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will she *ever* eat solids... (long vent-ish, sorry!)
did anyone have a really terrible eater? when did it get better??? i'm so frustrated... my DD has always been a bad solids eater. (she will BF till the end of time though, never ever had a problem with that.) we went thru stages of trying to distract her, singing/peek-a-boo, it seemed to help when we gave her toys at the high chair... she might eat well for a couple of days and then be super fussy again. and by eat well, i mean she *might* eat most of a whole jar of food. only once in her life did she eat 2 jars at one sitting, like the pedi said she should be working towards. we always offer finger foods too and sometimes she will want a big chunk of banana or pieces of chicken or pears, it just depends on her mood. i have tried to schedule BF'ing to only when she wakes, and before naps and bed, so it will be maybe 5 times a day. but she will nurse 2-3 times per night still, which i know is screwing things up. i have one breast that over-produces so i try to only offer the smaller side so she won't get too full, but she prefers the fuller side so she always drinks a ton of milk...
the past 4 days now she has been basically avoiding solids altogether, and i'm attributing this to teething. but it hasn't made things any easier!
i know her nutrients are coming from milk and i need to relax. i honestly don't mind, i plan to BF for longer than a year anyway, but i'm just frustrated with the battles at mealtime,i feel like i shouldn't even bother. (when she's mad i get her out of her highchair, but it just seems like it's always a failure.) tell me you have gone through this and one day DD will just 'get it' or something, right? i keep waiting for that to happen but after trying for the past 4.5 months, i'm exhausted!
and yes she is in the 75% for weight so she's gained fine her whole life. the pedi is never concerned since she's chunky (this girl likes her BM!) - and i'm not worried for her health. i'm just wondering how to go about doing this so she won't be so fussy about it... kwim? i know she wont be avoiding solids at age 3 or whatever, but when WILL she get it? argh!
/vent
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Re: will she *ever* eat solids... (long vent-ish, sorry!)
That's frustrating! We started DD on solids just after her 6 month appt. Up until then I pumped but she only had BM. It was a VERY slow start...she would maybe open her mouth for a taste of something but generally she would just shut her mouth. We still went through the routine of putting her in the high chair and offering her food. I put some puffs on her tray too and she would ignore them. She finally, about a month ago? started opening her mouth - she prefers fruit or sweet veggies. I make her food and she likes the stuff I make that is really smooth - like squash and pear. She is just now cutting her first tooth - it started showing up on Halloween and has now broken through the entire gum so I know that is bothering her. Oh, I should mention that around 2 months ago I weaned from pumping and she now only has formula.
When I first started offering solids I thought we would never get to a place where she actually opened her mouth. She's still very picky but I try to remain calm - getting frustrated isn't going to help. I continue to offer her food that she has previously refused knowing that one day she might change her mind. I also recently started putting a piece of frozen banana into one of those mesh feeders and she LOVES IT! (she hates banana in any other form except commercial baby food) but I think the fact that it's cold is helping her gums.
As far as nursing in the night - that's a personal choice but at this point I would say that your DD is waking to nurse out of habit. We finally let DD CIO one night a few weeks ago after she kept waking up - just to play or whatever - she yelled (she wasn't really crying) for 14 minutes (my cut off was 15) and then she went back to sleep. Every few nights she wakes up and yells but we let it go and after a couple minutes she gets the hint and goes back to sleep. We get MUCH better sleep now
GL. Parenting is the hardest job in the world!
Oh, and when I was frustrated about DD not eating I called her pedi and the nurse there reassured me that many parents and babies go through this and to just keep trying. She sent me a pamphlet of info that basically said the same thing. Hang in there!
We have been doing baby-led weaning because our experience with regular babyfood/purees was horrible and pointless. We feed DD pretty much whatever we eat and at the same time. For the first couple of months, it was a lot of experimentation and not a lot of eating. In the past couple of weeks she has really been eating a lot and enjoying it.
I started with stick-sized pieces of fruit and vegetables - apples, zucchini, cucumber (she LOVED especially when teething), roasted sweet potatoes and regular potatoes. We then went to things like toast or low-sodium crackers with hummus. Now she eats darn near anything - rice, chickpeas, tofu, pasta, veggies and fruit. The only thing we have seen her have a reaction to is tomatoes - they cause her to have itchy eyes and some hives. Removed it from her diet and she has been fine since. We keep salt and sugar to a super minimum, but she eats curry and cinnamon and various other spices and loves them. We will lightly steam baby carrots, pear and apples and sprinkle with cinnamon and she gobbles them up!
We now successfully spoon-feed her things like yogurt, oatmeal and cottage cheese but again that wasn't until the past month or so.
Try a couple finger foods like veggie and fruit sticks and let your baby just play with them - try picking up the food, try to find his mouth, etc. It's really cool to watch and see your baby learn new things and experience new tastes and textures!
yeah we have always done kind of a combo, there is always something on her tray to play with/eat... usually cheerios, of course! but we've tried chicken, potatoes, peas, rice, pasta, broccoli, etc... you're right though, i'm going to start doing more or all of that and cut out the purees altogether. they obviously arent getting us anywhere! thanks for the food suggestions, i think the sticks of fruit might help her gums, what a great idea!
thanks everyone! i know eventually she'll get there, i just thought we'd be there by now.