Does dd (6 months) really need anything other than breastmilk? AKA "What if BLW isn't working?" AITCH I need you!!!

[TAFKAtheUrbanDryad]

Dd decided she was ready for solids at 5.5 months by nicking a chip of my plate and eating it. Since then we've been doing BLW, very gently, and it's been going ok, but she's still 98% exclusively bf.

Yesterday, my MIL spoon fed her some cottage pie (don't ask - I was too exhausted to argue) and dd gobbled it up, thus providing fuel for MIL's claims that she needs other food than bm and the tiny amount of solids that she gets from BLW.

Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% with BLW, ds was BLW'd, I love not having to puree and spoon feed, it's fab, but I was thinking, "What if dd is hungry for solids but just can't co-ordinate herself sufficiently to get enough food into her?" I mean, what if she was dyspraxic or something (not that I think she is as she's very co-ordinated in other areas) and just couldn't quite manage to get finger food into her mouth?

Anyway, those of you who were here last time I did this with ds will recognise this as a typical wibble from me, but then ds never took to spoon feeding like this either - it was the way dd just almost took MIL's hand off for this fucking cottage pie that startled me, and took the wind out of my sails a bit. Made all my self- feeding arguments look a bit silly really.

You could stick spoons into cottage pie, and let DD feed herself with it if you wanted. Sticks nicely to a spoon, so you can just load up a few and leave her to it when it's something that lends itself to that.

Was prob just the novelty of the whole thing though I expect

Ooooh, that's a good idea CMOT.

You know what the worst thing is? Dd has been happy and settled all blasted night and today. Not that I'm going to tell MIL that!

Bumping in the hope that Aitch also has no life is about this boring balmy Saturday night!

My BB, at 6.5ish months I think, wolfed down his grandpa's soup from a spoon, which made me wobble a bit. However, the next night he wasn't interested at all (phew).

MIL, who fed from jars and was very sceptical about BLW and thought I was starving him, now does BLW with him on the days she looks after him, completely her choice as I decided I would settle for an easy life and not argue if she wanted to spoon feed him. She reports back with things like 'he can pick up rice krispies!' He's 9 months now.

i don't think it's spoons that are the enemy though, tbh, it's more that creepy 'oh just one more bit darling' stuff imo. so i never fed dd1 with a spoon just cos i didn't need to, for example, but i also didn't give her any yoghurt until she was big enough to do it herself without flapping it all over the walls.
however dd1 now enjoys a yog, and dd2 MUST have whatever her sister is having, so i have spoon fed her on occasion. she opens her mouth for it so willingly that i do worry that i could easily over feed her, she's just never said 'no thanks' to a yoghurt. i suppose i could see this as 'she's not getting enough when she feeds herself' but i read it as 'she is behaving in a weird automatic manner because she likes the food and it's costing her nothing in effort to eat it so maybe she's eating more than she needs'. actually, now that i think of it, this line of enquiry became more concrete after she puked up a couple of fromages frais.

so, on the one hand, if it's easy to do it and it suits you, do it. otoh if your dd is following her line on milk and some food then you don't worry. in fact my paed (we had one cos dd was prem) congratulated me at 9 months because dd was following her curve as a lot of babies drop off at that stage for not having had enough milk...

sooooooo. ye cannae win. have i rambled enough? anything useful there, i'm watching xtra factor on itv2.

My ds2 is 7 months and between crappy fine motor skills and a hatred for spoons he's developed in the last weeks or so (not that he was getting much off them anyway up til that for various reasons) eats practically no food.

If he gets 2 bites of food at either of his two daily meals i count it a successfull day for feeding. Last friday he ate the most he ever has at one sitting; he sucked at a rice cake and consumed maybe a fifth of one and he ate a third of one of those small heinz fruit pouches. He then didn't eat at all until breakfast today

He seems fine, he's smaller than my other two were at this age but is the right weight for his lenght and looks sturdy and healthy. His gross motor skills are very good, he's crawling and even trying to push up to his feet. He doesn't sleep well but then neither did ds1 who ate everything that came withing 2 feet of his face.

So i've decided to be completely zen like about it, wave some food at him twice a day, smile sweetly when he screams and rejects it and ony panic if his weight plummets or he still isn't eating at over a year.

my ds did not eat anything but breast milk unti 10 months, didn't eat proper meals regularly til about 15 months. so no need to worry cos i have already worried for the nation. he's a bit on the skinny side though but i'm a waif too so is dh so suppose thats ok

Would second Aitch on the potential to overfeed a baby who is enjoying the taste and ease of being spoonfed something soft.

In the early days of BLW I used to fret a little if DS hadn't had 'enough' dinner and would spoonfeed him some yoghurt. He ate enthusiastically but it would all come back later- much like with Aitch's DD's fromage frais.

After that I trusted him to know his own appetite (and also he refused spoons anyway).
Now he is nearly 2 and very competent at feeding himself he still has a small appetite, so it wasn't just lack of motor skills that was stopping him eating loads.

Thanks everyone! I bought some of that baby porridge muck yesterday, to see if she'd go for it, but she's not interested in taking a spoon off me AT ALL! I suspect it's for the same reason she won't take a bottle off me but will off dh or MIL. Hmph.

I'm just going to chill over it. I just feel mean because she obviously is interested in food but can't quite manage to eat much! Must be v frustrating for her!

is she actually showing signs of frustration or are you just projecting that onto her, do you think?

How lucky you all are that this is all you have to worry about. Children with SN sometimes can't feed themselves - yes, even with their fingers! - and have to be spoon-fed. Sometimes each meal takes an hour - and yes, you have to keep offering them food because they eat so little and they're putting on hardly any weight. Sometimes you realise you've sat there feeding them very slowly for more than three hours over the course of the day. Then you realise that you will be doing this forever. And then you come on MN and read this stuff and you realise you're in another world...

i'm not sure it's particularly fair to infer that this is the most pressing concern in UD's life, is it? she's on the Weaning board of a parenting site, asking a question about weaning... i think that should be okay, shouldn't it?

are you having a rough time with weaning, is there anything that any of us might be able to help with? a shoulder, even?

wispa.... hardly relevant though is it?

I could turn that around and say how lucky a parent of a paralyzed child is that they don't have to worry about their child running around and falling over Can you imagine how insulting that would be?

We all have different concerns, that some children have Sn doesn't invalidate the concerns and worries of parents of NT children and whilst we feel the utmost respect for those of you who have to cope with SN that doesn't make you deserving of every scrap of sympathy and none left for those with more 'trivial' worries.

It doesn't give ye the monopoly on finding aspects of parenting tough or challenging, and it most certainly doesn't give you the right to slight the queries of another poster.

My ds2 is NT and we spend hours a day trying to get a few morsals of food into him, dd is NT and also barely eats... I know lots of other NT children with huge issues around food that make family life hell, it's not only an SN issue

Wispa - that was a little bit harsh! I don't go on private school threads and whinge about how we've got no money, or whatever! I appreciate that parents of SN children often have things very difficult, but that shouldn't preclude the rest of us talking about things that are worrying us about our NT kids, surely? Otherwise MN would be a pretty quiet place!

Aitch - I've no idea if she actually is frustrated, it's very possible that I'm projecting onto her. It's also possible that she's grumpy and whingey at the moment due to the teeth that are due to make an imminent arrival (I hope!) - cold melon slices from the fridge appear to have a soothing effect! She was unimpressed by breakfast this morning (porridge pancakes with banana) but then she's been generally unimpressed with everything today, so I'm not too worried!

Wispa - it does sound tough for you. Hope you are ok

UD - i know a few babies that don't eat including mine, but incidently shepherds pie was always a winner and its what he ate most reliably.

What does NT mean?

Whispa.

TAFKA, do you give her cottage pie anyway? Maybe just stick some on a plate and let her get on with it?

Rosebud - NT = Neuro Typical, as opposed to Neuro Diverse, the preferred term for people with a variety of conditions such as asperger's, autism, dyslexia. I believe it's intended to convey that your brain processes information differently to the average brain, but not placing any positive or negative value on that fact.