11 MO will not eat lumps

[LillethTheCat]

DD2 will be 1 in 10 days and yet I cant seem to get past the stage of pureed food. She will eat all food if it is smooth. She also likes to play with finger food, but doesnt really eat it. She doesnt gag with it, she will have one mouthful and refuse the rest (although there has been the odd occasion where she has eaten a whole meal with lumps - 3 times). Should I stick with the stage 1 jars and really pureed food or is there any reason why I may be stuck at this stage? Any ideas I could try?

Be guided by your lo. Yes guidelines say they need lumpy food for muscle/tongue movements for speech development etc, however ime (with 4dc) babies will eat lumps when ready and not before. I've never come across a baby whose speech is impaired due to only eating pureed food ..

Stop the jars if you can and start giving chopped up bits of food (really small pieces) so she learns how to deal with lumps of food on their own as opposed to in a liquidy mush (as the lumps are a surprise then).

And it is very important for speech development to have lumps to chew on.

It's worth having a chat with your HV about this.

If it was me I would continue to offer purees so she doesn't get hungry and would also offer finger foods for your LO to try so she gets used to real food gradually. Is she eating on her own or with others? My DS wasn't keen on lumps and but started to eat them at nursery where he copied the others. At home he really went from purees to finger foods and proper meals, he wanted to eat what I had, so I started to give him some. If she sees you eating things, she may well want to try some as well.

Thanks for the advice. We have a 12 month appointment soon in a couple of weeks so will bring it up then.

She likes to hold finger foods, but rarely eats them. They often get dropped on the floor or just crumbled up. Its more of something to play with and experiment rather than eat IYSWIM.

I will try to give her food with us to see how she goes. The very worst she wont eat and I will have to give her something she will eat to stop her feeling hungry.

How about giving her some smooth puree for her tea so that you know she isn't going to bed hungry but give her some other things for the other meals? I think eating with them is very important too thecat.

I've also seen posts on MN where they have continued with the smooth purees but gradually mixed them with more lumpy purees so that you end up going from smooth to lumpy.

As for the finger food, have you tried giving her things to dip like egg and soliders or hummus with carrots and breadsticks? She might be encouraged to eat if she can dip too.

For breakfast I'd try ready break with some fruit puree mixed in. Once she's go used to that you can always start sticking some berries, bananas, grapes or raisins in there and ready brek is much cheaper than baby cereals.

For Lunch I'd just give her what you eat, provided you eat fairly healthily.

Once she is one you can start offering the milk after solids. If you are bfing you can just continue with that as long as you are both happy too and if you are ff you can ditch the bottles and formula at 12 months and replace it with 300 ml of full fat cows milk.

Good luck .

Some good tips there Jilted will look to be giving some of them a go. I know about the full fat cows milk and I am so looking forward to that as its so much cheaper Only a few more days.

For some reason she is great with breakfast, already has porridge, maybe I should try something extra in it to see how she goes. For lunch I tend to have a mixture of bits (coleslaw, potato salad, ham, cheese). Maybe tomorrow then for lunch I have my lunch first and give her some finger food see how she goes and I can always give her something a bit more if she doesn't eat much.

Thanks for the ideas.

If you are used to giving her bits for lunch, why not just give her the bits but with a small sandwich on the side and see how she gets on? We tend to offer something you know they will eat along with the new food so at least they will eat something on their plate.

No sorry I have bits for my lunch, she has slop. I will try her with bits. I was thinking of some cheese and see how she goes, if she eats it I will try a bit of bread or toast. Followed by her usual yoghurt.

She did tonight eat some scrambled egg off my plate. So when we get some more eggs on Friday I am going to try her with scrambled egg (obviously well cooked) for her lunch to see if she will eat more.

Food off your plate is always so much more tempting for them isn't it? .

Why not give her a variety of stuff along with the cheese? Like a banana, a breadstick and some raisins?

Well today she had cheese, breadsticks and a few watsits before I gave her yoghurts. She was slow (as expected, but did have a good chew and ate some) Im going to try toast tomorrow. Although we do have banana's in that need eating - Im really fussy and only like them just past that green stage. So might try her with them.

I think I may have cracked it.

Thanks for all your help, its very much appreciated :)

I like mine like that too LTC. Had the terrible job of making the ones that were going over into Banana Bread last weekend and then the tortuous job of eating it .