9 month old weaning advice?

[NeedAHoliday123]

My LO is just over 9 months and I started weaning him at 6 months. Started with purées like carrot, brocolli etc, and eventually started to introduce more variety and finger foods.

I have been trying to make my own meals for him (mostly from the what mummy makes book) but he just doesn't seem to eat anything I make! Has anyone else had this problem?

I have mostly done pouches/jars as I know he will eat a decent amount with them compared to what I make.

Example day is like this:
8am bottle 8oz
9am breakfast - porridge, fruit/yoghurt pouch, toast
11.30am bottle 8oz
1pm lunch - half an ellas kitchen pouch/jar eg cottage pie, spag Bol
4pm bottle 8oz
7pm bottle 8oz and bed

I find if I give him a pouch he will easily do half sometimes a whole one. If I do finger food (e.g. pasta/toast/etc) he will barely eat anything - probably like 1/4 of a finger of toast if that! He just spends his time playing with it instead.

Should I be worried? Any tips on what to do? I haven't dropped the milk as need to make sure he doesn't lose weight. He is on track with his weight at the moment where he should be. Just feel like he should be eating more food at a time (like more toast/pasta etc)

When he's 10 months he will only need 400 mls of formula a day but from your schedule, it looks as though it will be pretty easy to drop bottles.

I'd start with the 11.30 bottle and offer him a snack. Things like smooth but butter on toast or spread on slices of apple, these cheese straws and some halved cherry tomatoes, some fruit and a cup of milk, a hard boiled egg quartered, a couple of blueberry pancakes (these freeze well).

Once you've dropped this bottle, I'd leave it a couple of weeks to get him used to having a snack instead and then drop the 4pm bottle and try a snack a little earlier.

It can be an anxious time abs it's quite easy to focus on how much they eat in one sitting but if he refuses a meal, it's absolutely fine. Babies will eat more some days than others and if he refuses something, it's safe to assume that he's not hungry.

He also needs to feel hungry sometimes before food which he won't get if he's full of formula all of the time

Are you offering any finger foods alongside the pouches? So say if you offer a pouch or jar do you give him some steamed broccoli to play with eat?

How have you got on this week @NeedAHoliday123?

Agree he's having way too much milk to be interested in eating much of his own accord.

As upthread drop a bottle, he'll still be more than enough. Once he gets to 3 meals a day you'll probably get down to just morning and night. Might take a couple of days for his appetite to even up once you drop a bottle but once it does, he'll take in the equivalent if not way more amount of calories in food in no time. You can always add a load of cream, butter and cheese wherever you feel you can.

You could give lunch at 11.45ish followed by milk in a cup if you're still reluctant to drop milk.

Stop the pouches. He might not eat much at first, but can explore textures and tastes. The pouches are all sweet mush, so there is not much variety. Save them for when you are out and about, or need to get some food into a tired kid before sleep. My youngest was constantly ill at about that age and stopped eating everything but yoghurt. The doctor said it was fine as he was still getting nutrition from milk.