Started weaning at 6 months and need help!!!!!

[barefeete]

I started initially weaning my ds at 5 months but after a week he got an ear infection so we had to stop then we started again and he got a tummy bug so we stopped again. Now all illnesses are clear and we have started again at 6 months. The problem is that initally when we started weaning he was really kean to eat, now he closes his mouth, turns his head away from me and eventually gets annoyed with me.
I have been offering him both purreed apple, pear, carrot, butternut squash, ready brek and weetabix. Apple goes down better and so does the ready brek when it has apple in. I have given him finger foods to like banana, eggy bread, bread and jam (which he really likes) blah blah blah.
Anyway the point is that he is still not kean. I am frustrated as i don't know what to cook for him. I am living at my Mums's at the mo and my aunt (who is a health visitor) and my mum keep dishing out the advice but it is all confusing and i am getting more and more frustrated.
sorry this is long but need some sane adice from people who are doing it to.
Thanks

I would try not to get too stressed about it - he is only 6 months after all - food now should be about experimenting with tastes and textures etc not as the main source of nutrition for him. I started my ds at 6 months with finger food and he seemed fairly keen, then like yours he got a viral infection and started teething and things came to a standstill. I would just keep offering and he'll get there eventually. DS still doesn't actually consume much but he's obviously thriving so I don't worry about it.

Barefeete - do you have any Annabel Karmel recipes? I've found some of them really great for both ds and dd.

ADmittedly some of them are a bit time consuming, but there are some good ideas for mixing tastes and also how much to expect babies to eat at each age/stage.

What you're offering does sound like a great selection so there's nothing wrong there.

It does sound like he's possibly teething - both dd and ds refused to let me anywhere near their mouth with a spoon when they had a tooth coming. They definitely preferred finger foods then. AK suggests using purees as a dip or a spread so baby can self feed, but you know they're getting a "meal" too.

Timings important too - dd (9mths) is so often too tired for her meals that she ends up having a snack after her naps instead. Lunch and tea are often really early just to make sure she eats properly.

Keep going and don't turn it into a battle - as long as he's still taking his milk, he'll get curious enough soon. It'll take awhile before he's actually eating a plateful of stuff.

Thanks so much. It is easy to get wound up about stuff where ds is concerned.