Having trouble weaning

[Emmaeloiseee]

Hi,

my 9 month old used to pick up and try new foods from 6 months for about a month. Now he’s 9 months and since 7 months hasn’t wanted to try or pick up any new foods in BLW. In the morning he has things like fruit, toast, pancakes, eggs etc but he won’t eat any of them and looks at them all in disgust. He will eat foods such as breadsticks or rice cakes but never anything else in baby led weaning. Am I doing something wrong here? Im offering 2/3 foods each time on his tray? I’m worried he will never want to pick up and eat foods.

Have you tried them with mashed/puréed food?

What happens if you just offer one or two foods on his tray like a cheese sandwich and sine halved cherry tomatoes?

I have tried mashed foods but I didn’t want him to get stuck on them and never want finger foods, if I put anything new in front of him so a cheese sandwich or tomato’s he won’t touch them and eventually cry to get out of his highchair after about 15 minutes.

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Best wishes,
MNHQ

I have tried mashed foods but I didn’t want him to get stuck on them and never want finger foods, if I put anything new in front of him so a cheese sandwich or tomato’s he won’t touch them and eventually cry to get out of his highchair after about 15 minutes

Oh he won't get "stuck" by eating mashed food, he's a baby still.

I'd feed him the way wants to be fed. If he's happy being spoon fed for now, just go with that. You can always put finger foods on the side, like grated cheese, cooked green beans, a hard boiled egg quartered, cubes of buttered bread and let him ignore or throw away explore those.

And if he does protest, just ignore him and carry on with your meal. It's fine if they choose to not eat a meal, just assume he's not hungry

Is he hungry? What's the timing of you feeding him? Is he unwell or teething? All these factors can affect interest in solids

He doesn’t seem unwell for teething but here is his feeding schedule

7:30 awake and bottle 7oz
9am breakfast usually toast, fruit always untouched.
11:30 or 12 depending on when he wakes from his nap is dinner. ive been giving him mashed table food as he won’t touch finger foods again unless it’s baby snacks. He also has a yoghurt.
1pm another 7oz bottle
4:30 is tea again he won’t touch any steamed veg or chicken but will sometimes eat mashed food but will eat his yoghurt for pudding.
6pm another 7oz bottle

It's very likely it's a stage. Food before one is for fun not nutrition, so keep offering and try to ignore whether he actually has any. You decide on what foods he has and when they're offered, he decides what he actually eats.

He may be more likely to try new foods if you do it sooner after his bottle, when he's not actually hungry (for milk) so may be more receptive to playing with new textures and flavours.

Yea I’ll try that! He’s a nightmare for knowing what is a “baby snack” and what’s “table food” baby snacks like rice cakes and puffs are eaten up fast as well as breadsticks but green beans, carrots, banana anything like that gets the look of disgust and sometimes a poke.

Personally I'd stop all of the processed food like puffs or rice cakes. There's no need at that age and it seems as though he's holding out for those

Honestly mine didn't start actually properly eating until 11 months old. He's nearly 13 months now and has an appetite come from nowhere!
I was really concerned at all the meals he wouldn't touch or entertain and just ended up in the bin.
Give it time, it's frustrating.
Have you tried fruits like banana, mango etc?

The rice cakes etc are only offered about once/twice a week if I’m due a food shop or out and about when we have lunch! What I’m trying to say is anything that looks as if it’s a baby snack such as breadsticks he’s fine with. I used to think it was him not wanting to touch a certain texture of food however he’s fine with touching an orange slice or watermelon.

I have another child who’s a lot older and back then when weaning I never heard of the baby led weaning so he was weaned the puree stage way but he’s the fussiest eater ever now! I just don’t want my youngest turning out the same way and I’m starting to worry as my friends baby eats everything that’s put in front of her but my son doesn’t even touch the foods I make and it’s been 3 months! Just so disheartening especially when my friends baby is the same age

What kind of yogurt are you giving?
if it’s anything but plain yogurt it may be that he knows there is a nice sweet flavoured milky yogurt coming that he can fill up on.
DS is 10 months, he absolutely can and will pick up food and eat it if motivated eg can pick rasins out of a box or munch a cracker but he is reluctant to pick up veg. If he knew a nice yogurt was coming he would likely swerve the mashed veg and shout for yogurt instead! If only fruit and veg is on offer he will eat it eg are apple slices at baby group because that’s what there was.

We read the original baby-led weaning book by Gill Rapley before we started with DS (now 19 months): www.rapleyweaning.com/blwbook.php
I think that's where we got the information about essentially making sure the baby isn't hungry when trying new foods. We also followed the principle of eating with him, and mostly offering the same food we were having (I did a lot of cooking without salt for months!). He doesn't like everything we have, and we sometimes have to hide the bread if we want him to try something else first, but I think it helped that he was having the same thing everyone else was having. We notice though that even now, when he's fully weaned off milk and getting all his nutrition from solids, if he is very hungry he has no patience for trying new things. We used to have to give him a starter of something familiar and easy to eat to take the edge off first, and then he'd move on to trying other foods.

We’ve had some small progress where after some time he will pick up the food on his tray and sometimes try it however he will drop it on the floor straight afterwards? Is this normal too?

Yeah I think you have to try and not care whether they eat it or not and just keep offering (but in small amounts to cut down on waste - another advantage of offering the same food you're having yourself).

@Emmaeloiseee how did this turn out? In a similar boat with our 8month old and we don’t know what to do. Tried pretty much everything suggested above.

did your little one start to eat eventually x