My 9 month refuses to eat

[hadababy]

Hi,

My DD is nearly 9 months old and hasn't taken to food at all. We initially started on purees but they were completely rejected, so we moved on to baby led weaning, which wasn't a huge success either! Then we went on holiday and her eating times were different to ours, so we actually resorted to buying jars of foods. Much to my disgust she started to eat with gusto!! So, when we came home I made home made purees and combined this with finger foods and we were doing reasonably OK - some days she would eat nothing, other days she would do quite well (when I say "well" - it's probably about 5 teaspoons).

Anyway, she got sick a couple of weeks ago and went off food completely, so I increased the milk feeds. (She had reduced from 5 breastfeeds per day to 3 and was sleeping through the night from 7pm to 7am). Now that she's better though we've gone back to 3 bf's but she's not really eating at all - the only thing she will tolerate is yoghurt, rice cakes and toast! So she is now waking up in the middle of the night and will not settle without a feed!

Sorry for such a long post...but, basically, I have 2 questions! Firstly, should I reintroduce 1 or 2 breastfeeds during the day? She gets a feed at 7am, 2.30pm and about 6.30pm (the ones we cut out were 11.30am and 10.30pm). If so, which feed should I reintroduce (if not both)?

And should I be worrying about the lack of interest in solids? Is there any way I can get her to eat more? We try a variety of foods at each meal but she rarely does anything more than play with the food, squish it in her hand and throw it on the floor.

I'm going back to work in about 6 weeks too and had a view of her being on 2 breastfeeds a day, but now I'm worried she will need more and I'm not good at expressing and she has no interest in formula either from a bottle or a beaker.

Help!! Thanks in advance!

I know where you are coming from, and being the mother of a fussy 14 month old, probably not the best to offer advice... but you are not alone!

I personally took all but moring and evening milk feeds off my DS, I think he was filling up on milk so didn't have much interest in food.

Also, eating with others has a huge impact. If you can engineer for DD to eat with other babies it's amazing. My DS would shake his head, refuse, then look at another baby eating, and you could see the 'Oh OK then' come over him. If that's not possible, try for you and your other half to eat together. My DS will do whatever Daddy does...

Finally my DS also loved jars. I think it's the security of knowing what is comming rather than something random from a bowl.

Apparently they grow out of this faddiness in thier teens....

Hi there, my DS was difficult to get interested in solids. He's 19 mo now and still has off days (or weeks). Weaning was something I was looking forward to and I found it so stressful!!

Like you I started on purees (or bloody purees as I now call them) and tried BLW - found this pretty demoralising as I would look at the blogs with tales of apples and chicken strips scoffed, but this was not going to happen with my son!

I started back at work when he was 11 mo and he wasn't taking a bottle and was still feeding several times a day (we weren't on a schedule but it was probably 4 times a day with some at night as well). He was fine, despite my concern. After a few weeks he started coming round to the idea of eating with the other babies (up to then he was just snacking on rusks and Organix puffs etc). Agree that eating with friends helps.

I also found it useful to read up on Kellymom website which showed how food/milk intake varies as they get older and not to worry if he was not eating loads of solids.

Now he has days when he will eat loads and days when he barely eats anything. He still feeds in the night, and won't touch fruit and will eat much better at nursery than for me.

Its hard to do but you need to go with the flow and not get stressed about it. Hope this helps.

haha! Only 12 years and 3 months to go then...

I cut back on 2 of the feeds so that she would eat more solids but it doesn't seem to have worked and I'm exhausted from being woken at 3am every night!!

I have noticed that when there are other babies eating around her she will do a bit better but it's a rare enough occurrence! It is funny though - the first time she sat up was in the company of a 9 month old and it was as if she said to herself "hey, I can do that"!

I'd go back to how you were with the milk in that case. She'll get the solid food in her own time.

My DS would only eat toast, yoghurt and rice cakes when he first started eating solids as well. Now he's gone off yoghurt..... They are so contrary sometimes huh?

Thank you all. It's nice to know that my DD isn't alone in her disinterest in food! I think I will add back in one milk feed and see how we get on with that.

It's really good to read this thread and see that this is fairly normal (I was getting a bit worried). My dd is just 10 months and she was doing ok with food but not great - she only really likes yoghurt, plum pots and ella's kitchen food. She would eat toast, broccoli, organix puffs etc as finger food but not off a spoon. She has just been ill with a tummy bug and I only gave her breast milk and a little formula to keep her hydrated. Now, she won't eat any solid food, not even toast, except for really smooth fruit purees. It feels as if we have gone back 3 months. However, I did notice that when she saw her little friend eat some hot cross bun yesterday she ate a bit too. I am going to try her eating at the same time as him after xmas, to see if it makes a difference. He is a really good eater.