my 9 month old doesn't want to eat :(

[beforesunrise]

I started with purees- moderate interest for a couple of weeks, then nothing- now has a complete phobia of spoons- will only take yoghurt, anything else makes her gag and choke in the scariest way.

so obviously I abandoned the notion of feeding her myself and started doing finger foods- I suppose if I was fashionable I would say I am doing BLW

She makes a huge mess of it all- plays with her food, throws it on the floor, occasionally puts something in her mouth. but the intake is negligible (I do a careful and obsessive nappy monitoring, and not much is coming out!), and I am starting to be a bit depressed about it.

all the BLW stories on here are gloating triumphs about babies who will "eat anything" in massive quantities etc etc, well, mine will not and although I know on some level that she will eat one day, it is still quite hard. She's my second and at her age dd1 was eating 3 solid meals a day plus snacks...

anyone care to come and reassure me? the thing is, there is nothing I can do, I just have to keep on offering food as I do, but I want to know that one day she'll start eating!

can you let her hold the spoon too when you feed her?

can you give her a spoon too to distract her?

will she eat toast? maybe she can dip toast in mushed veg.

also with mushy food, make it more soupy. food that is too dry makes ds gag.

i add:

pesto
baked beans
weak gravy
hummus
cheese sauce

to pretty much whatever i am giving him so it isn't too dry.

also bland food tended to make ds gag.
adding flavour from

pesto
cheese etc seemed to help.

good luck

beforesunrise - its hard not to worry isnt it, even when everyone else is repeating the 'food is fun til one' thing.

Have you tried offering food in different settings - ie when out and about or when other children/babies are eating with you?

Has she upped her milk intake do you think?

thanks advocaat. it is nothing to do with the flavour or texture, she just refuses the spoon so won't even try what's on it. if I force it she gags, chokes and throws up exorcist-style...

giantkate- she drinks a lot of milk yes, incl at night...

so... NO ONE has gone through something similar and can reassure me??? pretty please???

if she's having too much milk she won't be interested in food. ds always gags when he is full and wants no more after eating. he spits the last spoon out, that's when i know he's had enough.

i think at 9 months 3 milk feeds is probably enough, i may be wrong.

less milk = more food

however, stick to the recommended amount of milk for age etc.

Hi beforesunrise, your DD sounds like my DS was. I HATED weaning, my DS barely ate any solid food until he was well over one. I was quite stressed to start with as all the babies around me were scoffing down 3 meals a day almost from the start and don't get me started on Annabel Karmel and those ridiculous food calendars which show them practically eating a full roast dinner in 3 weeks, arrrggggghhhhh!!!

Anyway, I ditched the spoons, tried not to stress about it all, gave him foods he would eat (yoghurt, rice cakes, toast), didn't worry about the days when he wouldn't eat anything and just generally tried to relax about the whole thing.

He's 21 months now and eats well - sometimes like a horse, sometimes a lot less. It doesn't take much to throw him off though - if we are out of normal routine and away from home he doesn't eat too much.

It will come with time. Don't worry about it, just try to go at her speed and don't turn meals into a battle. If she's not interested, just take the food away and try again another time.
Good luck!

oh god thanks preggersplayspop!!! i really needed to hear that.

i think people who've never gone through it just don't get it- i knew i couldnt have before having her. I would have thought (like Devils and my mum!) that it was something the mother does wrong, like giving too much milk or the wrong food... she simply refuses the spoon, and will only eat independently... if at all...

i hope she starts eating well soon.

er i don't think you are doing anything wrong, i was trying to offer some suggestions to things you hadn't thought of.

also, no one else had bothered to respond to your thread and i didn't want it to go unposted on.

also i resent you saying i had never gone though it. ds is often sick and gags on food.
it took me a long time to work out what he needed and it was not nice watching him choking and vomming whilst i weaned him.

devils i am sorry if you took offence, i didn't meant to. and i appreciate you answering my thread. i was just (clumsily) pointing out that there is a big difference between a fussy baby (like my dd1 perhaps) and one who simply wouldn't eat.

i am sorry your ds chokes. i agree its not fun.

My DS had a big phobia of spoons until about a month ago - when he was 14 motnhs old. This made feeding him quite tricky! In thwe end we made evrything finger food, including yogurt. His appetite was never huge, and definitely preferred his milk, also lots at night. I decided not to make mealtimes a big issue and not to be frustrated around him when everything was going on the floor. he came round eventually and now loves his food, including eating his cereal with a spoon this morning by himself.

Like you I found it difficult, especially as my DD weaned so easily that I thought DS would be the same.

So in short, yes, one day your DD will start eating

beforesunrise! Hello!

I fear I might have seemed to be one of those BLW gloaters on another thread we've been on! I hope not! I've always said that although DD (nearly 9mo) "eats" everything (ie. puts any and every food we put in front of her in her mouth and chews and sucks with relish), it's really only in the last couple of weeks that any meaningful amount has gone into her (I too am a nappy-checker! ). Before now, most was mushed up, smeared over her face and bib, dropped on the floor, etc. Hardly any went down. As I said, that's gradually changing now. I think some babies just take longer to get used to eating. And my DD is a milk-monster too! I don't know any different (she's my first), so have nothing to compare it with. She refuses to let me spoon-feed her as well: whenever I try to give her some yoghurt, or whatever, on the spoon she grabs it with both hands before I get it to her mouth .

Does that help?

hey no worries. just felt a bit put out at being dismissed

look, the fact is that if your kid is having too much milk, they won't eat. especially if fussy, they need an incentive to eat i.e. hunger!

yes your baby will eat eventually but at some point you have to reduce milk and increase food. around 12 months they need to eat more.

all i'm saying is why not reduce milk, even if it's 10 mils less day, see how she gets on. she won't notice the difference day to day and over time will naturally want to eat more, even if it's only the things she likes now.

give vit drops in meantime to lessen the worry for you.

that's all now, i'll stop hassling you...

PS. We miss you!

BS, dd (who is my second) didn't appear to eat that much at this stage, or at least she wasn't if I compared to her brother, who was already eating 2 huge meals when he was 9 months.
I remember feeling very apprehensive about it (also, being Italian, you know that we expect them to eat a big bowl of "pappa") and getting little consolation by the fact that at least she was drinking milk.
She gradually started to eat more (especially if I let her use the spoon and put a bit of soup in her own bowl), and I realized that she was more a "snacking" child rather than a "big meal" child like ds was.

She is now 4 and a half and has a very good appetite, and a good, balanced diet.

BS- I said on the other thread, but will repeat here, now that I see your dd is the same age as mine when she went on hunger strike!

She was fine up till about 8mths, would try anything- vividly remember the Italian rellies going cosmic over the fact that at Easter (aged 6 mths) she was tucking into cauliflower cheese...

Then she ate nothing much for about 2 yrs. I really used to panic that she'd be up all night on the milk-machine.....but honestly, she wasn't (any more than normal that is)

My ds ate puree beautifully for about 2 weeks then nothing at all for 6 weeks so I feel your pain. Now he will only do what we term 'baby bird' feeding. He will take food like cheese on toast (well a little) if I bite it semi chew it and then pop it ion his mouth. Maybe worth a try?

My ds ate puree beautifully for about 2 weeks then nothing at all for 6 weeks so I feel your pain. Now he will only do what we term 'baby bird' feeding. He will take food like cheese on toast (well a little) if I bite it semi chew it and then pop it ion his mouth. Maybe worth a try?

Hi all & special hi to beforesunrise and other mums with babies who don't really do food! First time on mumsnet and am soooo relieved to read these comments - babyledweaning? Had never heard of it and have 3 children! I thought i was going completely mad - my boy is 8 months and ate quite well until he was about 6 months (i know, i weaned him early at 5 months....he is a HUGE baby and milk was never enough), then first he stopped eating savoury stuff, only wanting pureed pear or banana and then....he just stopped eating. I just didn't know what to do. i thought it was teething, flu, colds, bad temper, him being the first boy... you name it, i blamed it. My health visitor was rubbish, she practically told me that if i didn't get him eating, he wouldn't be able to talk properly when older, use cutlery or get a girlfriend and that there is no way on this earth that feeding him finger food would sustain him and that i wasn't doing anything right.....in the past two months, he's had about two weeks where he's actually eaten off the spoon....he's been on finger food all the other times, and there have been chunks of days when he refuses even that.....and other friends' babies all seem to eat so well except mine!....my problem is that i go back to work in two weeks, and whereas every meal time now takes on average about an hour while i try different things or wait for 20 mins for him to twist a bit of carrot around in his fingers before taking one bite and letting me know that that is it now mummy, i just know that my childminder will not have hours on end to wait for my precious one to eat his nosh (or not, as is usually the case). If he were staying at home all the time with me, you know i could continue to run about the kitchen with my twenty different selections of things to try, but I can't expect the minder to do the same. Please help!

DD is BLW and at 9 months she wasn't eating much at all -- she loved having food and loved playing with it but didn't eat a huge amount. But when she was about 10 months something just seemed to click and almost overnight she started eating four or five times the amount she'd been eating before. Now she's eleven months and just today someone said to me "she's a really good eater, isn't she?" (in a tone of voice that, while positive, had overtones of "she's a virtual black hole, isn't she?" ).

My theory is that she only twigged at about ten months that eating solids was a way to stop feeling hungry -- I think before that she saw food as a fun thing and milk as what she wanted when she was hungry. And then she must have had a lightbulb moment where she suddenly realised what the point of food was.

So try not to stress. I found it easier because DD's always been on the large side so I had no concerns about her wasting away to nothing. I was confident she'd get there in her own time, and she did.

thanks for that! And do you know what, this is true...my big boy baby won't waste away to nothing and I guess I know he will have his light bulb moment one day. It just seems so weird that one week he'll eat loads and then spend the rest of the time eyeing up the highchair as a potential climbing wall rather than a place to sit and eat food. Any tips as to what I should ask the childminder to do at lunchtime? I can just see me arriving in the morning with a binliner filled with bits of fruit and veg for her to try him with...I know I'll have to resort to packing a tub of yoghurt in his bag as he may just suck one or two mouthfuls out of it, together with the corner of a chopped up sandwich but I need to stop listening to others (the healthvisitor, my mother....my husband!) and just accept that simply because he looks big, it doesn't mean that he has a big appetite to go with it, cos he sure doesn't!

When DD started nursery (which fortunately for my peace of mind was a couple of weeks after she'd started deciding to eat in volume) she barely ate anything for the first week -- or, at least, she wouldn't eat anything until teatime when presumably her hunger got the better of her and she'd eat quite well. By week 2 she was eating there as well or as better as she was at home.

I think all you can do is send him to the childminder with a range of stuff and ask her to keep offering but not to worry if he doesn't want to eat much.

I am so pleased to find some other mums going through the same as me. My DD is now refusing food. She started out as a very hungry baby, weaned at 3 1/2 month with a little baby cereal and then gradually started taking veg and fruit purees. We bprogressed until she was having a bottle for breakfast and some ceral, a dinner and pud, a tea and pud and then a bottle for bed. Often with snacks inbetween. More recently however she developed the spoken about spoon phobia so we resorted to finger foods. Now however she is refusing anything savoury. Preferring to move straight onto the pudding (which strangely enough she is happy to eat from a spoon). I too am after any advice or help with this. HV says she will eat when she is hungry however in the meantime I am worried about her getting enough nutrition and getting more and more frustrated aswell as anxious about this. She lost weight for the frst time this week and although it's only 2oz I can't help thinking it's only the beginning!!! HELP PLEASE!! Beforesunrise I feel your pain and totally sympathise with you. It's not just unpleasant it's unbearable

@beforesunrise did it work out in the end? I’m going through something similar.