6 month old not eating and needs him to put on weight!

[Eachpeachpearplum1985]

Hi there,

I'm really struggling to get my 28 week DS to eat! We've been going for around 4weeks now. I started off with purees, most of which he rejected although he liked pear and a pouch from aldi. I decided to have a go with finger foods and he has shown some interest but I don't think he's actually eating, more exploring so I also try purée afterwards. He is much better at eating at lunch time but breakfast and dinner is a struggle. He usually just screams at dinner time even if I just put out some finger foods.

I'm giving milk on first waking and trying breakfast about 45 mins after.

Next milk is around 11am. Lunch is around 12.

Another milk feed at 2ish. Dinner any time after 4.30 depending on when he naps / has his milk.

Last milk about 7pm.

He definitely has a preference for sweet foods. Should I try just mixing everything with fruit?! Change the times? Health visitor has told me to 'ramp up' the weaning as he has dropped a percentile but how can I if he is refusing? I dont want to make meal times an upsetting experience for him! Any help appreciated!

More milk? Some babies take to weaning more slowly. Does it really matter as long as he is getting goodness from either milk or food? I would have thought it more important that he has a relaxed and fun start to weaning than that he follow a strict schedule.

Dopping one centile line is not a cause for concern and is perfectly normal, I thought. If he crossed over two centile lines, that's when you're supposed to worry. But they will dip over and under one because centiles are an average - they won't ever follow one exactly because that's not how babies grow. Besides, breast/formula milk is much more calorie and nutrient dense, by volume, than foods - especially fruit and veg. So it seems odd that she would be encouraging you to "ramp up" weaning if he isn't putting on enough weight.

Is he mobile yet? That can also cause them to slow down weight gain because they are suddenly more active and burning more off.

If he's only having four milk feeds in the day, I'd up that to five and concentrate on breakfast and lunch if he seems eager for food then, and leave dinner for now if he's upset by it. I'm sure he'll let you know very enthusiastically when he's ready for a third solid meal.

It's still very early for him to be having (by which I mean actually eating) 3 meals a day, my baby is a similar age although hasn't been weaning for as long and is only having food once or twice a day. Not much is actually going in, I'm just offering lots of different things and letting her make a mess! Doesn't sound like you are doing anything wrong...

Milk should still be main source of food now anyway HV sounds barmy

Some babies just don't have an interest in food at that age. I posted many a thread with my old user name about my breastfed, bottle refusing, food refusing, centile dropping DD before I went back to work. In the end she ate just enough when there was no milk available and only in the past few weeks has she got really interested in eating. She's 18months so that's a full year from starting weaning. Nothing I did could have made her interested, she just had to get there in her own time. I also had HVs suggest I just gave her more, went cold turkey on breastfeeding and it was very stressful, I do understand!

I would increase his milk, if he's only 6 months now he was weaned very early anyway so wouldn't eat much.

Also your basically feeding him diet food. Fruit and veg is the type of food someone want to loose weight only eats. You need to add calories from good fats. Avocado slices as a snack, almond butter on bread, Greek full fat yogurt, scrambled egg etc

There are more calories in milk than in other food. If you replace milk with other food at that age you are NOT going to gain weight, you will loose it.

You have been given incredibly poor advice. Loosing a centile is not a cause for concern and can happen due to a number of reasons. For example teething which might mean a baby is off their food a bit anyway and won't eat anything as it hurts.

You can not force feed a baby who isn't interested. Don't try. You'll only make meal times a battle zone, get you stressed out and anxious over nothing.

DS was a food refuser. I tried EVERYTHING as he's a teeny tiny thing on the 9th centile after dropping from the 25th. It was awful and did me no good. I stopped getting weighed as DS is ridiculously active and very happy and was clearly fine.

At 10 months he only started to get it. He wanted to feed himself and be the one in control. He now eats quite well but remains hard work with it.

So at 6 months you are only jut at the beginning. It isn't and shouldn't be a race. He is still breastfeed a fair amount. We have tried to reduce that but it hasn't worked and only succeeded in making us all unhappy, so we gave up and are just going with the flow instead.

OP said he is 28 weeks old. 24 weeks is not "very early" to wean. But you're right that some babies start more slowly than others.

Thanks everyone. I had the same feelings about milk being more calorific although I have been giving him avacado, yoghurt, eggs, bread, cheese etc too. He's having 5 milk feeds a day.

Started weaning at 24 weeks as he was watching me eat, grabbing out and could sit up so all the signs he was 'ready'. One hv actually suggested I started weaning him at 17 weeks as he had a similar weight blip then

He's actually dropped two centiles since he was born which is perhaps why I was given the advice? To be fair the hv said he looked healthy and not to panic.

I'll just try and be more patient and not get too upset when he refuses my lovingly prepared food

They aren't supposed to look at centile born on any more, because they now think that's more related to mum's size, gestation, and presence of GD than what size the baby is meant to be and there can be a fair bit of leaping around centiles as they catch up/down to their "real" weight. So they are supposed to take 2 weeks as the first centile point (as they are looking at different things in those 2 weeks anyway like how quickly they regain their birth weight).

If HV isn't aware of this, it might be that their training in weight charts isn't up to date. I know that they changed the charts some time in 2008 because it was around the time DS was born, training should have been updated, but perhaps it didn't reach all areas due to cuts etc.

www.rcpch.ac.uk/system/files/protected/page/Fact%20Sheet%20for%20Parents.pdf

www.rcpch.ac.uk/system/files/protected/page/DoH%20info%20for%20healthcare%20professionals.pdf

Odd link names - but both perfectly freely available from here:

www.rcpch.ac.uk/child-health/research-projects/uk-who-growth-charts/uk-who-growth-charts-resources/uk-who-0-4-years

he was watching me eat, grabbing out and could sit up

I do hate that.

I would guess that most 6 month old babies would enjoy watching Mum use a hammer and would try to grab hold of it if hammer was offered in their direction. This does not mean baby is 'ready' to use a hammer!

Just because they watch parents eating and grab at food does not automatically think babies are ready to eat solids.

My personal belief is that many issues surrounding weaning come from babies who are weaned too early and too quickly. As Red says above, that might be 10 months old, just as it might be 7 months or indeed 11 months.

It's not until baby is 1 that you reach the expectation that baby should be eating a full diet including three meals.

Yes, do start offering food to baby at 6 months old. But there is no need to worry about how much is eaten. Milk provides the calories and so milk feeds needs to be maintained at least at the same level as before weaning, often babies need more milk past 6 months old, not less.

Baby will naturally start eating more food and drinking less milk as they get the hang of it. Parents don't really need to do anything to encourage this to happen, just keep offering a variety of textures and tastes in the form of 'meals' and in time baby will make the changes him/her self.

At 6 months old my youngest was having 7 or 8 full milk feeds per day, plus three 'meals'. Fitting in all these feeds meant it was back to the newborn days of spending all of baby's awake time feeding her.

I say if you are worried about baby loosing weight (and you don't necessarily need to worry) then increase milk feeds if baby is showing you he isn't ready for more solids yet.

not get too upset when he refuses my lovingly prepared food

Get used to that. Eleven years of parenting and four children, and it still stings when the kids screw their noses up at a meal I have spent the last hour making.

Actually being able to sit with support, pick up food and get it to their mouth as well as losing the tongue thrust reflex ARE the three signs of readiness for weaning. Watching isn't, but it's commonly put into lists with the others so it's understandable that it gets conflated.

I think your post was unnecessarily scathing.

Its a long post. Meant to be helpful, not scathing. Or did you just read my first 3 lines?

Bertie - mine could do that by 12 weeks old. They weren't ready to be weaned