How much does your 9 month old eat?

[AgathaCrispie]

This is less about what your baby eats, more about how much. DD is 9 months old and weaning is going BADLY. She's happy playing with food and occasionally tasting, but next to nothing is going in. I'm wondering if (hoping) I'm expecting too much.

Yesterday she had:

About five baby spoons of Ready Brek with mashed strawberry (I usually make an 8g (dry weight) portion. She'll finish that maybe 2 times out of 5 - the rest of the time she has a falling out with the spoon after a few spoonfuls)

Approximately a fifth of a piece of toast with hummus and about 3 blueberries

Around 3 spoonfuls of mashed sweet potato and about half a strawberry

This was a pretty good day! We've been at this 3 months and the amounts still just seem tiny. If it's mashed/puree it's a few baby spoonfuls. If it's finger food it's next to nothing: about one piece of tortellini, half a floret of broccoli, the equivalent of one little finger strip of omelette. Is this normal? I just can't see how she's going to sustain herself at nursery in two months time unless there's a dramatic change soon!

Nobody?

I'm by no means an expert but how much milk is she having during the day and how long between milk and offering food? My DS is having between 25-35oz a day still, with 5-6oz being overnight, and is offered food around 1-1.5hrs after milk.

My DS is almost 8 months so he doesn't always have lunch but for breakfast he has half a weetabix or around 3 tablespoons of porridge, usually with fruit stirred in or pieces of banana/kiwi. For dinner he will have something I've made and frozen, such as cod and mash, pork and veg rice, macaroni cheese and will have around 2-3 ice cube sized portions. Sometimes he eats it all, sometimes he just plays around.

I find this stage quite difficult as it seems all I do is feed him or try and get him to sleep!

My DS is 10 months.
We still offer him 4 bottles at 7oz each but he doesn't always finish them all.

Breakfast: usually has 3 tbsp of porridge with either chopped up or pureed fruit added in.

Dinner: Usually homemade about 4-5 icecubes worth. If he is having a pouch or jar from the shop he'll easily finish that.

Tea time he might have fruit and yogurt, cooked veg or ready to eat vegetables like ripe avocado

Wether we feed him or he feeds himself, he eats quite a bit but lets you know when he has had enough. He is an average weight for his height.

I am no expert but maybe mention this to your health visitor. How much milk is ypur baby having and is she putting on weight?

My DD is 11 months and sounds like your DD.. she eats very little, especially very little at breakfast but I think it's because she breastfeeds quite a bit overnight. She was doing a bit better for a while but she's had various bugs recently so she's been holding out for boob I think. Going to start trying to be proactive in offering food instead of milk. Personally I wouldn't worry too much yet, and keep offering food. But it might be good to speak to a health visitor. Could you be in a similar situation with DD filling up on milk instead of food?

She's breastfed so it's hard to tell exactly! We're maybe one feed down across the day, but it's not really changed as she eats so little. Weight is fine, but that's from milk. Because she's never really taken a bottle, and has been as slow to figure out the sippy cup as food, I'm just concerned about how she's going to get through a day at nursery in a couple of months time.

And yes, Sleeper, it feels like all my time is devoted to either eating or sleeping!

You might find she eats more food when you're not around (i.e. at nursery). Mine is just settling in at nursery and she seems to eat more there, and she definitely eats more if I leave her with my husband for a few hours.

My DS was a reluctant eater. Things that helped with him were non messy finger foods for breakfast and lunch as he was fastidious. We initially coarsely pureed whatever we were having for dinner for him to have as he liked strong flavours but wouldn't get his hands dirty to eat it unless it was off a spoon, moving to choping it at about 12 months. Finally, savoury carbohydrate snacks got him to eat more - breadsticks and melt in the mouth crackers (e.g. Cheddar biscuits or Tesco wholegrain crackers), often with a dip or soft cheese for added calories. He dropped almost two centiles slowly until he was about 15 months when he finally got the hang of eating and moved back up.

He started nursery at 12 months so had to lose 2 breastfeeds a day then. He ate a bit more when I dropped the feeds but nothing like as much as he did when he suddenly got it

Are you getting your DC weighed monthly just to keep an eye on it? Other than trying various food combinations to tempt them not sure there is anything else you can do to make them eat unfortunately. Dd is a much more enthusiastic eater at 7.5 months than DS was at 10 or 11 montha and we haven't done anything differently!

My breastfed dd was exactly the same, barely ate a thing and wouldnt take a bottle either. I went back to work when she was just shy of 10 months and she suddenly started increasing the amount she ate slightly (still no milk in the day!) And by 11 months she was eating like a trooper.

I did find the arrival of a few teeth at 10 months made a big difference too

Oh and with DS I found introducing 2 snacks pre mid morning and mid afternoon breastfeeds helped a lot. Breadstick is good because it makes so little mess you don't always have to faff with a highchair.

DS is 10 months but 8.5 corrected for prematurity. How much he eats varies wildly depending on his mood, how tired he is, and how much milk he's had.

Today he had a little bit of French toast for breakfast (maybe 1/4 of a slice of Hovis) - I had offered Weetabix and banana but he's gone off banana completely so that was rejected.

Lunch he had a huge amount by his standards, after a "low milk" morning. (I'm trying to reduce milk as I know he's still having quite a lot). He had 3 ice cubes worth of puree, followed by some yogurt and mashed fruit.

Mid afternoon he had a tiny bit of buttered toast as a snack, mainly as my niece was over and eating toast and he seemed to want hers!

Smallish dinner: three spoons of pasta and sauce, roughly the same amount of mashed sweet potato, then a bit of apple puree.

I'm in a similar position, my baby is 9 months and bearly eats.

Breakfast- 2-3 spoons of porridge, a little toast (2cm by 2cm), 1-2 spoons of banana mashed, maybe a little yogurt. I try as many different varieties as possible.

Lunch is 5-6 spoons of dinner, 4-5 puffy crisps, a slice of cheese and a little bread

Dinner is similar portion to lunch.

I have been stressing so much, I keep giving him his bottle as I don't want him to loose weight.

This morning I offered him breakfast before milk and he has eatten more. I'm going to slowly drop his milk. The max I'm going to give him in milk for the next few days is 660ml (I know this is probably still more than I should give him)

I'm glad I'm not the only one going through this, feel like a terrible mum as other babies seem to just take to weaning so easily.

I guess the weight of your baby is also something to consider, a smaller baby is bound to eat less. My nipper is 7.47kilos.

Just turned10 months here he will eat a whole weetabix for breakfast or 2 eggs scrambled with butter

Also always give him half a bit of toast which he attempts to eat

Yesterday lunch he ate a whole 1/2 side of tuna sandwich, a square of watermelon , a slice of pineapple, 4 long Ella kitchen crisp sticks (4" long) and a Ella kitchen large pouch

He had a breast feed also at 10am

Dinner was a bowl full of stovies prob about a handful size , then pudding was a yogurt

Breast feed before bed then 2-4 during night