WWYD - If your DC shows a strong preference for one food while weaning...

[angel1976]

Hi all,

Just to canvas some opinions... If your 7-month-old baby shows a strong preference for one type of food (basically, anything in a stinky cheesy white sauce), wolfing it down when offered that and baulks at others (literally will just have a couple of mouthfuls and that's it), would you keep persisting with offering different types of food or for the sake of him eating, offer a lot more of what you know he will eat? I know it's important he gets a taste of a variety of stuff early on but it's so disheartening to offer him food you know he's going to turn down. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Ax

For a start I'd stop offering the white sauce totally, at least for a while.

Just keep offering all sorts of different things and try not to worry about the quantity he's eating. milk is the most important source of nourishment until 12 months and )IMHO) it's better to take things quite slowly than to rush it anyway.

It can take up to 10 tastings of a food before it's accepted so keep on offering and stay calm. Are you giving him purees of finger food?

He's having both. Not doing BLW exclusively as when gagging (which I know is very normal!), he used to bring up everything he ate in the last two hours or so (had fairly bad reflux in the first few months that has only calmed down in the last month or so!). It's only in the last week or so that he's managed to gag and most times, only bring up what he was gagging on (and not everything else!).

It sounds like a combination is best for your DS then. I've nothing more I can really add, so just bumping for you.

I agree with dtd. Solid food really isn't important at this stage - it's just about getting him used to new tastes and textures, which you aren't doing if you only give him cheese sauce, so I'd ditch the sauce, or just give say once a week, and offer other stuff.

Def agree with offering as many different things as possible.

Perhaps try pureed avocado because the creamy texture may be similar to the sauce he likes, and its quite a creamy taste too? DS loves it.

What are you putting in the cheese sauce? From your post, it doesn't seem to me that you are just giving him a bowl of cheese sauce?

Similar thing happening here too..brocolli trees are always offered, but are always looked at in disdain and thrown over the edge of the high chair.

It didn't sound like white sauce on it's own to me.

Sorry, should clarify, he likes white cheese sauce in different forms. So far, he has had broccoli cheese, cauliflower cheese, salmon and spinach in cheesy sauce. He likes them all! And I don't cook them the same way or have the same stuff in in (sometimes it's jars too!). I am still offering him different types of food but usually he has a couple of mouthfuls and then kinda gives me the face that says 'not cheese sauce!' and then clamps his mouth shut . I know that I should offer him different types of food but it's so difficult to do that when I have weaning him for what seems like forever and it's the one thing he seems to love! Thanks for talking sense into me... Have tried avocado before but it was a while ago so will try that again. Thanks all.

Just give him whatever you're having (cook without salt and add add the table), there really is no need at all to make special food for him.

It doesn't matter if he doesn't eat it, it's the tasting that's important. He'll soon forget about the cheese sauce .

this is probably totally irrelevant... but

I've read that babies with intolerances/allergies can strongly crave the things they are intolerant/allergic to...

seeing you mention reflux i just thought it was worth mentioning in case he has shown any other signs of an allergy to milk/cheese?

DTD - I do plan to give him what we eat very soon. I don't prepare his own special food as much as I did for DS1! For example, cauliflower cheese is the leftover from roast dinner. It's just that till recently, he just wasn't handling lumps that well so I did make some stuff with lots of sweet potato etc to make it smooth. I will keep repeating the mantra that it's the tasting that is important!

thisisyesterday - No, he hasn't really shown any signs of an allergy to milk/cheese... Thanks for that though, will keep that in my head just in case!

Thanks for your advice!