I am a bad person

[Seren1ty]

My 10 month son is driving me insane. It is so pathetic - that I feel this way as he is only 10 months old and doesn't understand. I spent 4 whole hours cooking food for him. Things I know he likes on there own mixed together with other things he likes. But he is refusing to eat it, he ends up with food all over his face and hands and clamps his mouth shut. I thought perhaps it was teething or something but amazingly he finds the will to eat when it is nice sweet fruit. I thought perhaps it was the lumps but he can happily chew on rice cakes, banana chunks. This is going on for the best part of 3 days since the new batch of food. As I am reading this I can see how stupid this is but am I alone do other peoples babies do this? What can I do? Grrrrr!

Let him feed himself with finger food? ie Baby Led Weaning (BLW). Just serve him stuff from your own meal. Might not work but can't be any worse than all the wasted effort at the moment

ditch the batch cooking. just make yourself a sandwich for lunch and hand him a piece of it. if he doesn't eat it, you eat it. if he likes it, make him a bit more. ditto something like sunday dinner. make a roast as normal (if you do) and hand him bits of veg and meat. if he likes it hand more over, if he doesn't, then you eat it. worth a try?

agree with norah and the dragon - at 10months, I'd ditched the baby cooking - they ate (with some exceptions obv) what i did.

what everyone else said..feed him off your plate....give a range of finger food or bits off your plate and let him faff and mess and hopefully eat a bit to his hearts content

babies don't starve themselves

try not to worry

I've never really cooked separately for DS (he's about the same age as your son), just given him bits and pieces of what we have, plus sometimes spoonfeed slightly mushed leftovers - e.g. pasta & sauce, stew, casserole (I don't add salt, but do use garlic and herbs). That way I don't get fussed if he doesn't eat it . When DS is refusing the spoon I try putting a loaded spoon down on his highchair tray for him to pick up. If he want he can stick it in his mouth and eat it that way (but often the baby flick is employed [messy])

they're talking sense you know

its winding you up because you're investing so much of yourself in it .. unfortunately you getting uptight over his refusal behaviour reinforces it because to DS its funny that mummy is reacting in that way

feed him what you're having
cook it without salt
or cook him some veg batons etc
let him feed himself and just enjoy mealtimes if he doesn't eat big whoopsie-doo .. he will next time or the time after and the less it bothers you the more you'll just enjoy it

and YOU GET TO EAT TOO

DS2 is 9mths and for several months now, he has had exactly what we've been eating, I put food on a small plastic plate and he shovels it all in using his fingers. We never use salt in cooking anyway as we have a 2.3yr old.

If I remember rightly, when DS was 6 months old, I did lovingly poach some pear slices, allowed it to cool, pureed it until smooth etc...

Then came to my senses and just lobbed a few bits of pear onto his tray. Much less hassle

lol Maewest that was quite funny! Thanks everyone I feel a bit better now and might try just feeding off my plate and see how we go. This is my first baby and I guess I am trying to get everything perfect and exactly what the book says, I worry about getting the right balance of meat and vegies and doing it wrong. Thanks for the advice guys