Moms of older babies come in...a solids ?

MrsT0514 · October 2013

I'm gonna put this here, and hopefully some of you ladies can give me some insight and/or experiences of your own.

DS is about 9 1/2 months now, and up until the past 2 weeks or so, has done awesome with his purees (on the thicker side w/ some small chunks) and simple finger foods, like puffs, teething wafers, "gerber graduate" type cookies, etc. Hes not quite able to handle other finger foods yet, like veggies or chunks of meat. His gag reflex tends to be pretty sensitive.

That said, within the past week or 2, he's started resisting pretty much all of his purees. He still enjoys feeding himself puffs, mini baby graham crackcracker things, and stuff like that, but is resisting his purees like crazy all of a sudden. I've even tried offering bite size chunks of fruits/veggies to see if maybe he's ready to move on, but he's still gagging to the point of throwing up. I'm sure this is probably some sort of developmental phase he's going through, bbut feeding has become a bit frustrating for me, bc I'm just not sure what the heck to feed him right now.

Any tips/ideas? I'm really just not sure what the deal is right now. TIA!

brachysira · October 2013

I wouldn't worry--your baby is still getting nutrition from milk/formula, so it's not important to eat right now. You can try a little bit of puree every day but don't force it. I don't know how your baby does with chewing or how many teeth, but with our 9.5 month LO with 2 teeth, we don't do "chunks." We pretty much BLW, but I always cut everything into very thin strips. For instance, cook baby carrots until they are very soft and then cut them into quarters long-ways. Make thin french-fry-looking strips of soft melon. Try some very ripe raspberries. If I give cheese or meat, I make it the size of a pencil eraser. Maybe this will help, but if not, just wait a week or so and try again. I wouldn't overdo the cookies since you don't want that to be all he wants.

MrsT0514 · October 2013

@brachysira thanks for your feedback. He has about 6 teeth right now, but as far I've learned (correct me if im wrong), teeth really have no bearing on chewing at this age, its more about their ability to mash with their gums. He's also MPI so were not doing dairy until he gets some further allergy testing/bloodwork at 12 months.

We have done some BLW style feeding, such as florets of steamed broccoli that he can hold and feed himself...he seems to like it, so maybe ill try a few more things like that so he can experiment with feeding himself. the "melon french fries" are also a great idea!

pb_bride · October 2013

Gagging is normal when babies learn to self-feed finger foods. When we switched DS to BLW-style foods at 6.5 months, he gagged at every meal for over a week. He was refusing purees and the spoon, so I had no choice but to let him self feed at that point.

iwantnoworld · October 2013

+1 to PP that said not to stress it. They get all the nutrients they need from their formula at this age. I thought my LO would NEVER move over to purees/finger foods (didn't help that he didn't even get his first tooth until 9 months). Every time I tried, he would gag til he puked. And I stressed it the first few times, then I finally just threw my hands up and said, "Ya know what? He's just not ready." So I gave the bottle and then tried again a few days later (and so on) and stopped stressing about it. He eventually started taking things better and better, and now at one, he can take just about any finger food (as long as it's cut down to size) with minimal problems.

I would really try to just take a breath and not stress it. I didn't have any regression with J, but I still feel like at that point I would have had done the same thing. If he's struggling, just give him a bottle/sippy/breastmilk/etc. You still have over two months before you would even consider weaning him off of formula/breast milk and have to really start thinking about nutrition intake. Save the stress for later, lol.

juggernaut16 · October 2013

This just happened to us too (10.5 months) . I actually think that maybe my little guy was feeling a bit under the weather or something. I thought he might be teething again too but no sign of any new teeth. But then all of a sudden he got his appetite back. Hang in there! I know how frustrating it can be at the end of a long day and that little hand smacks away the spoon splattering food everywhere...

g8trkim · October 2013

DD did this too a little bit. She was over the whole puree thing around 8 1/2 months which was fine with me. I just kept letting her try our table foods. Sometimes she would eat sometimes she wouldn't. Not even baby type snacks but our actual food. It was just much easier that way. After a few weeks got it! So since then it's been eating everything we eat. She's a really good well-rounded eater. DS is the same way which is nice because I refuse to do made to order dinners. LOL. They eat what we do. I make a lot of things in the crock pot so they are pretty tender. I think that helps.

snoopy4283 · October 2013

We went through something similar - once she was able to feed herself some foods she was resistant to us feeding her. After a few weeks the novelty wore off and we were able to return to feeding her purees and also allow her to eat finger foods. I did ask my PCP and she confirmed that this stage is not entirely about nutrition but more gaining the skills needed to eat real foods.

Good Luck!

maybebride · October 2013

DS is 11 months now, but he gave up on purees really early. The only thing he allows us to feed him now is his yogurt with pureed fruit for breakfast. All other food, he wants to do himself and has since around 7 months. As others have said, don't stress about how much food he is actually eating at this point. I just let DS play and what he eats, he eats. We do a lot of pasta, cheese, soft potatoes, bread. I like peas because he can pick them up himself, but they are small enough to not cause too much of a gag reflex. Same with cut up banana.

Give it some time and he'll be good to go!

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