6 month old weaning issues - advice and help needed please!

[RRoseR]

So for a quick background my 6m old has CMPA and silent reflux ( although she’s not had a flare up in months and we’ve been weaning down her medicine dosage ).

We started weaning with pouches as I’m absolutely terrified of her choking - I think this comes from when we had to give her medicine when she was 4 weeks old and she would just choke because it was so thick and it really used to scare me!

She was loving it! She was having 3 pouches a day ( she’s always been a chunky monkey ) and actually started sleeping for 6 hours solid at night before a wake up!

But now...

She has stopped taking pouches that she used to love ( vegetable based ones mainly ) gags on anything that isn’t a pouch with at least one fruit in I,e she’ll have parsnip carrot and apple but not just carrot on it’s own like she used too! And if I’m lucky will only have 1.5 pouch a day! Now she’s taking 3 bottles in the night ( one at bed time 2 through the night ) and is up multiple times and I’m exhausted!

I’ve tried giving porridge and different textured foods multiple times and she takes one spoon, gags and then clamps her mouth shut! I’ve tried a chicken casserole pouch about 10 times now and still the same!

I’m starting to think maybe baby led weaning would be better as she loves the melty puffs, eating fruit through the mesh net holder thing and loves a munch on a rusk!

Can anyone offer any good weaning books and tips please and if this has happened to anyone else? And how to get over the fear of choking!

Thank you so much

All I'll say is the chocking thing, whilst understandably a concern, isn't worth getting overly worried about. They have a reflex which means with the right foods (obvs not whole grapes and such) they may have a little gag noise but their reflex stops them chocking, they just bring it back up a bit. Not sure I'm explaining that right but you'll realise after the odd choking type noise that it's not scary it's just them bringing it back up.

In terms of BLW food you don't have to be all Earth mum and making corn fritters and shit like that. Toast, boiled egg (sliced), cooked carrot batons, cucumber, rice cakes. Really easy stuff at first to get them used to the chewing and swallowing and then can move on to other stuff if you like.

Joe wickes is annoying AF but he does make some easy and good BLW things so worth following him on Instagram

Ah the joys of weaning.

I'm sure you've read up on this but gagging is a normal part of the process. It doesn't make it any easier for you though!

Be careful not to rely too much on the punches or your baby may prefer them to homecooked food, then it gets tricky for when they're a toddler and have more consciousness of what they're eating. I speak from experience!

Persevere with the homemade stuff and remember at 6 months she's still relying on milk for nutrients - anything she has now is a bonus.

Melty puffs are not very different from Doritos. They are both made with corn flour and oil, and then one has a nutrient-void vegetable powder on top, the other salt and flavouring.
Rusk are even worse, white flour, sugar, palm oil, and several additives

Both are ultra-processed food which will produce a sweet taste, couple that with sucking on fruit juice in a net and no wonder she refuses non-sweet tasting food.

To fix this, stop giving ultra-processed baby food, and think soups to combine vegetables without risk of chocking, depending on how much water you add. A carrot-pumpkin which will be sweet but not artificial sweet.

BLW is not finger vs spoon. It is a child self-regulating food intake, but it has been captured by food industry who is offering "finger" food but this what never the philosophy behind it.

Think about good tasting food, make a rich broth and then cook baby pasta in it, to which you can add some real greed parmigiana and a tiny bit of butter.

As PP has said, pouches do not taste like real food, because of the high pressure, high heat process they go through, and since when you start giving first foods you are building food preference, you are shaping it towards industrial food. Even vegetables -based pouches have usually a lot of sweetcorn (sweet)
Another thing you need to understand, is that food needs to be wet so that it slides easily until baby learns to chew and produce saliva.

It is not too late, you just started. it will take some time in the kitchen to cook soups, or to prepare homemade food. But if you keep offering industrial baby food, it will never get better/

At 6 months she will still be getting most nutrition from milk, so just offer her stuff and let her play. Even if none goes in you are introducing different ideas. The psychology part is down to you, not her, so just try and be brave and don't take your eye off her. I would totally ditch the pouches, so she can't hold out for them.

I found doing an online first aid class helped eased my choking anxiety. There’s a group on Facebook called BNB Online Baby Classes that runs a (free) one once a month.

I also followed SR Nutrition on Instagram - she’s a child nutritionist who worked in the nhs and has two children herself - one she is weaning at the moment so she shared what she was doing with her and I kind of copied that for a bit. She does lots of Q&As - there’s one in her Instagram page with a first aid person so that’s good to watch on the gagging/ choking thing too. She has a book out but we’re already well on our way so haven’t bought it but there’s so much on her blog and Instagram, also a support group on Facebook where parents share help and support and she’s pretty active on there too.

I feel like I bang on about her a lot I promise I’m not an employee I just was very anxious about weaning and really rate her advice as it massively helped us.

Even if you decide to continue with pouches I’d start giving some finger food too - very soft steamed veg, fingers of avocado, banana, overcooked pasta, scrambled egg - just put it on her tray and let her play with it. Make sure you’re eating similar things and really model how you’re doing it, over exaggerating chewing etc to show how it’s done.