blw - what do you do if your nearly 8 mth old just isn't interested?

[Piccalilli2]

Dd2 will be 8 months next week. She's breastfed and we started weaning at about 25 weeks. We're doing blw because she hates being spoonfed and will either clamp her lips shut and turn her head away or spit everything back out. However, she's really not eating anything with any regularity. It's not just that she isn't swallowing that much - I know food's for fun til they're one and all that, but 5 days out of 7 she isn't even picking the food up that I offer her and putting it anywhere near her face. Is this OK? All the blw stuff I've read (including Aitch's frankly marvellous blog) suggests she should be happily stuffing her face by now, if not actually swallowing a vast amount. No-one else I know on rl is doing blw and all the other babies are swallowing vast quantities of puree so I'm suffering a huge crisis of confidence. Help!!

Have you tried sitting at the dinning table with her and letting her have food off your plate? my ds went through a stage where he would only eat things if I was or if my brother was (he looks up to his uncle).

Yes, she just throws it on the floor then - she really needs time to manipulate it off the highchair tray. I do try to eat with her but it's not always possible.

yes, that's ok! some babies just don't want to eat much,
blw is all about them learning what to do with food, the taste and the texture and what they need to do with it. and of course, once they figure out how to eat it then they are able to regulate their own appetite.

it's not abnormal behaviour by any stretch of the imagination, she's just doing things in her own time

Thanks thisisyesterday - I am trying to be non-stressy about it but everyone else's children seem to be eating (much like everyone else's children seem to be sleeping but that's another much-documented story). She does eat sometimes, just not very often.

aww, i know it's hard isn't it? I am one of the ones with children who couldn't get enough food from the moment we started, but I do have a couple of friends whose 9/10 months old are really only just beginning to show an interest.

I guess it's like anything else really, developmentally they vary so much, just that usually babies are spoon-fed so you're overriding that natural progression, iyswim? you don't get to see them learn it at their own pace.
and this make a big difference. hard not to compare, but try not to, esp with babies who aren't BLW!

Hi Picalili

My litlun doing exactly the same, and at the same age. I tried jars and BLW, and neither seemed to go down well. All I do now is give her some of my food off my plate (so she knows she is not being fobhbed off with an alternative) and if she doesnt eat it, just make sure she gets more boob in the day.

I was worrying about it, but then decided as long as she is having boob she will be fine. And if she was really starving, then she would bloody eat the thing!!!

Take care
Shelly

ds just clicked this week and got into eating he will be 9 months first of jan, cant remember exact timing but dd went from playing to eating it all overnight also