Is it normal for a BF baby just not to be able to eat food?

[Rooners]

Please bear with me - this is my third baby and the others were just the same but I kind of took the path of least resistance, and kept BFing mainly and they barely ate anything till around a year +.

I think this may have been wrong.?

I'm weaning ds3 now and he is 7mo. He can't manage anything gloopy at all - he pokes it out with his tongue, and gags a lot.
I give him those organix crisp-type things which he chews but most of it falls out of his mouth - anything like carrot is a waste of time, rice cake things get squashed and sucked, but I'm fairly sure nothing is swallowed.

Is this usual? I don't MIND Bfing him mostly, or even totally, but I worry that I am doing something wrong because everything I read seems to imply that he should be having three square meals a day by now

He has been having a little bit of water in a bottle occasionally too but I think most of that ends up on his clothes. I gave him it partly to chew and partly as it's been so hot. Is this Ok?

They have to "learn" to eat as much as anything else, some find it harder than others. I can remember some of mine struggling more than others. I would just keep handing him things to instinctively mouth, no pressure.

Friends baby wouldn't eat food until 10-11 months. She was absolutely enormous & HV kept pressuring poor mum to feed her more healthy foods ("But all she has is breastmilk!!" poor mum would reply). That baby turned out fine, of course.

My only caveat is if you say your baby was premie or had tongue tie, very rarely there is a structural reason why they have trouble.

Oh brill. I was so worried, I thought we were doing really badly - how can a baby be eating so much by 6/7 months as to manage 3 meals??!

But I will persevere in offering stuff...he often gets quite cross when I am holding a sandwich or pizza or something, he wants to hold it so I guess that is a good sign!

He is very podgy on BM and I'm not worried about his weight or anything - fairly solidly 50th/75th I think, well I weighed him myself and he's about a stone and a half.

Thanks so much.

Have you tried things like mashed potatoe, rusks etc?
Remember the idea is get them used to something in their mouths rather than it been a real source of food
By DC 3 at 8mo I'd have let him have a chomp in the pizza :)

Your doing nothing wrong. Honestly it's perfectly normal not to be eating by this age. Despite what other parents and health visitors would have you believe. It doesn't sound like he's ready tbh. You can persevere but that might just make you both more stressed. Personally of probably hold off a wee or two and them try again maybe ditching the purée and trying soft pieces of fruit or steamed veg.

There will be no harm in leaving it a bit longer

Rooners - I'm having exactly the same issue.

DC3 is also 7 months and he just doesn't seem to get on with food at all.
If I give him anything other than porridge he keeps his mouth open until there's so much saliva in there it just drips out. If I give him toast/banana pieces etc he gags on it and doesn't seem to try and chew/gum it even though he has 6 teeth!
My other two were different - DD was fussy but still tried things and I ended up mostly BFing her.
DS1 literally scoffed plates full of food as soon as he turned 6 months and was straight onto a sippy cup of water, which meant less BFing.
DS2 is also a big old chunk on BFing and is around the 91st percentile so I'm not worried about weight either so I guess I'll just have to persevere!
No real advice, just wanted to empathise :)

My extremely podgy baby didn't eat solids until she was 9 months old. Teeny tiny bits of food (a lick or a bite, eg half a baby rice cake) before that, and then one day when she was 9 months old she ate a whole nectarines and within a fortnight was on 3 meals a day of normal (not pureed or anything) food. She's now 7 and is also no longer pudgy.

My DS is about a year behind other babies from our antenatal class (all born the same month) in terms of eating. He just preferred breast milk. They were on 3 meals a day at 7 months, he was on breast milk plus the odd bit of peach. He would have bursts of eating well around growth spurts, I remember one at 8 months, and another after an illness when he needed to catch up a bit. If it helps reassure you, he is tall, fairly slim but not skinny, ahead of his age for language development, walked at 9 months, and is full of energy. He's absolutely fine... So I wouldn't worry. HVs are obsessed with getting them off breast milk ime (obviously not all of them are but most I've come across) I just smile and ignore. Milk is fab food for them if that's what they want.

Oh and he didn't eat 3 meals a day until about 16 months this book is supposed to be good if you still feel worried

Meant to say, dd2 she started at five months but it literally was just a bite or two of strawberry or banana she was interested but just wanted a little try nothing more. She wasn't eating anything close to a meal til 8 months may be more.

Thankyou so much everyone for the empathy, reassurance and advice.

I am giving him bits of what I have - a piece of bread, or a bit of pizza to chew - like the crust so he can hold it and bite on it, etc.

Have tried mashed potato, it falls out but he is fond of chewing biscuit pieces and so on.

I just was concerned that there might be a 'window' I had missed? I can't remember now but I'm sure someone told me that once. HVs have always criticised that I am not feeding him breakfast, lunch and dinner by this age and it is hard to know if you're doing Ok with no one around to tell you otherwise.

Thanks again. We will persevere and keep trying things. All of mine have learned to eat in the end but ds2 BFd till he was at school and still doesn't eat a great variety at 6! Hmmm, maybe it is just who he is. Ds1 eats everything in sight.!