10 month old hardly eats a thing?

[ColdMama]

I’m starting to introduce more ‘finger food’ to my 10 month old but he just barely eats a thing? Is this normal?

If I offer a pouch or jar he will eat half easily.

But if I offer other food he will bring it to his mouth and nibble a couple of bits, but the rest he will play with/throw on the floor. So he literally has a couple of bites and that’s it! He does only have 2 teeth so far.

E.g. today he had crumpet for breakfast, cheese on toast and cucumber on the side for lunch and pizza (homemade with a pastry base, tomato purée and cheese) for tea (with banana as well).

But he has had a couple of tiny bites from each meal so overall basically nothing! He will eat melty puffs/rice cakes fine.

Is this normal? When can I expect him to eat more? Feel like I’m wasting so much food!

Sounds normal. His main nutrition at this age is still milk. Until age 1 food is for play and exploration. I used baby led weaning for my four children which has the advantage of not worrying about how many ice cubes of puree etc they have consumed.
He can have anything you are eating (obviously nothing with high salt/very unhealthy) so you don't have to cook for him separately/feel like you are wasting food. After a lot of play and mushing it up he will start to eat more.

A friend was shocked when my 14month old could eat a bowl of tomato soup by herself and she was still spoon feeding her nearly 2 1/2 year old so as not to make a mess. The mess has to happen at some point!

This gives a quick summary:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/what-baby-led-weaning

Agree that it's all still a bit new but just wondering how much milk he's having as that can affect appetite.

@PanicBuyingSprouts he has 4 bottles a day offered at 240ml each but usually does about 700ml a day total as never really finishes a bottle.

I tried cutting to 3 bottles a day but then he started waking in the night again!

I'd start by cutting the first one, so take him straight to breakfast abs give him a cup of milk with his breakfast instead of a bottle so that he's not really dropping too much milk at once.

Between 10 and 12 months he only needs 400 ml of formula and that goes down to 300 ml of full fat cows milk once he's 1 so really, he needs to gradually learn to eat a bit more and drink a bit less milk.

Once you've given him a couple of weeks without the first bottle and breakfast with a cup of milk instead, you can look at dropping another bottle.

This should encourage him to eat a bit more. Have you tried giving him mashed food as well as his finger food? So things like fish pie with steamed broccoli and green beans as finger foods? How does he eat then?

Once he has less than 570 ml (20 floz) you'll need to introduce a daily vitamin.

I'm no expert and I have 8 month old.

I'm guessing you do 7,11,3,7 bottles?
This is my sort of routine it May not work for everyone. I changed everything recently as I always gave bottle first but found she never ate a lot and snacked, and always fussy with it. She eats more solids this way and still has her milk and she never used to finish her bottles either;

730am porridge (my kid won't eat nothing else for breakfast 😂) 40mls cows milk approx
815am - snack - quarter toast, biscuit thing. Whatever I give her. Some of my breakfast etc
9am bottle - 6oz to 8oz
930am - offer remaining bottle. Nap.

1130am - snack.
1230pm - lunch, sandwich, toast, egg etc
To be honest she can be munching from 1130am until 1pm 😂
2pm - milk 6 to 8oz
230pm - offer the remaining and nap.

4/430pm - I offer a small top up feed and normally takes 100mls plus snack. I offer this as we started having night waking and seems to have died down since I reoffered another bottle here. Fingers crossed 🤞 I haven't jinxed.

530pm - dinner.

630pm snack some of my dinner 🤦🏼‍♀️🙄

730/745pm - milk 6 to 8oz
8pm offer remaining.

I know every baby is different, but I would consider dropping to 3 feeds, and offering more food. Try not making a fuss. When my LO fusses, I start eating my food and she will literally shout at me for some of my plate.

If LO is waking in night, I would do a small top up feed to get them through to morning, I do that with my LO. May be rough with not a whole feed but may encourage lo to eat more. I do my LO 150ml over night and sees her through till morning. She doesn't usually drinks more then 120mls at night.

Have you tried things like cheese? Boiled egg? Crackers? Yoghurt? Custard? Dairylea? Rice pudding? Pasta bake? Potaote croquettes? Rather then making a huge meal. Make it simple?