8 month old still not eating much, please remind me it's fine

[KikiShack]

DD is a week short of 8 months, we started weaning about 9-10 weeks ago, so when she was 5 1/2 months.

We're roughly doing BLW, though I do sometimes try and shove a spoonful of stuff in, but without much luck. As an aside, if I hold the spoon and she faceplants onto it does that still count as BLW? Anyway...

I'd really appreciate views on whether what we're doing sounds OK, or whether I'm setting her up to have a horribly sweet/unhealthy tooth when she's older. Am I just being paranoid? I probably need to chill out, so I'm hoping you can help me get a grip.

Oh and DD is a very big bouncing happy girl, ebf and thriving at ~25lbs, so I'm not worried about her not getting enough nutrition.

Here's a typical day:
6.15am wake and BF
7.30am breakfast = porridge/toast+butter/mini wheats. Maybe she'll eat one single small spoonful/bite/wheat. After she throws everything on the floor giggling and drinks plenty of water I normally offer her some yoghurt and fruit. She will eat between 1 and 3 tbsp yoghurt (greek) and maybe 2 strawberries and a couple of inches of banana.
8.15 BF then nap
9.15 wake, small drink of water/small BF
10.15 'lunch'! homemade lentils/lasagne/pasta/veg+meat+chips/hummus+bread etc. I offer DD maybe 10 pieces of finger food. She might eat one or two. She likes mild cheddar so will eat that if offered. She'll also eat say 4 inches of breakstick. She'll gum the veg and meat etc then throw it on the floor after eating zero/one or two small bites. She'll drink lots of water (an ounce or two). Then I'll offer her yoghurt and fruit...same as breakfast she will eat some.

That's it for the day, I normally only offer food twice. If I offer it a third time it'll only be fruit.

So should I offer yoghurt and fruit if she doesn't eat any 'main'? Or am I setting her up to refuse savoury food and wait for sweet. The plain greek yog isn't very sweet though?

This is very boring and long, apologies! Any thoughts much appreciated, TIA.

Tbh, it all sounds completely reasonable and I'm no expert having only weaned pfb ds. But there are a couple of things that I might approach differently, but please feel free to ignore me.

It does sound a little like there are lots of alternatives if the original food is not particularly well received. I would decide what food you are offering as a meal (and whether there's going to be a pudding or not), and then stick to that. I wouldn't offer pudding every meal, and I would vary it from always being yoghurt and fruit.

I would then let her eat what she wants of what's offered and then leave it at that.

2 meals seems fine at 7 months. You could look to moving to 3 in the next few weeks.

Thanks Brighton I tried that yesterday with mixed results, so not a complete failure.
Does it not matter then if she had nothing for days on end? I guess I always fall back onto yog+fruit as its a certain winner. I worry that if I just offer eg bread/soup and she doesn't like either then she's left with nothing for that meal.

Hi Kiki not much advice but just some reassurance that we're in the same boat. Ds is 8 months, started slowly, had 2/3 weeks of eating v well but has been teething/had a cold for the last week and gone back to v little. Think he had a cherry and a couple of fingers of toast for breakfast today.

I tend to offer something to pick at while I do his 'main' as he can get quite annoyed in his high chair with nothing to do, then offer the main (which I usually offer on a spoon, sometimes he feeds himself with it, most often throws on the floor) then more finger food, often fruit or veg sticks. Like you, I'll try several things in a meal to see what I can get him to eat.

I'm hoping once this bastard tooth pops through he'll feel better and eat more again. I have to confess he gets an ella's pouch every couple of days at the moment as he seems to prefer them and you can stick them back in the fridge...sick of my home-cooked food going on the floor!

Good luck, hope they both improve soon!

Ps, I offer 3 meals a day and he often eats more in the evening. Not sure why but might be worth a try! BF an active baby this size is exhausting!

I didn't offer water at that age. I'm pretty sure DS was at least one. You'll be filling her up but with no nutrients or calories. I bf DS and offered food as well, twice a day. We sat and ate together. If he ate it, fine. If he didn't, fine. Gradually he ate more and more, and bf less and less until he self weaned. He's four now, slim, muscly and a good eater so I guess my lazy laid back approach worked.

We're similar, except DS does tend to eat well at dinner time, shovelling broccoli florets in to his mouth like they're the last food on earth. Breakfast is usually a wash-out, and lunch is hit and miss. We don't really offer 'pudding' - I figured there's more nutrients in vegetables and he's still breastfeeding, so I'm not too bothered.

I also sometimes offer fruit or cucumber sticks during the day to chew on, particularly if we're out and I want to eat something. We also use spoons sometimes. How else am I going to feed him dhal and porridge? He likes to take the spoon and 'feed' himself though (sideways or upside down - food everywhere).

I'm definitely no expert, but he will eat pretty much anything at this stage, even if much of it goes on the floor (his nappies suggest that he's getting some food in though).

I guess it depends on how you view weaning. I always felt that it was about exploring a wide range of flavours and textures, rather than trying to get a specific volume of food into my ds. At 7 months, the majority of nutrition should still come from breastfeeding, so I wouldn't worry about small volumes of food being consumed yet.

There's a bit in the BLW book where it talk about how when bfeeding babies take as much as they need and demand food when they are hungry. Part of the rationale of BLW is to do the same with food. So the baby is in charge of how much and what they eat. The idea is that our role as a parent is to offer a variety of healthy food so they can have a wide range of experience of flavours/textures.

Also, for things like porridge, dhal, etc I made it quite thick so it could be scooped up with hands (messy!), or I would load a spoon and hand it to my ds. He always had his own spoon and quite quickly learnt how to dip it into things like yoghurt etc.

My dd is 9 months and at 8 months I was thinking exactly the same as you. The only thing she would reliably eat was yoghurt. Every meal time was a battle! 2 bits of advice from my family really helped and actually are pretty much common sense.

Firstly, I was giving dd breastfeeds between meals, which meant she'd been fed about 2 hours before her solids ... hence wasn't hungry enough for it. I've now changed our routine so I bf after mealtimes (give a little time to let solids go down, i.e whilst I eat my meal).

Secondly, we are using purées more than blw but for example were giving chicken/potato/veg with no sauce. We now include gravy or a bread/cheese sauce and hey presto dd now eats everything she's given!

All really useful replies, thanks guys
She had her top teeth coming through at the moment so once they're established maybe she'll eat more. She did eat an inch of toast today which was a personal best! And I've been using the 'this is the meal, eat it or don't' approach which doesn't make me feel bad about constantly giving her pudding at least.
I'll try to leave longer after bf, but I normally feed her to sleep then solid feed her after a nap, so her current 40 minute naps don't help!! She does some nice 90 min naps occasionally which help.
Thanks for reassurance, I know she'll get there one day...just wish it was soon. As pp said, it is tiring effectively ebf a 25lb active 8 month old! And It Is not losing me any more weight which Is extra annoying.