Advice from those who waited to start solids after 12 months

[Lishi26]

Looking for stories and advice from those who waited to start solids till you little one was 12 months old.

[phathui5]

Did you have delayed cord clamping at the birth?

[Lishi26]

Yes, but what does that have to do with solids?

[BabySmurf]

I was just lurking through here, since we are due again in the late spring/early summer....anyway, my LO started eating solids really late, but not because it was my idea.  I offered him food around 6 months, knowing full well that he would mostly just play, which he did.  He would occasionally taste, but not really eat.  Sometimes he would go to town mowing on some meat, only to spit it out a little while later.  My son had a lot of food intolerances and leaky gut issues, so he would eat a bit for a week or so, then nothing for months.  He became more interested right around a year, but would still go through cycles of eating a bit and nursing exclusively. 

While I totally agree with the "food is fun before one" idea, there are a lot of vitamins and minerals that babies need, even if it's just in trace amounts, that aren't accessible enough in breast milk alone.  They get those nutrients by experimenting with food, so I wouldn't not allow your LO near food because of your own ideals.  Babies have really good instincts about what they need to be doing, and I think that we should be allowing them to follow those instincts.  Some kids really aren't interested in food until one or even later, but I believe that is because they are following their instincts to allow their guts to heal/mature enough to handle solids.  But even those kids usually experiment a little bit, even if they aren't eating a lot (and therefore they are getting nutrients).  This is one of those things where I feel like it's not outside the realm of normal for babies to not be interested in food until after one, but if your child IS interested, then I think that we should be allowing them to eat (healthy foods, not fruity num num things). 

I think iron is a specific concern (but also trace minerals like zinc, magnesium, etc), and if I remember correctly the iron stores are built up from birth, so the cord blood...so maybe PP was asking if you had delayed cord clamping to estimate whether or not your LO would have enough iron??? Just throwing that out there.

HTH!

[Lishi26]

I hope that this doesnt come across as snarky or defensive, I don't mean it to be:

Supplement wise I've been taking more to be able to give my son the minerals he would need. Getting it from the small amount of food he might play with doesn't seem like it will give him what he needs. He's charting we'll and is 11-1/2 months and has had zero interest until now which we've been letting him explore. But I didn't want to introduce early in fear of intolerance. As I have many due to early food introduction where as my brothers who were delayed and breast fed do not.

Not looking for what I should do at what age and why. Looking for what others who've waited have done and how they went about it. Since I'm already there. Thanks.

[BabySmurf]

Originally Posted by Lishi26 

I hope that this doesnt come across as snarky or defensive, I don't mean it to be:
Supplement wise I've been taking more to be able to give my son the minerals he would need. Getting it from the small amount of food he might play with doesn't seem like it will give him what he needs. He's charting we'll and is 11-1/2 months and has had zero interest until now which we've been letting him explore. But I didn't want to introduce early in fear of intolerance. As I have many due to early food introduction where as my brothers who were delayed and breast fed do not.
Not looking for what I should do at what age and why. Looking for what others who've waited have done and how they went about it. Since I'm already there. Thanks.

I didn't want to put you on the defensive at all :) I just wanted to point out a few issues that get brought up in terms of introducing late.  Like I said, we have been living through all of the food intolerances and the second guessing, etc, and that's the last thing I want to make you do. 

It sounds like you've been letting him take the lead, and I would recommend continuing that.  We try to stick to a traditional foods style of eating (specifically a GAPS/Paleo hybrid) to make sure that the food that he did eat was very nutrient dense and easy to digest.  My DS only ate one meal per day on occasion and some snacks up until I recently got pregnant, then he dived into eating three meals per day plus snacks.  He just turned two. 

If you are keeping yourself healthy, and offer LO a variety of healthy foods, then just try to enjoy the ride. 

The other thing that happened with my DS is that he will go on binges of certain types of food until he gets what he needs, then he won't touch it for a while.  He doesn't like fruit.  He does like fermented foods.  He went through a phase of asking for the fermented cod liver oil, but won't go near it at this moment.  So I guess my advice would be variety, and don't assume that he will or will not like things...And don't be afraid to offer a food again, even if he refuses it once.  Gotta run!

[Lishi26]

That makes sense. He still isn't totally interested. I just try to intake good supplements for both of us and let him explore. He enjoys water out of a cup so I let him get that when he wants it. We'll see about food.

[loveandgarbage]

Neither of my kids ate much in the way of solids until they were 1.5 or so. This was a combination of us purposely delaying and also that they just plain weren't interested. If my kids had been trying to grab food off my plate (as some babies do) I would've let them experiment, but it wasn't an issue. I think there are a lot of posts on MDC about this-- I remember reading some years ago and maybe they're still searchable. Anyway, I never felt the need to shove pureed food in my kids' mouths because they seemed happy with my milk and also were growing/thriving. Before I found out about delaying solids I gave DS1 some sweet potatoes at around 6 months and he just smeared it everywhere. He didn't want it in his mouth.

Iron and vitamin D are definitely things to be aware of, but I think if the nursing mama is getting good nutrition, the babies should be fine. Although I personally wasn't supplementing as much as I should've with D and iron and ended up very low in those two areas at the end of my 4+ yr nursing stint. At about a year my younger son tested low for iron so I upped my intake and he was fine.

My kids don't have any allergies. But I know mamas who have done the same thing (nursed on demand throughout toddlerhood, delayed solids, etc) and their kids have allergies. So I think delaying solids can help in that regard, but there are of course other factors as well.