8 month old refusing to eat

[BikeRunSki]

Hi

I started weaning my son at 26+1, mostly on purees, but have always offered him finger foods too. He is now 8 months (34+4). Purees moved on to mashes quite soon (within a couple of weeks I'd say, on HV advice) and he was on three meals a day after about a month (again on HV advice).

Up until a fortnight ago he would eat up to about "a yoghurt pot" full of food at breakfast (Ready Brek/porridge/home made sugarless rice pudding/occassional Weetabix) and stewed fruit and a similar volume at tea time (rice/pasta/spuds/cous cous, with meat/fish/pulses/cheese and veg), and something less at lunch time. He woudl also happily scoff any fingers foods I gave him - breadsticks, rice cakes, cheese, toast, those Organix carrot fake-Wotsits things, cooked noodles, cooked veg.

About a fortnight ago he stopped wanting his "big" tea, so I tried offering it to him at lunch time for a few days and giving him a smaller tea, but he wasn't interested. He seems to have lost all interest in food and goes beserk if I try and put him in his high chair. He was also having about 20-24oz formula a day (we have not bf'ed since a week old on medical advice and a lot of tears).

HV suggested offering him only finger foods and milk. He will happily snack on them, but does not "get it" enough to fill up on finger foods. I am not sure if enough actually goes in to make a difference. Since Saturday morning he has eaten 2 "proper" meals, although I have offered him "mash" and finger foods at every meal time.

Got him weighed today and he has lost 1/2 oz in a month. Not a disaster because he is still on 50th centile, but has dropped from 75th. Today he has had 4 weaning spoons of spag bol mash and 12 oz milk. He is very very active and whatever he does eat, he burns up straight away. Not crawling yet, but desperately trying!

I think the trying to crawl and refusing to eat are both signs of him going through an "independent" phase, but I am at a total loss about how to get him to eat. Anyone had experience of this ?

Maybe I am being unduly worried because he lost 23% of his birth weight in his first 4 days.

Blimey, sorry that that message was so long!

hello

again, not sure if have any advice, but have similar issues here with 8.5 month old ds who was going great guns on puree + finger food and now seems uninterested in eating at most meal times.

a few people have suggested that at this age it's normal-ish because they want to get more involved - so what might seem to be dis-interest is just a change in interest iyswim...?

i tried giving more finger food than normal and sneaking in mouthfuls much slower than normal which sort of worked. i'm hoping it is just an age thing and might pass.....quickly!

the amounts of weight your two LOs have been losing (since 6mths) don't seem too drastic...or am i misunderstanding you? hope i don't sound dismissive, just trying to reassure you. i'm sure it's also usual to lose a bit or at least slow down once they starting being so much more active.

if anyone else has more of a clue would be glad to hear it

Well, on HV advice, we just did finger food for a week - so I guess BLW by default, although have always done finger food quite a lot. He wasn't really even that interested for a few days, but today was eating everything I put in front of him or offered on a spoon. HV also said that it is very common at 7/8/9 months for babies to loose interest in food, as there is so much else going on in their heads - especially common in boys apparently!

But in the last week,I have got really keen on this finger food business - toast and vegemite (less salt than Marmite) boiled spuds, fish fingers, chipolatas, steamed broccoli, steamed carrot sticks, grapes, cherry toms, cheese, banana cake, falafel - and will certainly continue to bias his diet that way I think.

normal.
my ds didn't eat properley til 10 months, was total refusenik, off and on, off food for weeks at a time, still pretty hit and miss at 15 months. hvs were bereft but its normal. i've researched and researched this cos it sent me round the twist.

just go back to basics and try not to worry.

keeping off dairy worked for me too

my ds is now fallen off the bottom of the weight scale but its ok

DS didn't 'get' food until he reached 10 months, we kept his formula intake up and took it slowly and all of a sudden he just started wolfing food down, don't panic.