7.5 month old doesn't want to eat

[MrsRolandRat]

I have a 7.5 month old dd who has zero interest in food.
I started weaning her at 5 months with a spoon and rice cereal and fruit purées, she was doing great. Then bang on 6 months decided she no longer wanted to eat.

She refused spoons and now just cries when I put her in the high chair. Meal times are very stressful. I did BLW thinking that she only wanted to feed herself, however she just picks the food up looks at it and throws it onto the floor where the dog then eats it.

It's worrying me that she's never going to eat. From the day she was born we've had issues with feeding. She was a poor breast feeder and failed to gain weight properly. She was born on the 91st centile and dropped to the 25th/50th over the course of 3 months, where she tracks perfectly now.

She was a bottle refuser until recently, however is now mixed fed, boob and bottle.

What I notice from bottle feeding is she just snacks...only ever takes a full feed at night time. In the day it's 2oz at a time.

Is it possible she just has no appetite?

I'm so stressed out. All my friends babies eat well, I compare her to them and she's just not bothered.

According to my mum my sister and I were terrible eaters as babies/children.

Any advice would be great. I'm even considering stopping weaning for a while as I'm so down about it.

Bump. Watching with interest.

Bump

We are the same and I'm most interested to hear others experiences. 8. 5 months, a few teaspoons of food here and there. Still on 6'bottles a day.......

I wouldn't worry. As long as babies are having lots of milk still, you really don't need to worry for a few months yet. Let them have a look at food, and pick at it, but don't stress if they don't seem to eat much. Neither of mine had purees. Started straight onto finger foods at six months ish, but didn't consume much for quite a while. They both eat really well now and are both healthy weights.
Please don't be down about it and definitely don't stress. Obviously she will eat one day but there isn't an alarm that goes off at six months which means they suddenly need to eat food.

It is so stressful. My DD2 is doing BLW and seems to take in very little and I don't think spoon feeding her would help as she just closes her mouth tight to a spoon. My older two were taking much more in at the same age. She must be getting something though as her nappies are changing and it is no longer a pure breast milk poo!

Relax. She's no doubt picking up on your stress. My DD was a spoon refuser, she still (at 19mo) goes postal if you mess with her food while she's eating . We did BLW and she ate barely a thing until she was 9/10mo and seemed to discover swallowing. Until then it was a lot of throwing, squishing, mushing, spitting out....

I just gave her lots of very different things and let her get on with it. She is now an enthusiastic eater with a very varied diet, though also has marked changes in appetite. Some weeks she is so hungry, I can't keep up. Other times she has barely more than a couple of mouthfuls for dinner. I never try to make her eat, just give gentle encouragement. If she doesn't like something I offer a simple alternative that I know she enjoys (avocado, yoghurt, egg). These are my ways of trying to keep emotion out of food, for both of us.

They need very little at your DD's age. They need a lot less than you think even as toddlers.

Advice - change the focus, in your mind. Let her play and explore. To be ok with the mess, I told myself in the early months that this was a form of sensory play, rather than a mealtime. Choose her foods because they're brightly coloured, or have an interesting taste or texture. Make it into play.