Baby struggles with textures and small lumps

[Sunflower160]

I’m probably worrying over nothing, but DS is 7 months old and we started weaning at 5 months on the advice of the GP and health visitor due to slow weight gain from reflux. His reflux has massively improved since weaning and he loves his fruit and veg purées, porridge and yogurts. Over the last couple of weeks I have tried to introduce some more textures, such as weetabix and finely mashed up spag bol, but anything with a little bit of texture he just gags and throws up. I’ve tried one of the ella’s Kitchen 7+months pouches in case it was due to my dreadful cooking but he reacts the same. He is ok with thicker purées (such as thick porridge with puréed fruit) as long as it’s completely smooth. To be fair he gagged on everything to begin with and he’s fine on the smooth stuff now but how do we progress from here? It’s probably normal and he’s a bit young yet but I just wanted to check your thoughts? I’ve also tried him on some little bits of finger food like chomping on a stick of melon or cucumber but he spits it back out. He struggles to hold things to feed himself yet so I hold it for him.

Anyone? He’s 8 months this week and can still only handle completely smooth purées. Yesterday I tried a slightly lumpy one again and he gagged that much that he threw up.

Personally I'd probably skip the lumpier purées and just offer finger foods alongside the smooth purées. The more they're offered, the more his hand eye coordination and pincer grip will improve as he starts to handle them. We had really similar issues with DS who's nearly 9 months and his grip especially is so much better now with practice. We did start with lots of dry things to hold though which he seemed to find easier, like breadsticks or small pieces of toast.

Have you tried just leaving him with the finger food? He should be able to pick up things and hold them by now - my DD is eight months and can now use her finger and thumb to pick up pretty small pieces of food and get them into her mouth. I know the temptation to intervene is strong but I think you just need to let him struggle so he can learn how to pick the food up. Once he's able to control his intake for himself, you might find he starts to get used to the different textures, but he might just suck on things for a while or wave them around.

Milk should still be the bulk of his calories so I wouldn't feel bad about going 'backwards' a bit in terms of the amount of solids he gets as you try to move forwards. Try selections of different textures at each meal, so something harder like a breadstick, maybe some banana, sweet potato chips are a hit here too. It's fine for him to gag, don't make a fuss over it, just let him carry on at his pace. He needs to get practice at feeding himself.

I agree. I’d try things like cream cheese and hummus on toast, or eggy bread to get some calories in. Focus on things that can go soggy and disintegrate rather than break.
The classic to start is roast big fingers of carrot or sweet potato. Could you try that?

Then try some fun stuff like big fingers of melon etc.

Oh and also strips of omelette.

Just do the finger food route basically but choose carefully.