PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE if you care come take me by the hand and HELP me understand weaning!

[eenybeeny]

Hi your help is much needed!

I have a 7 month old baby who was one month prem.

We weaned him on to purees a while ago - earlier than I am happy with now but there was a lot of pressure from HV etc. and worry he was starving. He was breastfed until he was 3 and a half months old... I was desparate to BF him til he was 1 year old but he totally went off it and refused to do it so much against my wishes we had to switch him to formula. This was probably because of problems he had feeding at birth due to being prem some of you may remember earlier threads I posted at the time.

Anyway...

I just can not get him to eat anything. He has formula. And every now and then a proper dinner. When I say proper dinner I mean puree and a sweet puree afterwards.

I cant get him to take breakfast or lunch anymore. He was eating better but then got sick and since then even though he is totally recovered now he just wont eat. Every time I try to feed him it ends in tears, his and sometimes mine. He just doesnt seem to want it.

I have thought of trying BLW but despite a few attempts from friends on MN to explain it to me I really do not understand it. I just dont know what I am supposed to do. I obviously dont want him to choke on anything and developmentally he is only now behaving like a 5 or 6 month old so I dont know if HE can do HIS part of the BLW deal.

Please - whatever your views, come on here, take me by the hand, and tell me, what am I supposed to be feeding my baby????? How do I do it? By the way we are raising him vegetarian. I am open to BLW or any other thing that works, I just want him to eat. Please help. Thanks for reading this.

definitely no pressure to get them eating regularly. i think dd just had a few bits and pieces in the afternoons for quite a while. good luck with it all.

Hi,

Can't add much to what everyone else has said really. Totally agree with lulumama that in the first year food should be a fun thing. Current weaning advice is six months but some HVs differ in their advice.
My son enjoyed:

Mango, Apple, Banana, butternut squash, potato, avocado, pear etc etc. As he got a older we added things like cheese and meat. He also like a taste of whatever was on our plates. I will never forget seeing my son at 10 months struggling to get a whole roast potato in his mouth or seeing him mash up a pavlova with his hands (much to the disgust of my very staid Uncle).

Aitch I am reading your blog at the moment - its really interesting.

DH and I are doing BLW now and I just have to ask... at the moment Alex is eating a dried apricot. It is slowly breaking down in his mouth. I am really fighting myself not to worry that he is going to choke. Is there a minimum size of things he can eat? I know you must be asked this a million times but I need taking by the hand and guiding through this!

you know, he really probably won't choke. dd only did it once or twice, and that was on apple, which is hard. he might gag, but the gag reflex is a moveable feast and moves backwards over time. so what makes him gag this week won't next week, not to mention the fact that he will simply get better at controlling the food when it's in his mouth. on the left hand side of the blog you can see a post entitled 'so how much does your baby actually gag, then?' and you can see from teh comments it not frequent at all...

so you just have to believe...

Thanks Aitch I just read that. I am really happy with this BLW lark as Alex seems much happier. I will scour your blog for any words of wisdom but by all means if there is something you think I really should know tell me here!