11 Month Old Does Not like to Be Fed for Solids/formula

Both Tori and Gramma are right. He is done with the bottle.

Sometimes you have to accept sensitive and cranky for a while in order to get a child to have better behavior.

Do you have Cheerios where you are, S.? If you do, Cheerios are really good to put on the high chair tray so that baby can learn to pick them up and eat them. They dissolve really well in their mouths too.

I don't know what cerelac is - most moms here in the states make cereal of some sort, like oatmeal. He's old enough to eat with his own little spoon. He will make a mess, but that's okay. If you can find a type of baby bowl that has a suction cup on the bottom that holds to the tray so that he can't knock it off while he's putting the spoon in it, that would help you. The trick is to only put a little food on his tray at a time. That way, if he throws it, there's not so much that goes in the floor.

Around this age, babies will eat just so long and then they are not interested anymore and want to explore their world. (That includes exploring food with throwing and putting in their hair!) So don't expect him to spend a lot of time eating. Now's the time to introduce the healthiest choices you can, but don't give him a lot of fruit. If you set up his taste buds now to get used to the taste of "sweet", he will not want the veggies or meat. Wait until he is more used to eating before giving him cut up fruits.

When he refuses food in the high chair, or starts to throw it, take the tray off, clean him up and put him down. When he wants some formula, put him in the high chair with his sippie cup, and work with him to drink it out of the sippie cup. Stay right there with him so that he doesn't bang the cup or throw it. Don't let him run around with the sippy. It's a bad habit to allow him to get.

If you act like it's the most important thing in the world to get him to eat, then he will realize that he can stage "hunger strikes" and you will run circles around him to get him to eat. Don't give him that power over you, S.. Instead, give him breakfast - sippy formula first (he needs the milk still), then cereal. Mid-morning, give him some vegetable chunks on his tray - cooked carrots, peas, short cut green beans, etc, cut up pieces of bread, Cheerios, that kind of thing. Lunch, same thing. Nap. After nap, more sippy cup and a snack. Dinner, sippy cup, food. Before bed, sippy cup.

After the 12 month mark, add some regular milk to his formula in his sippy cup. You probably don't want to change over to milk all at once because the taste is different. As he gets used to it, add a little more over time until the sippy cup is only milk. If you are still warming up his formula now, start warming it less and less until he is finally drinking cold formula. That will get him used to drinking milk out of the refrigerator.

Your doctor is right - it IS a behavioral issue. But truthfully, you are allowing it to be by being so nervous about it. He isn't going to starve, S.. He will act like it to get you to run circles around him. DON'T. Offer sippy milk &breakfast, sippy milk & snack, sippy milk & lunch, sippy milk & snack, sippy milk & dinner, and before bed, sippy milk. If he doesn't eat much at these intervals, take him out of the chair and don't give him anything in between. He will finally LEARN that THIS is when he eats and gets a sippy. Don't give him anything "standing". He has to be in his high chair for it.

It'll get better - you just have to establish the rules, S.. And don't worry about how he's playing with the food in his mouth right now. As long as you are offering healthy foods and giving him the sippy formula first, it will be okay.

Dawn

Dawn has it exactly right, as she often does! And so do Gramma and Tori. I agree that he's done with the bottle. Give him a sampling of different foods o his high chair tray. If you need to get a dish with a suction device on the bottom so he can't push it around, you can find them in any baby store, the baby section of a department store, or on line. Give him a soft spoon to feed himself but don't worry if he can't manage it too well at first.

Cheerios are the classic starter finger foods because they dissolve easily in the mouth so kids don't choke even if they don't really chew it. A lot of kids have trouble with new textures too, so experiment until you get it right. Just try a few different foods in small pieces so he can pick them up on his own. When he's done or if he starts throwing food, take the tray away, wipe off his hands and face, and smile saying "All done? Okay, lunch is all done." Then take him out of the chair and put the food away. He will not starve. When he is hungry he will eat. He may get cranky at first, but at 11 months old, he could go all day for a day and still not get sick or anything!

You can try a small dish of cereal mixed with milk - eat a spoonful yourself (or pretend to), say "Oh, it's so good! Want some?" and give him a spoonful to try. Don't push it, just offer it.

You can also try lots of vegetables like sweet potatoes and peas and cooked carrots, also pasta. For pasta, get a shape with some texture to it, such as rotini or wagon wheels - they are easier for him to pick up. Orzo is easier than rice. You could try a few fruits like blueberries or small pieces of very ripe cantaloupe or honeydew melon, but as Dawn says, if he gets a taste for sweets, it's harder to get him to try other things. Still you want meals to be pleasurable experiences. I also made French toast with a little cinnamon in the batter and not served with maple syrup - cut it up into cubes. It's pretty soft for a baby to sort of chew and sort of "gum it" before swallowing. Pieces of scrambled egg work too.

If he refuses food, he's done. It's okay if he doesn't like one or two things, but if he's refusing everything, that's a behavioral issue you want to address. Also, it takes kids about 8-10 tries with a food before they know if they really like it, so don't abandon something just because he doesn't like it the first few times. Instead of saying, "Oh, I guess you don't like that," say "Okay, not today? Maybe tomorrow!"

Let him try yogurt himself with his own spoon. My son did best with the spoons with the crooked handle so it was already angled a little towards his mouth. That way he didn't have to turn the spoon all the way around by himself. And put the food away in the refrigerator when he's done. Same thing with the sippy cup. You don't want the milk sitting around and getting warm, but it doesn't need to be thrown out if he's only had it on the tray for 10 minutes. Let him learn that food is in the fridge when he's hungry or thirsty. You can also give him water in a sippy cup at any time of the day.

It's okay to have 1 toy on the tray if that helps. We had a toy with a suction cup that was just for the high chair tray, not for any other play. It wasn't for throwing around, just for distraction and visual interest.

Good luck! Just try to keep things calm and try not to worry so much. I promise you that all our picky eater children survived and did not starve. With an infant, of course you worry if they don't eat. But 11 months is a whole new age group. And don't worry about him making a mess - he will spill things and get it all over his face and hair and hands. Just put a bib on him, and when you take it off, have a warm cloth ready to clean him off. Do it really really fast so it's not torture for him but he still gets clean enough that you don't have to worry about him getting stuff all over the furniture!

Ditto Tori. He's trying to tell you he's past the bottle, he needs a sippy. Move to whole milk. Give him solids and do not feed him, he can feed himself, hand him a spoon so he gets used to holding it, he doesn't have to use it yet. Throwing things, take it all away, meal is done. I don't know that it's so much behavioral as that he's learning, is trying to give you cues, and needs your guidance, example, boundaries and appropriate consequences to learn. Don't make it a struggle, take charge of the situation.

http://www.m.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/baby-development-11-...

I have never met a baby who sits at the table for mealtimes like a kid. I'm sure they exist... I've just never seen them.

2yo & 3yo? About half

MOST kids are noshing throughout the day. Small tummies, and other things to do.

Instead of playing this super exciting game of food battles & attention basking, why not just let him eat when he's hungry? And be a baby. Who has about a 3 minute attention span? Unless he has an extremely rare disorder, he'll eat when he's hungry. 'Meal times' don't seem to be it.

I would suggest rather than teaching him good manners, mealtimes are enforcing a bad pattern. Wait 6mo. THEN try mealtimes.

Okay, well he's almost a year old so you can start weaning off the formula and onto the milk. I'd ditch the bottle and get a sippy cup. I like the hard plastic Gerber ones the best. My kids loved milk, hopefully your son will too and it might make meal time a little easier. As far as food...I'd just give him solids. He's old enough to feed himself and if he doesn't like the purees anyway, just get rid of them. Cut up whatever you're eating and hopefully he'll develop some favorites. Favorites of my kids at that age were oatmeal, hot dogs, cheese, all kinds of fruit, Goldfish crackers, yogurt and cottage cheese. It's all a learning process and i know he's not eating much now, but give him the stuff and hopefully he'll eat more. Don't force it. Maybe put less in the cup and give it to him more often.

Are you concerned about his weight? Is the doctor? At this age, lots of kids would rather play that drink/eat. Some kids are more sensitive to new foods and experiences as well. My son never liked cherios. Gerber make a bunch of snacks that help a child get used to "real" food and feeding himself. If his weight has not suffered, maybe you have some unrealistic expecations? Another thing I would watch is "oral defensiveness". It may not be an issue but watch it because my son did great with baby food but never transitioned to "table food". It also played a role in his speech delay.