(almost) 11 month old still on air-like consistency

[mumtojohn]

I've gotten myself and my 11 month old ds into a situation whereby he will only eat food that is of soup-like consistency, with no lumps.

I say 'gotten myself' because when I weaned him at 5 or so months, I had a rubbish-y blender (even his very first puree was lumpy) and so he was very happily chowing down pasta at 6 months etc.

Then, at 8 months, I saw my friend's super-douper Brevill blender and has puree envy. So I bought it...and ended up making his food smoother than ever, mavelling at the power of the Brevill's blades. And now here I am, with ds at almost 11 months, and he won't eat Ella's or Plum 10 month+ grub, he notices every single tiny lump, has stopped eating couscous, making 'lumpy' faces (even though he was eating it last week, only). I feel like it's all my fault and blender-envy has set us back months!

Has anyone any tips? I guess I need to start introducing lumps back in slowly and maybe pureeing for shorter durations. Obvious, I guess. He is also starting to go off stuff he liked only the other day etc (see sep thread!) but I think that is his age. If anyone else is in this situation, let me know! I wouldn't care but I am back to work in Jan and he starts nursery (5 days). I doubt they will want to be liquidising his food...

Have you tried introducing some finger foods? Both my ds's hated lumpy/mashed food and went straight from super smooth blended food to chopped up finger food in one go.

He has rice cakes and breadsticks etc as snacks but do you mean making whole meals that way? e.g. Annanbel Karmel's salmon footballs etc? I have been thinking about this but he only seems to suck/eat small pieces of fingers foods. He has toast fingers in his high chair just after his porridge and I usually find them all in the chair/in his bib, having been sucked at/gnawed but not really eaten in any meaningful way.

Maybe though this is because he is already full. If I mashed up the main meal roughly and put it in front of him he might pick it up with his fingers and eat it, I guess. Doesn't that take forever for them to get it down them though?

Sorry, for these basic questions! I never did BLW or anything so I am totally new to the idea of finger foods as meals.

I would try offering finger foods before the purees and for snacks first and just see how he goes. He will probably just play with it at first, but that's just part of the discovery of what's what. If he gets a good variety of finger foods this will also help keep his interest going.

He will start eating more when he's ready but at the moment I think it's more just the practice and learning than how much actually goes in and you don't need to scrap the purees, just offer these in addition.

The problem is that the way to eat smooth foods off a spoon (like soup etc) is a completely different technique to eating something lumpy off a spoon (think about how you eat cereal) - if you tried to eat cereal by swallowing it straight off the spoon like soup, you'd choke. Some babies have trouble with this and don't realise that there is another way to eat lumpy foods off a spoon - you can persevere and they will get it eventually, but it would probably be easier to skip straight to whole, non-mashed finger foods. If the idea of finger foods seems daunting, try buying a little toddler cutlery set and spearing things on a fork for him, but letting him hold the fork himself. (DS loves this, it's a novelty for him) But really anything can be a finger food, and then you don't have to keep loading the fork - it might take a while, get yourself a cup of tea and a book/magazine/mumsnet while he eats.

www.babyledweaning.com there are loads of recipes there, but also just loads of 'oh yeah dur' ideas for finger food. mostly just stop pureeing the stuff you've been pureeing , and let him loose on your food if it's not salty.