tongue thrust?

mooncusp22

I've really been struggling with feeding DD. Started oatmeal around. 5.5 months & onto fruit purres around 6ish months. She is now almost 7 months. We've tried carrots, avocado, banana , sweet peas & dry cereal ( the baby kind that dissolves).

She pushes everything out & most recently gives raspberries when the spoon touches her lips . I've heard that they aren't ready for solids until the lose their tongue thrust. I looked up how to tell if they have or not & a few people said to just touch their lips & if they stick their tongue out that means they still have it. DD does this... Could she still not be ready for solids at 7mths? I also read eating is important to build up their muscle for speech development & don't want to mess anything up!

Holljade

Are you just feeding purees or using real food as well? I would try giving her toast to grab and see how she does.

Vin will barely eat purees but likes to feed himself. He's pretty much forcing me to do BLW lol.

speechie517

You aren't going to mess up your child's speech and language development - Oral motor function is important in both speech and eating; however, not eating purees does not mean anything will be wrong with her speech in the future. She might just not be ready for purees (up to 9 months is normal) or might not be interested yet.

mooncusp22

So I tried toast yesterday ! Put it on her tray. & she picked it up. & gummed it for awhile- not sure if she actually ate any. Still working on the purres but she doesn't even seem to " chew. " it... I have to sneak some in when she has her mouth open & isn't looking .

Megczapla

This is us too! I'm so glad you asked! DS is 6.5 months and really isn't interested. We make his cereal with BM and I hate that it goes to waste but in the event that he actually eats it, he needs those extra calories that water wouldn't provide! Ah! All in good time....

katiedidthat

Don't worry about speech development!  My older son didn't eat a bite of solids until he was almost 9 months old, and never had a puree or baby cereal. He would gag and retch if we tried.  He went right to whole foods and soft-mashed adult foods.   And at 2 years old, he is speaking in clear 6-8 word sentences and has the vocabulary of a 4 year old (according to his brother's early intervention therapists). 

As for tongue thrust- if you put a spoon of baby food into/up to the baby's mouth and they push it out with their tongue instead of in to eat it- they haven't lost the thrust reflex yet. 

zazu13

One of my twins had tongue thrust until 7 months. It also seemed to go away literally overnight. Her sister was eating cereals and purees so I'd offer it to her regularly and one day she was suddenly like "Food. Me likey." No more spitting / raspberries. Since that day she has gobbled everything I've given her.