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Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

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Original poster

This weaning thing is just throughly depressing me...

39 replies

theUrbanDryad · 21/08/2007 12:52

Today I managed to get half a rusk mashed up with EBM into him. Then I got daring and tried him with a bit of banana. Of course he gagged on it and brought the lot up. I just don't know what to do about this gagging. I know I need to persevere but for how long?

It just upsets me to see him gag and cry on food, and I'm so worried I'm going to traumatise him or something!! Sorry, no reply needed, just wanted to rant...

OP posts:

Egypt · 21/08/2007 14:13

oh sorry. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby-led_weaning#Signs_of_readiness

handlemecarefully · 21/08/2007 14:29

kiwi is only a problem if there is a history of allergies in the family

Original poster

theUrbanDryad · 21/08/2007 15:40

see my hv said to offer milk afterwards as he wouldn't eat food if he was full of milk!

OP posts:

Habbibu · 21/08/2007 16:20

Just to second Tranquila's point - take a deep breath and try to relax. You're clearly a lovely mother who wants the best for her little one, so I can't see that he'll come to any harm with you taking care of him. Sit him with you while you have your breakfast and lunch, chat to him about food, let him hold, sniff, lick, chuck about. If he tries some and gags or even vomits, try to be calm and cheerful - quick wipe up, cuddle and favourite toy as distraction. Let him see you enjoying food - he can enjoy the social side of meals without necessarily eating. A friend of mine whose baby was very similar had her first success with toast - possibly the unslippiness helped. He will be fine, and you'll look back on this as you're taking through the fridge one day, trying to find something else when he's going through a growth spurt and is insatiable...

Aitch · 21/08/2007 16:28

god no, the aim is not to get him eating per se, but to allow him to play and explore so definitely don't feed him when he's hungry, iykwim? i used to treat food and milk as two separate entities entirely... actually didn't i suggest this on the other thread? will stop repeating myself.

Original poster

theUrbanDryad · 21/08/2007 17:24

think i'm going to steer clear of the clinic for a little while, don't need hv's breathing down my neck!!

OP posts:

lulu25 · 21/08/2007 18:08

mine suddenly got it, and i mean went from eating almost nothing (and gagging, and projectile vomiting it all back out again) to three meals a day in the space of a week. he is about the same age as yours and this happened last week. i was starting to get desperate thinking exclusive bfing would never end.

so chill, i'm sure you will suddenly turn the corner. could yours be teething as well? i find mine loses interest in food again when his mouth is sore.

we are more or less blw and it really took off with soft things that have a bit of skin/crust you can grip: melon, cucumber, peach, plum, bread crusts.

Original poster

theUrbanDryad · 22/08/2007 10:31

well he's just sat staring sadly at me as i eat a piece of toast, so i think he wants to eat, he just can't, if that makes sense. i felt so mean!

OP posts:

trixymalixy · 22/08/2007 18:52

UD - Just came on to the weaning topice to post almost exactly the same thing.

I hate weaning - it is really getting me down. God knows why people are so desperate to start at 4 months, it's shit.

The only thing I can get DS to eat is pear puree and even that failed today. Was nearly in tears - doesn't help that I'm getting bugger all sleep.

Egypt · 23/08/2007 03:45

i hated weaning with dd1, and that was in the 'olden days' before blw was hot on the press. but this time, what i have learned to think (although i havent even started yet) is that weaning is all about letting them explore food. NOT about getting food IN them. it doesnt matter if they go weeks without actually eating anything, as long as they are still taking their main source of food - milk.

my spanish friend, whose son was born when they lived in germany, wasnt weaned until 9 months. in fact it is encouraged to wean as late as possible - up to a year! milk is the main source of food. we have a large window for them to learn. we shouldnt panic that they have to get it right right away. few will.

kiskidee · 23/08/2007 03:57

Oh, UrbanDryad, don't get upset. Weaning is built up too much as an occasion, imo. It was the most anticlimactic thing for me. I immediately recognised it was more like work.

Plus, dd stubbornly refused everything for months. I finally got her to take yoghurt, then sloppy weetabix and readybrek at 10 months. I was still bf exclusively till then as she just refused to take a spoon or BLW. She just broke up the toast, biscuits, veg whatever and scattered the bits around. Everything i tried went on the floor then in the bin.

Then when she got 'exploratory' with food she gagged on everything. At 12 months, she gagged on a piece of ham the size of a flea hidden in mashed potato. No exaggeration.
You should have seen the look on her dad's face till i fished it out of her mouth and showed him what the 'problem' was.

Finally, at 13 months, she literally grabbed a piece of paprika flavoured smoked salami off my plate and chomped on it like she had always done so. But don't let that fool you. She will still eat the weirdest things sometimes and utterly refuses the most mundane items.

captainahab · 24/08/2007 13:15

urban -- i've made some progress with my ds so thought I'd share in case it might work for you too.

I've started to give him a rice cake everytime he's in the pushchair. It takes him about 30 minutes to eat one (one of the little tiny ones) but I think it's helpful in that he gets lots of practice without the whole highchair/kitchen/food-on-the-floor ordeal. He's genuinely excited when I give it to him. They only have about 2 calories each so it's not going to fill him up or anything but I've noticed that he's become a bit less tentative about other foods and I'm more relaxed about the choking/gagging thing because I now have proof that he can swallow something other than purees.

Then when he's in the highchair I offer him the rice cake with other food spread on it (both sides!) so that he at least gets used to other flavors. He sucks away no matter what's on it. I also put bits of other foods on his tray just in case he's interested, and sometimes, but not always, he is. However interested still doesn't mean swallowing but I figure with time it will come...

BlueyDragon · 29/08/2007 10:04

This isn't schadenfreude (spelling?), but thank goodness there are other people having a tricky time of it. My 7.5 month old dd was doing OK - would eat toast, some puree, other finger foods. For the last week or so, nothing. Won't open her mouth for anything. She'll quite happily pick up finger foods and wave them around but won't put them in her mouth. She will also eat stuff off my plate/ cutlery but only a mouthful before refusing again. I don't think it helped that I did manage to give her some avocado at the weekend and she reacted badly to it, and she's had on/off tummy ache since. The final straw is my Mum/brother telling me what a marvellous eater my 1 year old neice is - agghhhh! I know she's a perfect baby, ok?

Anyway, I think I'm going to stop panicking, carry on offering her purees and finger foods, not make a drama of it and wait for her to be a bit more receptive. I keep telling myself she won't be on 4 bottles a day at 18 - well, not of Cow and Gate, anyway .

Habbibu · 30/08/2007 09:56

Bluey - is she teething? Mine goes off food a bit when teething. If it's any consolation, my perfect 2 year old niece totally went off food, and had to be coaxed into eating by watching her 8 month old cousin shovel a salmon sandwich down her gullet. Ha!

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