Lumps.....what should I do??

[pinkpeanut]

Hi everyone,

dd is 9 months and I'm at the end of my tether trying to give her different textures, but basically all she will eat is the smothest of purees.

I've tried thicker, mashed, baby pasta and 7 months jars, but after her spitting it out I open up a 4 months jar and she eats it.

She used to gag, but now she doesn't, she just spits out the lumps. She is being really stubborn.

Should I only offer her lumps now? And if she doesn't eat it it's tough? I'm hoping that after a few days she'll realise that it is all she is getting?

She does eat some finger foods, but mostly grapes,toast, biscotti's. She wont eat meat in chunks and I want to get some protein in her.

At the moment she is getting over bronchiolitis which started last week, and for a week now she has eaten nothing, and drunk only4 oz mik a day which I'm really really worried about. As she is spitting out everything, is this a good time to go cold turkey with the lumpy stuff??

Please help, I'm so worried, she's had nothing for a week.

I would keep with the puree but offer a lot more finger foods - as the finger food increase start to phase out the puree. There is no need for a lumpy mash stage if your lo is happy with finger foods.

p.s. anything can be finger food e.g. rice, mashed potato, yoghurt (if you can stand the mess!!)

She's still very little pinkpeanut. I think (not from experience, just my feelings on it) you would be best just relaxing about the whole thing. She won't be eating purees when she's 15. She'll grow to like lumps. Right now she needs time and she needs patience because she's getting over illness.

I agree to offer loads of finger foods - and I also agree that you should bin any preconceptions about what constitutes finger food! Offer her a selection of foods to pick up and play with each mealtime. No pressure to eat them - she can just throw them around if she likes. Nutrition is still from milk, food is for fun (Aitch ). She'll get used to different textures and lumps in her own time.

On the illness front, 4 oz milk a day is really not very much - by this do you mean she's bottle fed?

Have you tried lentils? they are a good source of protein, i boiled some up with some carrot and broccoli and blended it to smooth puree and DS really loves this.

I got DS to eat lumpier stuff by adding things like cous cous to his usual puree - had to start off with just a tiny amount and then gradually increased it - then once that was going down ok, started cooking spagetti and then scissoring it up really really small and adding a few bits of this in the puree, also started introducing mroe fingers foods and suddenly it all seemed to fall into place!! That is until about a week ago when he hit 9 months and now refuses to eat off the spoon!