Baby hates all savoury foods - starting to worry

[Younghearts]

My 7mo happily will eat fruits, fruit purée, rusks, puffs etc but refuses everything savoury (puree or finger food) and it’s getting me down. I keep stressing over it.

If I offer him savoury puree, the next time he eats he refuses to try it because he thinks it will be savoury again.

I don’t know what to do! Is this normal?

Weaning can be frustrating can't it? Especially when they're showing a clear preference for one food type over another.

I'd stop any sweet things for now and any ultra processed, like the puffs and just offer savoury.

At 7 months it doesn't really matter if he eats or not as long as he's getting his milk feeds.

I'd try him with some savoury foods that are also a bit sweet, like a roast parsnip, sweet potato wedges or maybe this chicken recipe.

Try mixing them together in purees and then you can adjust the balance as he accepts them.
Use sweeter veggies like carrots, parsnips and sweet potato mixed in with meat and other veggies.
But keep offering everything to him.
Strips of meat, steamed veggies, pasta pieces etc
I think a child needs to try something about 20 times before they will accept them.

Have you tried skipping the purées and just giving him some proper food, it’s much more interesting for them to explore with proper textures and shapes and things to hold, they have more control. Look up baby led weaning. Neither of my kids ever had a purée.

But also - at 7 months you’ve barely started! A big bit of this stage of weaning is learning and exploring, how they are at 7 months tells you nothing of how they’ll eat their whole lives.

Are they breastfed? It's very normal for breastfed babies to prefer sweeter foods as breastmilk is slightly sweet. I'd try sweeter vegetables or finger foods. It's very early yet though.

I think that the standard is that you have to try specific foods with them for at least 10 times before they will accept them.
Mixing different veg and fruit is a good idea. Also check what sort of expression is on your face when you feed them. I remember watching my DSis feed my niece yoghurt mixed with avocado, my niece loved it but DSis was careful to make mmm noises and use enthusiastic facial expressions.

I used to boil up chicken , veg with a pinch of curry powder before liquidising it fir DS at 10mnths. He loved it but so did DH, there was never any left. I suspect it was one spoon for DS and one spoon for DH.

dont offer any sweet or ultra processed food, only savoury food and nothing else

Stop the rusks and puffs. Rusks are high in sugar and the puffs are often ultra processed.

Try a mixture of sweet and savoury. Babies don't know what combinations are weird so you can often say a carrot and apple combination and they wouldn't be the wiser.

Have you considered changing to finger foods? The idea might be scary but gumming some toast or meat would be good practice of his mouth muscles and finger coordination. Solids have less calories than milk and having strong mouth and tongue muscles is good for speech and swallowing chunkier food.

I fussed endlessly with DS1's weaning, worrying as you are about this and that.

We didn't wean DS2 at all, he just reached over to my plate and took a floret of broccoli one evening and that was that! We simply gave him a bit of whatever we were eating.

Yep. This is the approach I'd recommend. Just make sure you don't use added salt when cooking and let baby have whatever you're having provided you eat healthily and not lots of processed food.

Stop fruits etc and just offer savoury

Mix a fruit purée pouch in with the savoury and then reduce the ratio of fruit. Also, try plain food, like natural yoghurt, and then add a hint of savoury

Don’t iffer sweet foods. She’ll sulk for a but but then start exploring the savoury items.

Try some slices of cucumber, toasted bread, that kind of thing.

Ps rhe fruir puree piuches are ao bad for their teeth when they come theough. Taste it, it’s basically jam.

My, now 19 yo strapping, DS was exactly the same. When I first started weaning him he would refuse pureed vegetables, even the sweet ones like carrot and parsnip. He got slightly more flexible with finger foods. Eats anything now but still has a sweet tooth.

Stop the rusks and puffs. Rusks are high in sugar and the puffs are often ultra processed

Agree with this. Even the low sugar rusks are a third sugar.

At 7 months food is still just for fun (unless you get a kid like my youngest who just ate constantly and clearly needed it)

We always offered whole food that was naturally soft or mushy roasted veg batons, banana, avocado, plain yoghurt on the high chair tray to let them play with and taste.

Babies have a natural sweet tooth so veg will seem bland to them after fruits and rusks. I agree with others- try babe on just veg for a while and see

Thanks everyone - baby has been doing better with savoury finger foods x

That's such good news

Glad to know your baby is doing better now. My baby was the same and now is doing better at 8 months. He only used to like fruits. Best thing to do if anyone else is worried is to keep offering savoury foods, finger foods, mashed, whatever. Keep going even once a day or once a few days and they will like it after a while