food - she will take a bit of toast and chew the end maybe once a day and maybe do the same with a rice cake but isn't eating anything. I don't want to force her to do anything she's not ready for but she is now approaching 7 months. If she slept it wouldn't be so much of a problem but she wakes in the night to feed and is now struggling to go 3.45-4 hrs between feed which she was happily doing a couple of weeks ago so I think she is getting hungrier.
She is little - was 4lb2oz at birth and is only on the 9th percentile.
She had 2 Tongue ties which were snipped - one at 3 days and one at 5.5 weeks - could this be affecting her ability to eat/ push food around her mouth?
Also, because she was prem (4 wks) she is on 3 vitamins/day. She hates them and tries to shut her mouth and I wonder if this has given her an oral aversion?
Any help/advice gratefully received!!!
Thanks

she might just not be ready for food- that's the problem with twins, there's another child to "compare" against.

if you're worried, mention it to your HV or GP, but there's a good chance she's just not as far ahead as her brother (they were early, after all) :)

If you go with Baby led weaning then let her lead you. Offer her food on the tray rather than the spoon and leave her to it. If you, DH and her brother are eating, she'll soon pick it up.

IME I'd ditch the spoon. That's just my personal opinion with BLW; the process of picking food up and getting it in their mouth is a big learning curve.

Remember food is fun until their one. Don't drop milk feeds and see how she is in a few weeks.

I think you might find that once you start weaning night times get worse not because of the weaning as such, just their age and development milestones that they're meeting- their minds are buzzing at night too so they wake up more (google sleep regression, v common at 4.6 and 9 months). My DP only said the other day that our dd slept better at 12 weeks than she does now at 11 months!!

There are loads of threads on BLW and people starting at the same time- its always fun to share progress with others. If you can, get hold of the BLW book by Gill Rapely- it's good read.

Good luck

Lala, I have nearly 8mo twins, I starting weaning at just before 6 months. DTS ate anything and everything and within a week or so was self feeding broccoli and pear. DTD is only 2nd centile and I think her body was just not ready. I just used to sit her in her high chair and let her watch DTS and me eat. She only really started eating in the last two weeks (so about 7 months 1 week), but now she'll eat tuna sandwiches, chicken etc. They are both happy to eat from a spoon, from my fingers/hand or feeding themselves.

Can she sit up on her own, and hold food and put to her mouth? I think that's the best sign of when they're ready.

Oh and btw we have a thread for those with baby twins if you ever want to chat with other twin mums

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/multiple_births/1424177-Under-1s-twin-post-natal-group-Should-we-have-one-Whos-in

Like goldisa says, the sleeping can get really bad after the 6mo mark. DD started weanIng at 6mo and has slept through from them till about 14 or 15mo. I googled and came to the same conclusion of development. DD eats a lot so it's not food. But in this transition to toddlerhood, the learn to crawl, to pull up, to cruise, to speak. Their minds are very busy! They also teeth a lot from 6mo. DD started to walk only at 15mo and her sleep improved definitely. She slept through more nights then not now.

I'm sure like cvb says, she will get eating sooner or later just watching her brother. Twins get doubly naughty just because they have the other to learn from. This should work for eating too.

No twin-specific advice, but DS1 (now 4) didn't take more than a taste of solid food until about ten months. I was tearing my hair out. Then suddenly he "got it" and now eats us out of house and home very well.

Assuming she is having good milk feeds, is offered food when hungry, and is otherwise well, I wouldn't worry just yet. Having a twin as a direct comparison isn't helping you; if you had just her it would be easier to relax.

How are yougiving the vit drops? Our dts have 0.3 ml of a solution (Dalivit) once a day, so I just squirt it into one if their milk feeds. It tastes repulsive so I can certainly sympathise with her not wanting more of that!