how can i get my boy to eat lumpy food

[mummyjd]

hya, i have a 7mth old boy i have been feeding him puree heinz jar food since he was 17weeks, he has a 9oz bottle at 7am puree porridge at 9am solids at 11.45am then another bottle at 2.30pm then solids again at 5pm then another bottle at 7pm. The health visitors said he is waking up in the night because hes still hungry and to give him a choice of our food lumpy....the only thing is he will not take it he keeps gipping and spitting it out, I have tried ready brek, spaggetti, mashed potato, even 7mth heinz jar food but he will not take anything but puree. could someone please give me some ideas on how to get him to eat it as im not seeing health visitors till next week..

a desperate mummyjd

Have you tried finger foods and doing baby-led weaning, mummyjd?

Having said that, not having lumpy food/enough food is about the least credible reason for waking in the night...

iv just bought some finger foods so i will give them a try..he took to puree food at 17 weeks fantastic he just seems to like puree food he can just swollow with no effort..not sure on the baby-led weaning tho..

What a load of rubbish from the HV, food has the same amount of calories whether you puree it or serve it whole! I don't have any advice I'm afraid, other than tiktok's finger food idea, as we had the same with DD. She ate a lot of baby jars and, whilst there's obviously nothing wrong with them per se, they are so finely pureed that they don't resemble 'real' food and I think it can sometimes get them to struggle accepting lumps. DD wouldn't eat anything with lumps in until an embarrasingly old age So with DS (6.5 months) I'm not pureeing anything, just mashing a bit with a fork. If it were me I might think about going cold turkey on the pureeing in the hopes that he might soon learn that food has lumps and that if he wants to eat then he's going to have to deal with them? Actually, I seem to recall with DD that she ate lumps from home-cooked food but not from jars. The texture of mashed home-cooked food with lumps is different to the lumpy jars, as the jars are like a puree with lumps as opposed to home-cooked food being generally a 'rougher' texture so the lumps aren't as noticeable?

many thanks for your advise tinkjon i will keep trying...

There are more calories in formula than purees so if you think your baby's hungry it would make more sense to give a 4th bottle in the day, stop the purees and let her practice feeding herself with ordinary food. see www.babyledweaning.com for ideas.

It's not that lumpy food has more calories - it's that home cooked food is in the long run the best way to go - the HV didn't say lumpy baby jars did she?

Home cooked finger foods are right for this age and ds will prob do better on these than hidden lumps floating in pureed baby jars.

Some children have a very sensitive gag reflex so it's not necessarily anything you're doing - he just needs de-sensitisation and lots of experience of home cooking!

Good luck