8 Month Old Does Not like Eating

Hi M.,

My son was born at the 50th percentile and dropped down to the 3rd when he was 5 months old. He had the 2 million dollar work up to find out what was wrong with him and why he wouldn't eat or drink anymore. Doctors would not listen because he looked healthy and had good fat stores on him. I kept bringing him to the pedi week after week starting at 3 months when he started refusing to breastfeed and would scream in agony, arch his back and was clearly in pain. The docs would not listen saying that he will eat when he is hungry and not to worry because he will not starve himself. But in fact, he was. he would only breastfeed for 2 minutes and be done. Finally I did some research and we learned that my son had severe silent reflux as well as a milk protein and soy allergy that was causing him pain when he drank. By that time he had already given up on food and milk and was basically starving himself. They said don't worry he will eat when he wants to, but he went 2 whole days with nothing at all once and that is when i knew this was not normal. Because he no longer wanted to drink we would push food on him over and over and keep offering. He then also became completely aversive to the spoon and food as well. We were making it worse for him by pushing him to eat to make up for not drinking anymore. That is the worst thing you can do. He is 13 months now and we are still struggling to get him to eat although now after much feeding therapy and 6 teeth later, he will eat cheerios for breakfast and chicken, steak and lamb, but will never go near a glass of milk or anything smooth in texture like yogurt, etc.

Because your baby is breastfeeding and doing it well, you don't have much to worry about. Your daughter is getting the best from you right now and is still young. Breast milk should still be her main source of nutrition until she turns one and food right now should be fun and for practice. it is for skill building. Don't push her too hard to eat her solids. I would hate for her to become aversive like my son is to solids. Keep offering them to her and keep trying new things with her until you find something she likes. When my son turned 8 months old, we taught him how to drink from a squeezable straw cup. If you are worried about your daughter's weight, I wouldn't give her water. I would try some juice or breast milk in a sippy cup. Or you can add breast milk to some water if you like. or try some juice. You can also add cereal to breast milk since it breaks the cereal down to a liquid and try giving that to her to drink. Also, babies are really not ready for solid foods until they get teeth. if your daughter doesn't have any teeth yet it could just be a sign that he body is not ready for solids yet. At 8 months, my son had 3 teeth so we started giving him small pieces of chicken and lamb or beef. He loved it. To this day, that is the only thing he will eat, even though it is not much, but he will eat some. he loves it. It is definitely a texture thing with my son as well. But you could try a tiny piece of chicken and see what she does with it. See if she moves it around in her mouth. Her saliva will soften it and break it down before she swallows it. The other thing you might want to try with he to develop her eating skills is veggie stix by nature's promise. kids love these! They are great for skill building and self feeding. My son always wanted to be in control and loves that he can do these by himself. We started these around 8 months as well as the gerber puffs to help learn to pick things up. Because he had a few teeth, he also loved biting and crunching on them. good luck to you both. Like someone else said, if she consistently stays in the same percentile and growth pattern, then she is fine. Just keep offering without pushing solids on her and make it fun! But if you are worried about anything else going on, you can ask Early Intervention to evaluate her and see if she may have oral motor delays. Don't want to scare you just wanted you to know that if you think she is delayed or there is a reason she won't eat, there is help out there. I am only telling you this because i wish i had known about a lot of things much earlier than i did. I don't pretend to know your situation, and I'm sure everything is fine with her since she is drinking your breast milk, just wanted to put it out there. Best of luck and happy feeding!

Oh I also wanted to mention that even if by age 1 your daughter is still not interested in food as much as you'd hoped for, just keep breastfeeding her. breast milk is smart and changes according to your daughter's nutritional needs. The WHO recommends breastfeeding until age 2 anyway, so if you don't mind doing longer than the AAP's recommended 1 year, then keep at it and you'll know that she is getting everything she needs until she is ready for solid foods.

E.

Until the age of one breast milk or formula is a babies main source of nutrition. The different stages and types of baby food are mainly for your daughter to learn to eat solids and to test new things out. It might be a texture issue that she doesn't want to eat. She's 8 months old she might be ready to try something more solid try a very ripe banana, some diced up cooked veggies so they are very soft, sweet potatoes were a big hit w/ both of my boys, yo baby yogurt, fruit or veggie gerber puffs they disolve almost as soon as they are in their mouth. Just keep trying new things and offering food a few timesa day (2-3) she won't nurse forever so enjoy nursing her while she still wants to. Good luck.

Hi-

I have a 10 month old daughter who refuses to eat (still); I've been trying since she was 6 months old. Only in the past 2 weeks have we gotten her to accept rice cereal and oatmeal. I told my pediatrician at her 9 month visit, and he said that babies are fine getting all of their nutrition from breastmilk or formula until they're about a year old. If your pediatrician thinks that your daughter's weight is fine where she is, then I wouldn't stress out about it. I just try to make meal time fun so that when she gets older, she doesn't associate food with an emotional struggle. If my daughter gives me signs that she's frustrated with eating (spitting, scowling) I just stop. I found that my daughter is more likely to eat if I try feeding her before a bottle (i.e. when she's on an empty stomach), otherwise she has no interest. I recommend continue trying to feed her, b/c it just takes repeated exposure for some babies to accept food, but if it's becoming stressful, give her a break and come back to it in a week or so. I only recently got over my emotional angst about my daughter not eating, but I just have to believe that it will work itself out with time!

HI M.,

I understand your concerns. For the most part, know that breast milk is where she is going to get her nutrition and calories at this age (and for atleast the first year). Right now, mealtimes are all about exploring new tastes, textures and "practicing" newly developing oral motor skills. That being said, it is obviously something you have a concern about to some degree. I would recommend you refer her to Birth to Three by calling "211" on your home phone. Follow the prompts to the Birth to Three Program and tell the person on the other end you are concerned about her feeding skills. You can have an evaluation free of charge. That evaluation will assess her overall development and includes feeding. The referral is then passed on to a Birth to Three agency and they call you to schedule it. If their is something to be concerned with, they will let you know after watching her eat. This will hopefully rule out any functional problem and bring you some peace of mind if you are inlcined to "wait and see". I also recommend you discuss your concerns with your pediatrician. Reflux can be an issue and your daughter doesn't have to be vomiting to have it. Trust your instincts.

Best of Luck from a Mom of two toddlers who is also a Birth to Three therapist!

I don't want to pretend to be an expert, but here are a few thoughts:
all the solid foods we give them are much less readily digestible than breastmilk - breastmilk is still their major source of calories and nutrients. the "real" food is mainly for exploration of taste and texture.
you could start trying some finger foods - chunks or spears of frozen banana, little made-for-babies cookies/cereal, baby biscuits, chunks of steamed carrots. that might make it fun for the baby.
my daughter (11 mo) has always been a snacker, so we just try often with the food and try a new food before ending a meal when she expresses being done with the first one.
just ask your doc if they are concerned about the baby's weight gain. maybe it's not supposed to be increasing so quickly during this time...

I agree with what most of the posters here have said. She is still young, so breastmilk is a great source of nutrients and she is otherwise healthy. I would just offer her different foods every week and she will warm to them in her own time. My sister has the same issue with her son, who is now 5. He is a very picky eater...only fruits, some vegetables and occasional pizza or hamburger. He has always been in the lower percentiles for weight, but is otherwise healthy. The only time for concern is if he gets a stomach bug because he is easily dehydrated and doesn't really have any fat stores. So, if your daughter should catch a flu or bad cold this season, watch her very closely for signs of dehydration.

Best of luck!

M.,

First breastmilk should absolutely be her main source of calories for her first year. She's only 8 months so I wouldn't worry about her not being interested in the solids just yet. Also try not to make it a struggle as a mom I know once said "eating is the one thing they are in total control of" this statement is completely true.
Have you tried giving her a spoon while you feed her? Giving her some Gerber puffs that disolve in her mouth also might keep her hands distracted so you can feed her. Sometimes she wants to feed herself and sometimes she is OK with me feeding her. Also make the situation social, eat at the same time as her and don't pay 100% attention to her. It sounds funny but they need time to digest as they eat. It generally takes my daughter 1/2 hour to eat. She plays a little, eats a little, drinks a little and plays a little more. Basically the more you push the more they will push back.
T.B. Brazelton has a book called Touchpoints. This is a really good book to read about babies and their eating issues/ideas.
As for the foods keep trying new things she will either not like it or like it but don't give up on the first try. One baby in our play group always changes her mind on the third try. If she didn't like it she will like it after having it 3x and if she liked it she doesn't seem to want or like it anymore after 3x. So keep up with it.
Also another mom went thru making her own food to buying food and trying 3 different brands before her daughter would eat for her.
With the cereal is she on rice cereal? Have you tried oatmeal to relieve the constipation? How about Yobaby plain organic whole milk yogurt? I daughter LOVES this - add fruit on the side. The ones with the fruit have too much sugar. This is REALLY good for them because it has a lot of good fat for them.
Another item to try is avocado - really good in the good fat category but maybe a challenge for the texture. You can try cutting it into small pieces or first scrape it with a spoon and give it to her that way or mix it with fruit.
Hummus is good to try. Small piece of cheese is also good. Basically she may prefer to feed herself.

I hope this helps,
L.

Hi,
My son was the same way...he will be two next month and he was never a big eater, he still has his days but he is much, much better now. He has always been on the smaller side as well (25th percentile) but he really did better when we started introducing more of the adult menu...he didn't even do well with the bottles, he seriously never drank more than a 4 oz. bottle up til he was done with bottles at a year old! Don't worry, your child WILL eat if hungry and she will probably be like my son and become more interested when you introduce foods more along the lines of what you are eating :). Good luck!

M.
this is only a phase it will pass.It takes time & patients to figure things out whent it comes to intorducing solids to your child and alot of advice from other people to see how they handled it thats how I got throught my struggle.
I have a 1 year old who myself has had tons of struggle when it came to introducing solids to his diet,I had started giving him baby food earlier than you because the bottle was not enough and he did not like the cereal & already had teeth coming in at like 3-4 months of age.
my son had a problem with me feeding him any of the food so I just put the food on the table and let him use his hands to figure it out because that is what they want to do at that age,its aslo a texture/ taste thing they may not like the food that you give them right away so give them the food they like with a food they dont like and see what she does with that evetually like my son they will love to eat everything and anything and stop being a pickey / not wanting to eat , because now my sons love all fruits/ veggies, and meats. She still needs her nutrtions from you breast milk but she now needs more of the nutritions from the solids also. She will slowly gain the weight that your worried she hasnt agined while not eating fatre eventually wating the solids.Let me give you some more advice giving her brest milk up to a year is good but dont give that to her after a year because they need the regular milk and it will be hard to get her off your milk and onto another so start introduing her to a sippie cup full of your milk /water as soon as you can because the sooner you do that the easier it will be in the transition for her and you as she turns 1 , it will be hard believe me it took a couple of months of getting him off the bottle but I only gave him formula once a day in a bottle and or I warmed regukar milk up in a sippe for him, or gave him other things like jucie and water sippe cup which made my life much easier cause he started to sleep through the night after he no longer had a bottle, plus you both will get more sleep as you get her onto a sippie cup and off the breast, and if this still keeps happening with her not wanting to eat call her peditrician and have her checked out because it may have something to do with her not digesting her food properly.
Good Luck and I hope that everything turns out ok for you on this situation.

She is nutritionally fine on breastmilk until a year. Give her some foods to practice chewing, but don't stress about it. My 11mo son is only now starting to eat solids without making a fuss about it.

Also, don't worry about her being in the 20th/30th percentile. It actually doesn't matter much what percentile your baby is so long as they don't drop to a much lower percentile. If she's consistently staying between the 20th and 30th percentile lines and meeting her developmental milestones it is probably just that she has a slimmer build.

My 10 month old son was very similar to your daughter with his dislike of baby food right off the bat. I agree with the other Mom who suggested to give her regular food if you can. One thing that truly helps out at meals is to give him a spoon/bowl/toy to play with while I feed him along with some finger foods (maybe it's a control thing). Also, after a few days of the same food I noticed that he wasn't having it anymore...so I'm always trying to think of new things for him to eat. Sometimes I'll just put some of our meal into baby cereal and that's enough to get him to eat. Tonight I put the turkey chili into baby cereal and he ate a good amount of it. Black Olives have been a favorite for about a month and that was when he really wasn't eating a lot of solids. These little people are so much fun to figure out.

Went through the same thing. My daughter is now 15 months. My non-medical opinion is that it is important to keep trying as they just need to learn the skill of eating. My daughter actually had a texture issue and gagged on food all the time. Thankfully she is over it but we would practice every day. She still got most of her nutrition from breast/formula. My daughter was also in the 20th percentile but now at 15 months she is in the 50th. It was silly too as she looked so chunky but then they would say her weight was in the 20%. So don't go by that.
Also, try giving her a spoon. That helped. They want to try it themselves. So if she has a spoon to play with or try herself and you have a spoon sometimes they are more apt to let you feed them. Worth trying.

Honestly the breastmilk or formula at this age should still be her main source of food. That's where she's going to get the most nutrients. Have you tried the baby food yourself though? Would you eat it? Have you tried making your own pureed foods for her? She just might prefer eating whatever you are eating. And if not I wouldn't worry too much. Things will probably change once she gets teeth and can actually eat table foods. If her weight isn't an issue really and she's still taking a lot of breastmilk I wouldn't worry about it.

It's my non-medical opinion that your child will eat when she is hungry and that you should not worry about it. I wouldn't push the issue -- no matter how much you want to. Offer the food and if she woun't eat it -- she's done. My three year old has been like that since we intrduced solid foods at 6 mo. She was always in the lower 10% for weight but always very healthy. She just has never eaten much. She can go days without eating a thing especailly if i make something that she doesn't like.

I have brought her to the dr's several times over her 3 years b/c she just will not eat and every time the doctor has said that she is healthy and IS gaining (if only a little) and that if i push the issue all i'm going to do is cause her to have food problems when she gets older.

So we let it go. She refuses any kind of veggies except frozen peas that she snacks on, will eat few fruits (canned peaches mostly), she will eat mac and cz, peanut butter and jelly sandwitches, pizza and ckn nuggets -- and even these foods are touch and go --and that is about it. I generally will make her one of the foods she will eat every other day (more to make ME feel better) and the rest of the time she gets whatever the rest of us get.

It is a wee bit unusual for an eight month old not to eat well. That being said, babies were exclusively nursed until nearly two years old for hundreds and hundreds of years and obviously thrived as there is still a human race, yes?
In my day many mothers only nursed until the baby was between one and two. Either they could not afford jarred baby food or they had such large families they did not have time to sit and spoon feed baby.
If you eat a healthy well balanced diet then she should be just fine on just breast milk.
I think I would expand the variety of food offered her. Some babies simply do NOT like baby food. My three year old grandson barely tolorated it and at four and half months went on table food. His ped was a bit shocked but supportive, his Mum did not know what to think when I told her ( many times) her baby was hungry for real food.
A baby anything can eat most of what it's parent eats if it is ground , mashed up fine enough. Potatoes and bit of gravy..mashed veggies ( not baby food ones) a mashed up boiled egg, meat cut up teensy weensy. Bananas and peanut butter, sweet potatoes, rice cooked soft and mashed, a small sprinkle of salt and bit of real butter for flavor. I do not believe in using margerine as I think it is very bad for one. Small bit of real butter has to be better than lots of chemicals..Ect Ect.
The grandson loved to suck on a bit of orange and grapefruit. He was very fond of ( peeled and seeded) grapes.
A bit of moisture in whatever they are eating helps when there are no teeth.
Some finger foods are great, the cheerios thingys, vienna sausage . They like to do things themselves. Their little gums are quite hard and capable of handling soft foods. If they gag just tip them over, give them bit of gravity to help get it out. Happens all the time.
Children develope at their own pace and it is so futile to worry if some other child is doing something last week or a month before your angel.
Ok, if her weight is considerably low, IF she is NOT gaining weight, then I would present the situation to the doc and have it checked out.
If your doctor is not concerned then perhaps, neither should you be. She may be just a dainty little girl with a slender frame.
I understand the concern but honey, relax a bit . I dont know the last time I heard of a child starving itself to death.
Think out of the box, get creative, and try her on something other than baby food. See how it goes.
Wishing you the best and God bless
Grandmother Lowell

Hi M.: My 9 1/2 mos old has also been so-so about foods since we started, is exclusively breastfed (no bottles or formula) and is low on the percentile chart. She is also very active, bright, alert and has a wonderfully sunny disposition -- exudes health. There are some things she loves and I am realizing that she actually prefers "real" food rather than baby food. Here are some suggestions: Yogurt (whole milk plain), cottage cheese, kiwi, banana, hummus, pureed bean soup/chili, butternut squash soup, scrambled eggs with cheese added, and today we tried grilled cheese (broken into tiny pieces as she loves finger food). She also loves cheerios (I buy cascadian farm which is an organic brand and it doesn't have sugar added). Breastmilk is a perfectly balanced food and so it is important to still nurse as much as possible!! There are many babies who are slow to gain interest in solids and we just don't hear about it. Breastfeeding is wonderful for so many reasons. Also, try not to force the food; it's not worth it. It will only encourage control issues around food and not beneficial to your child. Better to have meal time be relaxed and try to offer a combo of finger foods and spoonfood so that you can feel comfortable with quantity of what goes in. Oh, and my pedi suggested adding butter/olive oil/canola oil to food to boost calories.
If you need more reassurance, contact La Leche League -- they are a breastfeeding support organization with very knowledgeable folks who can provide you with encouragement and support.
Take care,
C.