Hi All,
First time posting, but hoping for some helpful tips. I've been trying to wean my DD since just before she was 6 months old. It all started off fairly well, she was accepting most new foods we tried with her and the quantities were increasing, until a bad cold hit and it all came to a holt just before she turned 7 months. It's been really difficult ever since.
I'm lucky most days if she has a couple of bites of anything, whether it be on a spoon or she feeds herself. She was ok with breakfast (normally porridge with some fruit purée mixed in and some toast offered too), but she is now largely refusing that too. Her sleep patterns have changed as she is starting to wake less at night so I'm wondering if she's filling up more on milk when she wakes. She's EBF so I don't know what quantity of milk she is having.
I do a feed as soon as she wakes up then offer breakfast an hour or so later. Any time past this and she's too tired and ready for her first nap. I then feed again when she wakes and then offer lunch after couple of hours which she sometimes takes a couple of mouthfuls unless I'm trying something other than chicken and veg or just veg, in which case she clamps shut. We have a similar routine in the afternoon too and same happens at tea time.
Finger food generally gets played with and thrown, unless it's an Ellas kitchen puff/melty stick which she devours without blinking. Sometimes with bread she shoves too much in and then gags until she's sick.
I've also tried giving her her own spoon to hold but it just gets lobbed too. I've been getting frustrated as it takes so much time getting everything prepared to just throw away, but trying to make it fun and happy for her without showing how much it's getting to me. However her weight gain has also slowed almost to a holt - 2oz in 4 weeks so she's dropped under the 9th centile where she has been hovering for a while so I'm worried she's not getting enough nutrition.
I'm trying to persevere, but I'm finding it really hard going. I don't want to feed the same thing all the time, but she's just not having anything else and I'm not really sure what to try next that's not just putting even more work onto it when I already have a freezer full of prepared food that she won't eat.
Any advice would be useful and also if anyone else has been through something similar, a bit a reassurance would be good. I know babies don't starve themselves and you don't see a teenager still eating only purées, but I'm just concerned about it potentially affecting her health if she doesn't start eating soon, especially as I'm going back to work in 2 months and she doesn't take a bottle either.