7 month old weaning trouble

[vivian87]

Been offering solids to my baby since 6 months - been doing a combination of home-cooked and the occasional pouches but trying to avoid using them if possible. She’s still having 5 bottles of milk (7oz in the morning & night and 4oz during the day)

She’s been feeding really well most days but then some days just refuses food altogether...

She ate every mouthful of home-cooked food at the weekend and now today she’s point blank refused every bit of food we’ve offered and she keeps making these raspberry noises at us every time we put the spoon near her mouth - don’t know if it’s teething or what??

I know she prefers food from a pouch because she eats them so quickly and seems to enjoy them more than home cooked food. She could eat Ellas puffs all day every day but any finger foods that are home cooked e.g cooked soft carrot or broccoli/cheese tots she would just throw on the floor and would make no effort to put to her mouth.

Any suggestions would be so appreciated

Is she maybe not ready?

Sorry....just saw that she’d eat crisps all day.
I would just keep offering a mixture of finger foods (they don’t need to be soft btw) and try the BLW route.

Stop on the pouches and puffs. Have you tasted them? They're unnaturally sweet. Of course babies wolf them down.

I would err towards homemade. Don't stress on quantities she'll be getting everything she really needs from her formula.

I was told until ds was a year not to stress about him eating loads, apparently 6 months to a year is more a discovery period.
Just keep offering, but don't get too worried if she's refusing it.

She sounds totally normal. She's getting enough nutrition from milk at the moment so it's no big deal if she has a day when she's less interested in solids. I have an 8 month old DS. Some days he's like a bottomless pit, other days, he's not fussed about food at all. He's just like me! Babies are good at regulating their own appetite.

Ella's puffs are Doritos for babies, of course she will eat them all day and develop a preference for artificial food.
(=> ingredients for Ella's puff Organic maize flour 72%
Organic sunflower oil 15%
=> Ingredients for Doritos
Corn (Maize), Vegetable Oils
Actually, you might have less oil (10%) in Doritos than puffs!!)

The same with pouches, they offer crazy combinations that do not exist in real life. Who cooks spinach with blueberries or broccoli's with apples?
Teach her to like fruit as it is and not apple sauce. The taste of a fresh apple is very different of the taste of an apple with has been left simmering for 30 mins and blended.

Weaning is not only about teaching them to eat solid. You have the unique opportunity to teach about taste. If what she eats is artificial in combination or ultra processed like the puffs she will refuse more and more normal taste.

Try emptying the pouch in a bowl and offer it to her, chances are she won't accept to taste it.
Food is an all senses experience. You smell it when you cook, you hear the cutlery and banging of pots, you see it and of course touch it and eat it.
In a pouch, you just squeeze a plastic bag of highly processed, high temperature food, that might retain some of the vitamins, but most phytonutrient are gone.

So stop the ultra-processed baby food

Don’t worry about how much food she is eating, milk is her main nutrition. Avoid pouches and puffs, they are great for the odd meal when out somewhere but not ideal as a regular thing because you want her eating family meals, you may as well do that from the start.
Every time you sit for a meal pop her in her high chair and give her food on her tray, she might well throw it on the floor but she will eventually start to eat it!

Thank you for all the replies! Will absolutely get rid of the puffs - my husband has bought them just to try and she became obsessed with them! Will see how the baby led weaning will go - just have to persevere and be patient I guess.

Spoon is not the evil, far from it. You can eat yummy soups, soupy risottos, blended roasted pumpkin, polenta, lentil stew.....
A lot of wet food are hard to grasp with your finger, I wouldn't want to eat cooked spinach with my hands.

Don't go for one label BLW vs Classic. Just wean her, sometimes she eat herself, others she has a spoon. You can do both.
Experiment with different way of cooking.
Try to braise your veggies instead of steam/boil them. Cook them in 1 or 2 cm of water and blend them with that water, you can cook a small potato and a small zucchini together and them make mashed potatoes-zucchini with a tiny bit of butter and grated parmiggiano .
Don't hesitate to add onions and fresh herbs to your cooking.
My paediatrician insisted I was never to give my kids something I wouldn't eat myself.