9 Month old won’t swallow food! Help!

[Magik01]

Hi all,

My DS is nearly 9 months old, but I’m having real difficultly witch getting any sort of solid food in him. He will eat fruit purée no problem, but any savoury purée he will dramatically gag and spit it straight back out.

This is the same for anything with any bits in, however remotely small they are. I’ve tried different porridge’s for different textures, home made purées that are a bit thicker (fruit and veg), jars/pouches.

He’s great with finger food, will pick most things up and put it in his mouth to get a taste but then spit it all back out. I don’t think he’s ever actually deployed anything other than purée.

Any recommendations? Like I said, he’s good with textures with finger foods and isn’t scared to try them, it’s the swallowing we are having trouble with!

Oops! Swallowed not deployed

Hi, my DD was like this, around the 9 month mark she actually started to eat some tiny bits of the solids and from then on she's been progressing all the time. She's just turned 1 and can eat a lot of 'propee' solid food now. She is still super fussy tho and has a terrible sweet tooth. It is sooo stressful I know when everyone elses babies seem to be eating everything and yours isn't. And I found meal times really stressful and they would often end up with her in tears which I know wasn't helping anything. I'm much more relaxed now, I do still worry as she's still very fussy and eats much less than the other babies I know, but I have seen progress so I guess she is just going at her own pace. The sweet food thing is a stressor for me though, I have had conflicting advice from different people and healthcare professionals about how to fix that so still not sure what to do about it really. I try to offer her a variety of food and she does tend to eat what we are eating but still I worry about her sugar intake. Also how much milk is your DC having? As we didn't drop from 4 bottles to 3 until 10 months when the HV did her development review and suggested that to help with eating and it did help. And then just at 12 months we went down to 2 bottles again on recommendation by the paediatrician to help her eat better and that also helped. So I wish I had dropped the milk intake a bit earlier and I think it would have helped.

Hi, thanks for the reply! It’s good to know that I’m not alone with this, but like you said all the other babies that I see are eating everything (smooth/chunky/savoury/sweet) and my DS is just all about the fruit purée!

He’s down to three bottles a day, I think we dropped to that about a month ago but I can’t pin point it exactly. He had roughly 8 ozs in the morning, 6ish ozs at 12pm then around 7-8 ozs before bedtime about 6pm.

He doesn’t have any teeth yet despite him being just shy of 9 months, I don’t know if that has anything to do with it? It’s so hard to know!

I think it might. DD got her first at 9 months, she now has 4 and another on the way. I know a few others whose babies have been slow weaners and also late teethers but obviously only anecdotal. I know the BLW people here all say there's no correlation but anecdotally that's not been my experience. And her improved eating is coinciding with her more teeth

It might be more a taste preference than a swallowing issue, as you are saying that he will eat sweet puree without issues, but spit any savoury puree.

Can I ask which of each you are giving. Is it homemade or a pouch? And which vegetable?
Try to do a pumpkin or sweet potato one. Cut in chunk into a pot, add just enough water to cover it and let simmer for 30 min. Put pieces in a blender and add enough liquid to bring it to the texture you wish to have. Maybe add a tiny bit of butter or extra virgin olive il to give smoothness .

Would you be able to not give sweet foods for a couple of days?
Have you tried a very runny risotto? Rice in a pan, and cook it by adding ladle after ladle of stock, towards the end, add some butter and teal parmesan cheese and an extra ladle of stock and give the soupy risotto .

Always consider the taste of what you are giving your toddler. Does it taste nice and would you eat it yourself. Very often the ready made vegetable purees taste disgusting and this is why they mix them with fruit or fruit juice to make them more palatable.
Happy to share more recipes if you think they might be with a try.

I think it was both for my DD. She was as you described, she would only sweet purees, but she would try to eat some savoury solids but not be able to chew and swallow them, they would fall out her mouth. I knew that was not due to taste because if she didn't like the taste, she would put it down after trying it, and not repeatedly put it in her mouth and chew on it. It just took her a while longer than most babies to figure out how to chew and swallow them. She also started to eat some savoury purees too but not with as much gusto but don't blame her on that front. Today she actually tried brocolli which we were dead happy about, pulled a right face though and immediately gave it to me :') but she did eat the homemade Quorn chicken korma with rice.

My 9 month old daughter is the same. In not sure if she just doesn't have much of an appetite but it's a nightmare getting her to eat. She refuses finger foods for
and most part, puts them in h at mouth and then spits it out. Such a worry x
F will

Hoping to get some tips from this post too.

I am really struggling and yesterday the HV told me to drop my 7.5 month old to 3 feeds to encourage her eating. It's so early for us so unsure if this advice is good? I'm happy to drop a little but she's not taking in much solids so reluctant to heavily reduce milk.

Which way are you giving the food? Before or after a feed? As I feel clueless!!!

Personally I wouldn't dropping the milk of a 7.5 month old. You can see from this thread that lots of babies don't start eating much solids til much later than 7.5 months and that's still totally normal. Food before one is for fun. My daughter only went down to three bottles at 10 months and then 2 bottles at 11 months. I think with hindsight we could have done the three bottles from around 9 months especially as that was when she started to be able to eat some small bits of solids. But I don't think I would do it earlier than that. But all babies are different. Whilst she was on four bottles we did bottle followed by breakfast, bottle around 12pm followed by lunch, bottle around 4pm, tea around 6pm and then bottle before bed. With three bottles it was bottle followed by breakfast, lunch around midday, bottle around 1.30/2pm, tea around 6pm, bottle before bed. Now with two bottles she has bottle followed by breakfast, lunch around midday, snack around 3/4pm, tea around 6pm and bottle before bed. She also only has 5oz bottle in the morning and between 5 and 6oz before bed so we dropped down the size of the bottles too.

@MeadowHay I agree that 7.5 seems so early. How long are you leaving between the bottle and the meal. The HV said that because we were doing "so much milk" DD isn't very interested (supposedly) thanks so much

At that age I think she usually had bottle around 7am and then breakfast around 8am but she hardly ate anything regardless. Lunch was immediately after her 12pm bottle. By the time she was about 8.5/9 months old though she was having her breakfast within about 30 minutes of her bottle as she started nursery then.

It is hard this kind of thing because even HCPs tell you different information. In my experience they tend to push reducing milk intake, but I'm not sure why as to my knowledge there isn't much good evidence bases for these things, and breastmilk or formula are excellent sources of nutrition. The HV told us at 10 months to reduce to 3 bottles and the paed we saw at 11 months told us to reduce to 2, but both times we were already thinking it was time to drop down anyway.

@LiliesAndChocolate I don’t think it’s a taste thing, the reason I think this is when I’ve given him sweet purées that are textures he has the same reaction and spits out the bits. Don’t get me wrong he isn’t keen on savoury foods but I think it’s more to do with the lumps. To be fair though since writing this he has gained his front two teeth and seems to be attempting to chew (still not successfully swallowing as far as I can see). I think it’s just something that will come with time. That’s what I’m hoping anyway! Would love some more recipes though if you have any! I’m not that good with cooking in general so any are welcome.

I’ve tried both home made and shop brought foods. To be honest he seems to be enjoying the shop brought more than what I make! does that make me a bad mum?!

@keylovesava I think 7.5 months is quite young to drop a feed. To be honest I can’t remember when I dropped my LO down to 3, it just happened naturally. A lot of people say don’t give food before milk as they get most of their nutrients from milk in the first year but I defiantly experimented with this. In the morning he has milk then about an hour later food; same for dinner time. But for tea I give him food about 4-4:30 then milk before bed. My HV said as long as babies are getting between 16 and 20 ounces of milk a day they are fine. You could even try mixing some in with their food like porridge.

I fed before milk but they eat very small amounts to start with.Sweet potato and swede worked as well as fruit purees and at the start I didn't worry too much about sweet or savory.
The only thing is that as soon as they get teeth you have to brush them.

@Magik01 the health visitor said she should be on 600ml a day which is about 3 7oz bottles a day I think. Which surely cannot be enough when weaning is definitely not going very well in the early stages .. ?!!;

One of the reasons we were slow to dropping milk is precisely because she ate so little, as you've said. I wanted her to have the calories and nutrition from the formula.

Hello! Hoping to get an update from this post please? We’re in the same boat and my son is 10.5 months old. He won’t eat a puree at all now, he will put finger foods in his mouth but will not eat them, if he bites any off he gags and vomits.
thank in advance xx

@Lsg95is your LO eating anything at all? I would often theink mine hadn’t eaten much but theor nappies told a different story…