DD 9months and will not eat finger food

[angie0201]

hi basicaly DD will has no idea what to do with finger food i've tried toast veg sticks rice cakes bread sticks and she wont eat any of it tried eating in front of her to show her what to do but hasn't a clue any ideas?

keep offering, don't make a fuss about it and she'll come to it in her own time.

I can't believe she won't even pick it up and put it in her mouth investigatively, iyswim - does she pick up and chew toys etc?

yeah she does but as soon as it touches her mouth she looks disgusted and starts playing with it again. HV scared me a bit though as they reckon she wont talk properly if she doesn't start eating finger foods soon as shes not exercising her muscles. she does chew on teethers in fact everything does go in her mouth but as soon as its a bit of food she seems to hate the feel of it there

hmm
does she have really smooth purees the rest of the time?

if she's bf you can ignore the HV as that is great for developing jaw muscles

Yeah trying more lumps but not keen, not bf do you think its a problem so worried bout it

anyone else had similar probs help

Personally I would say that your HV is talking utter rubbish. FF babies use their muscles to drink too, and I bet your lo is babbling and pulling faces etc. I've never heard anybody say that lack of finger food means that a baby won't talk!!

no way beleive hv - they have scatred me enough times and been completely wrong

how many kids do you know who can't speak?

OK, I take that back - I just Googled it, as it seemed so ridiculous and it appears that chewing does affect speech development. Sorry, it just seemed so unlikely! I still wouldn't worry yet though - so many babies don't eat lumps or much in the way of finger foods until quite late and I'm sure that your lo will get the hang of it soon.

ds2 has only just started to manage finger food (over developed gag reflex issues) and he's over 1...ds1 didn't chew much until quite old and he WAS a late talker but when he started boy did he chat - he went from 2 words to complicated sentences in 2months. So even if it was the chewing that made him late talking he caught up just fine..
didn't stop me fretting about it at the time though

thanks everyone they do have a habit of scaring you hv and that doesn't really help anyone

mybabywakesupsinging Did your babe have lumpy food? because i can get dd to have lumps in food just not the ff