She's 7 1/2 months and seems to *hate* food. (Plus the pressure from family...) - Page 2

[mntnmom]

DS(5 yr) wasn't really interested in food until he was a year old. Actually, he still would rather play than eat most of the time! If she's not interested, she's getting what she needs. Make it available if you like, but there is no reason to force it.
And the next time someone tells you she needs to "learn to eat", ask them if they've ever met someone who just didn't learn and still needs to take a bottle to work with them?

[Comtessa]

Beauchamp, my LO is only a month older than your Francesca, and a month ago she was in exactly the same place with solid food. It was only this week, really, that she started showing any real interest in any foods at all. I totally know what you mean about the family comments! Everyone in the whole world has "advice" about how to get her to eat more. ("Are you still nursing that baby? Give the poor child a hot dog!") I just keep saying, "She nurses on demand. If she's hungry, I feed her. If she's not hungry, she won't eat."

Don't worry, as soon as she eats enough food to make everyone else happy, they'll find something else to get on your back about. ("Are you still wearing that baby? How will she ever learn how to walk?!?")

[moonlight mom]

I haven't read all the posts, but would like to say that my dd hated food until she was 9 months. Now, at 11 months she loves to eat and eats everything by herself. She gets so excited whenever it is meal time.

[Icehockey18]

Originally Posted by Beauchamp

Me, too. I say "our doctor" and I mean Dr. Sears, because my ped has been pushing "meals" of cereal since 4 months.

Lol! It's hard having others judge your parenting.... I'm sorry your getting it from your mil, that's difficult. Just keep doing what you are doing, with confidence! We get it a lot for co-sleeping. If they keep pushing I jokingly say "if he's 16 and still in bed with us, then you can be concerned", for some reason that shuts them up.
Your lo will eat eventually, until then enjoy being the provider of the best food ever

[KarlaC]

Well..if you could talk your lo into 'convincing' people like my son just did last week They would never again try & shovel/talk you into shoveling food donw her.

My teenagers talked his dad into buying some yo-baby yogurt & they fed it to him. Then they proceeded to play the 'lift me up & down' game(totally normal here..I was napping through this btw).

He decided to reward them for their dairy treat by barfing all down the front of dd2, in her mouth..made a basket in her shirt, in her hair...the whole nine yards(think Stand By Me pie eating contest here). While I was REALLY entertained I'm pretty sure they were appalled & won't feed him anything anytime soon.

[gbutterflykissesm]

KarlaC, that is hilarious!

My LO will be 8 m.o. on Jan 27 and we started offering him solids at 5.5 months because he was so interested in our food. We would just give him little bites of mashed avocado mixed with BM, and he would take one or two bites every couple of days. Seemed to go down fine. Then around 6 months he had a cold for about one month, so we stopped the solids completely. When we started again with purees, he wouldn't swallow. He would just let it sit in his mouth until it slid to the back of his tongue, at which time he would gag. So I played with the thickness/thinness of my purees, and then thought, maybe he would do better with bite size pieces of soft food. After several gagging/possiblychoking/vomiting episodes, I realized he just wasn't ready yet.

But he loves sitting in his booster seat at the table, so I would sit him there and put some purees on his tray, and let him play with it. I would try offering with a spoon every night, and let him feed himself using Gerber little dippers. But he never really ate more than a bite. Then, all of a sudden last week, he started gobbling it down. I was just feeding him with my finger and he couldn't get enough! Mostly banana and avocado. And you can tell that he "gets" swallowing now, whereas before he didn't know what to do with the food in his mouth. So now we're giving him some "meals" in the mornings and night time, and my boyfriend started to try lunches too (he stays home with DS).

Sometimes he's into it and sometimes he's not. He still won't eat for DP at lunch time. But we're not sweating it. And he really doesn't eat more than a TBSP in one sitting. He loves the boob, and will be BF for a long time as long as he wants it! I was nervous at first that he was maybe not developing his muscles in his mouth properly. But now I realize he's just going at his own pace. Don't let people talk you into pushing your baby into anything! He'll do it when he's ready.

[blumom2boyz]

Just follow your instincts. Our dd's are about the same age and M just started eating BLW-style. Not just a few weeks before, she didn't want anything but a spoon My 3rd born didn't have a taste of anything until he was a little over 9 months old.

You are an awesome mama and keep up the good work!

[emmaegbert]

yeah, don't worry about it. I'm living with baby #2 right now and she suddenly got very interested in food around 7 1/2 m. But her brother, who is 5 now, he refused it and hated it until close to 1- I tried for a while and then finally kind of gave up and just offered him bites of my food when he seemed interested. Same mom, same family, very different kids.

I haven't done purees w/ DD b/c it was such a PITA and waste of time and effort w/ DS and I ended up throwing stuff out and feeling demoralized about it (I was cooking all his food for him).

Big brother loves food now, eats everything, and is in the 95th percentile for height, 80th for weight. He BF until he was 2, was babyworn frequently as a baby, coslept, the whole nine yards. Now he is a vigorous, active, independent little 5yo fellow. And my worries about his not eating just seem like a dim memory. Trust yourself and your baby!

(and, go ahead and tell a sort of lie of omission to your M and MIL if you have to- "we offer her 2 meals a day and she eats as much as she wants to" lol, maybe she wants nothing?)