I need some help/reassurance about a fussy baby.

[AbbyLou]

My dd is almost 8 months old and I have been attempting to wean her for the last 2 months. She loves yogurts and will usually happily eat fruit purees but she will not touch anything savoury. She screams, cries (with her mouth shut) and point blank refuses to eat it. I have tried everything to get her to eat savoury food - mixing fruit and veg, only offering sweet tasting veg, one spoon of one followed by one spoon of another but nothing has worked. She will eat small pieces of finger food but isn't really swallowing anything and it has to be so small she is not getting anywhere near enough to fill her up. She is still having 5 8oz bottles of formula a day and is demanding them ever closer together. I am worried she is going to start waking up in the night again soon. I am also worried that she will get too big drinking this much milk. WHat I need to know is - Am I worrying unnessecarily? Does anyone have any other advice? Should I just keep giving her the fruit she loves and leave the savoury or should I keep trying to give her it? I am at y wits end and I am starting to feel myself getting cross about it and I really don't want that.

I would stick to finger food, avoid the purees, drop the yogurts (unless you mean plain yogurt? The sweetened ones are really sugary!), and just relax.

There are lots of interesting finger food options (bread sticks and hummous dip?), and food really is just for tasting at this age, anyway.

My problem with finger food is that apart from breakfast she is with a childminder for the other meals as I work full time. What sorts of things do you think would be easy for me to provide for the cm to give her?

Have a look at Aitch's website for loads of ideas/recipes.

Don't worry about it too much. DS wouldn't touch much savoury stuff at first and then only limited amounts. We thought he hated cheese as we had tried dairylea, babybel etc and he wasn't having any of it. One day he asked for some parmesan his dad was eating and ate loads of it. Now he is a real cheese fiend. I think the stuff we were giving him was just too bland.

Will she take sweet savoury stuff like carrots, peas or beetroot?

And have you tied adding a tiny bit of spice to the fruit, like cardamon so she gets used to different tastes?

If its stressing you out is there someone else that could give her some savoury stuff for you? She will pick up on any strees you have really quickly and then refuse to eat juat for the reaction.

Thanks for that link LilRedWG, I've had a quick look and it looks very interesting. I bit the bullet tonight and dd has just enthusiastically 'eaten' a tea of shredded ham, grated cheese, tiny pieces of grape and bread sticks. It was kind of baby led but not entirely as she didn't feed herself everything. She held, bit and chewed the bread sticks and with the other foods I put them in her mouth for her in tiny pieces. She absolutely loved it, she had the cutest face I've ever seen and was making loads of happy noises. I think she was saying 'Thanks Mum, at last you understand me'!!

that's great, abbylou.

Hey AbbyLou! How's tricks? I'm very lazy about weaning and M still relies heavily on bm for most of her calories which suits us just fine. I plonk some food in front of her and she smears it on herself/the highchair/the cat and sometimes even eats it. Tonight, for example, a cheese omelette, a chopped up kiwi fruit, red and yellow peppers and half a pear started out on her highchair. She ate about half of it and played decorate the kitchen with the rest.

A happy, relaxed relationship with food is the key thing at this stage and it sounds like tonight was much easier for you. Well done R!

Happy new year to you btw. Hope to be up in your neck of the woods soon visiting my Grandma if you want to meet over coffee and cake.

Hello SOH, fancy seeing you here. I'd love to meet up if it's a weekend. Where does your Grandma live again?
M sounds like she's doing the old blw thing really well. I'm not quite sure about it all at the moment. It's going to be difficult with the childminder, I don't know what sorts of foods to provide for her to give R. She hasn't got time to be cooking anything so it would have to be things I had pre-prepared. Bits of fruit are the obvious thing I suppose but I feel she should be eating more than just fruit. I suppose I could send some bits of steamed veg but I don't know how they'd reheat and I can't imagine her eating them stone cold and a few hours old!!

Well I think dd has decided that now she knows what real food is there is no going back. She is now refusing all food from a spoon, including fruit puree. Today she has shredded ham, grated cheese, bread sticks, pieces of satsuma and slices of banana. I'm not sure how much is going down but it is so lovely to see her excited about food. I'm still worrying a bit about the cm, she goes back on Monday and I don't know what on earth to send her with.

M doesn't touch anything pureed and turned her nose up at MIL when she tried to spoon feed her at Christmas. MIL ill-advisedly tried to persevere, dd took the spoon from her and banged it insolently on the tray of the highchair. Purees are anathema it would seem.

I have a box of roasted veg in the fridge. I roast a lot of parsnip, carrot, sweet potato etc, bung it in the fridge and get some out for M when she wants it. It lasts a few days, reheats well, can be added to pastas, salads etc and is easy to put into a pot for when out and about. She also likes sandwiches, mini homemade pizzas, batons of veg and fruit, pasta (east to reheat) and thick soups (which she shovels in with her hands). These are all things I take to other people's houses and reheat where appropriate. Really, she eats what we eat within reason.

My Grandma lives on Netherfield Road near the service box thing on the corner of Lock Lane. Do you know where I mean? Not far from Trent Lock.

the cm can just bung a tub of steamed or roast veg into the micro for a few secs to take the edge off, if it's a problem. thing is, abby, you're kind of projecting your taste onto dd. she might be delighted with some chilled steamed veg straight from the fridge, it can be just the thing to soothe wee gums. none of this is boring to her yet. (wait til they're 2 and start telling you what they think... )