HELP trying for 4 weeks but baby does not want to eat

[Anonymous]

She might not be ready for solids. My son was the same way at about 5-months when I started solids. I didn't push it and a couple weeks later he was chowing down like a totally different baby.

[Anonymous]

11:16 here. I can't remember ages exactly, but by 9 months she was eating pieces of bread, banana, apple, potato, noodles, rice and other soft foods. By early 10 months, she was eating pizza and spaghetti. I think she became interested in feeding herself around 11 months. Before that, she only fed herself bread or those mum mum biscuits. She even wanted us to put the cheerios into her hand or her mouth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suggest checking out the book "Child of Min: Feeding with Love and Good Sense" by Ellyn Satter.

I second this suggestion. It is a very reassuring and useful guide to feeding your infant, toddler and preschooler.

[Anonymous]

I would love for someone to elaborate on the book that is recommended.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I mistyped the name of the book. It's actually "Child of Mine." You can see lots of positive reviews with a quick look on amazon.com.

[Anonymous]

We had a very similar experience here. I tried offering purees and they were flat out rejected at 6 months. We could get DD to eat maybe 1 or 2 spoonfuls of something if we were lucky. DD really hates the spoon, and I was getting concerned and feeling like it was a bit of a battle, but I didn't force it and just tried once a day.

After a couple weeks I started cutting up tiny pieces of anything I could think of into tiny 1/4in pieces. Fruits, veggies, pasta, rice, beans, etc. When she was able to be in control and feed herself the little chunks, things got much better. She was still really young when she started picking up food, and she wasn't all that accurate at first. It was messy but started to get a lot more fun.

DD is 10 months now and will feed herself a complete meal of small pieces of food, but still really hates the spoon, however, she'll eat off chopsticks pretty nicely so I use them a lot. She still doesn't eat huge amounts of food most of the time, and we did figure out that she just plain doesn't like bland food. If I spice it up and give her food some flavor - just like I would my own - she'll eat plenty.

Also, give the mesh feeder a shot. It may not be so much the food itself, but the delivery system. When we stopped forcing the spoon so much we got much better eating. There's plenty of time to teach a spoon later.

[Anonymous]

My baby was not interested in solids for a long time--also started at 6 months, but it took her until at least 8 to actually start what Ii would call eating. she hated baby cereals (and I can't blame her..) but liked pureed pears and also homemade chicken soup. Then one day she was sitting on my lap while I as having my dinner and she just put her little hands into my plate and started eating whatever was on it! Now she is 10 months old and is a great eater (for the moment at least). I also started giving her small pieced of early -- even when she couldn't pick them up, I would just put it in her mouth (in a spoon or from my hand. (they were of course pieces of soft food)

[Anonymous]

My DS loved solids at first but then kind of lost interest as well. Unlike a lot of the PPs, he has been very hesitant to try textures and his staple solid that he always eats is rice cereal mixed with breastmilk. He's now 9.5 months and just beginning to show interest in finger foods. One thing I have done that seems to spark his interest is to either snack on something while I'm feeding him or to pretend like I am eating his food. If he sees me chewing he wants to do it too. I also do as you said you are doing-- I never put the spoon in his mouth unless he opens it for the food (I don't even put the spoon in between parted lips if he is not opening his mouth for the food). I will touch it to his lips if he is not opening up to let him taste it. Sometimes he will then decide he wants it.

I also think the book by Ellyn Satter is great. She stresses the importance of the child deciding how much and whether he eats (your job is the what, when, and where).