Weaning advice needed!

[mrsmugoo]

I started weaning my breastfed 6.5 month old just after 5 months so he's been having solids for just over 6 weeks now.

At the start he took "first tastes" from a spoon ok e.g. sweet potato, poached pears etc.. and I thought great, this is easy. But about 2 weeks in, he literally just stopped accepting food on a spoon and that was it.

So we upped the finger foods and stopped trying to spoon feed him when he obviously wasn't receptive but the finger foods (fruit and veg fingers, toast, pancakes, pieces of meat, pasta) just get squodged, played with, smeared all over face/hands/hair and then discarded on the floor.

I'm exhausted from preparing and cleaning up a huge mess three times a day and fed up of throwing food away day in day out.

I know breastfeeding is his main source of nutrition but as he doesn't take a bottle or cup and I am preparing to send him to nursery soon I do feel a slight sense of urgency at getting him to accept a bit of food. When I have left him with his granny for 4 or 5 hours to try to get him to eat/drink, he's just gone without anything for the entire time and then woke up that night wanting milk party all night.

Today he ate:
breakfast - chewed and sucked on one asparagus spear
lunch - sucked on a piece of pitta bread and accepted no more than 3 spoonfuls of ella's kitchen beef stew pouch
dinner - sucked on a piece of cucumber and i managed to feed him half a weetabix by stealth

Does this sound normal?

Should I stop offering food three times a day and just offer once a day until it "clicks"

Different HVs have given me conflicting advice so I really have no idea what to do. I know a lot of babies don't really take to solid foods for months so what do I do until he does decide to eat food?

No advise, but just wanted to say me too. My baby's the same age and will not have anything to do with a spoon. I've been offering finger food which gets squished and very occasionally ends up in his mouth and then spat out. The most success I've had is with rice cakes which he happily licks.
I feel like I'm in a never ending cycle of preparing things to eat, watching him chuck them on the floor and then clearing up.
Anyway no help at all but interested to know what advise anyone else has

If you go down the BLW route, it will take a while but he will get better. I'd say around 8 months he'll start getting the hang of it. You do have to just roll with the mess and be zen about the wastage! Food before one is just for fun, milk is still his main source of nutrition so don't panic about how much he's getting.
For purées I found stage one Ella's pouches fab but there's not a single stage 2 pouch he would eat. Also, when looking at ingredients I found them to be at least 75% apple or similar. So I started making my own, using Anabel karmel recipes, and he adores them. I also know he's getting a much more balanced diet. He has a sweet tooth, so thinks like chicken with apricot, cod with orange etc he loves. He also adores cheesy things, so her recipe for cheesy pasta sauce with broccoli and carrot blended in are a hit, and yoghurt always goes down very well so I mix fruit purée into Greek yoghurt.
So - if you want to keep up purées try Anabel karmel. Her baby and toddler meal planner book is good and there are recipes on her website for free. I personally do a mixed approach - purée so I know he's getting lots in and then some finger foods for fun.

Also, if he utterly refuses a spoon you can always put purée onto a rice cake or spread onto toast or pitta for him to suck off!