Is it normal for a 7 month old to not want to eat?

[IyaSol]

I've been trying to get my son started on solids for over a month, and initially it was going well but some time over the last couple of weeks, it's been a real struggle to get him to eat anything. He still takes his milk feeds as normal, but spooning solids into his mouth has not gone well. He seems to take better to rusks, but that's until he bites off a big chunk by accident and subsequently wants nothing to do with it.
I'd really just like to know if anyone else has dealt with a similar thing with their babies, how long did it last and how did you resolve it?

Yes it can be very slow going for some. My son didn't really start eating consistently till he was about 1. You have to keep going through the motions though.

When my son is teething (which feels like all the time) he always goes off his food and just wanted milk when he was that age

From your post I'm not sure if you're feeding him or he's feeding himself with the spoon?

My now 8mo was the same for a while. She can't do spoons herself and if we give her a loaded spoon she inevitably puts the wrong end in her mouth. She had lost interest so we started giving her more finger food again and she's happy to take from a spoon when she's also feeding herself something. She really likes a finger of celery dipped in mash/puree and will quite easily eat half her meal this way.

My ds was like this, which was very different from my dd who was amazing at eating.
He would put food in his mouth and chew it a bit and spit it out. He would swallow spoon fed food but wasn't up for solids at all.
By 9 months he was eating normally.