HI,
My daughter is 91/2 months old and is not interested in food at all. She just had her well baby visit and didn't gain any weight from the last visit. The doctor said she should be eating cereal for breakfast and before bed and a jar and a half of food for lunch and dinner. She started out ok but in the last couple of weeks she has virtually stopped eating. She still nurses but not as much and she will eat puffs if I give them to her but I can't get her to eat baby food at all. I've tried all kinds of different ones (after introducing one at a time like you're supposed to do) but she just turns her head or bats my hand down. I tried to just give her the spoon tonight to see if it was her asserting her independence but she still wouldn't eat. She gags on just about every food I give her. The doc said she needs to stay at Stage 2 because of the gagging but I dont' think it's a choke gag, I think it's a "yuck this is gross gag" because she makes terrible faces. So, I'm not sure what to do to get her to eat. How do you "make" a baby eat and what happens if she doesn't gain any weight at the next visit? I will say she is teething so could that be part of the problem? My son was completely opposite of her. He ate everything and we had no problems at all so I am baffled. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I probably should clarify....when I say "make" the baby eat, I don't mean it literally. I'm just concerned that the doc says she should be eating all this food but she's not interested. At what point should I be worried? She does look at our food and drink when we are eating but when it's baby food she wants nothing to do with it. I'm concerned about giving her table food because I don't think she's had enough experience with baby food yet to eat table food. I did try to cut up a banana for her last night and she put it in her mouth but spit it right back out after making a terrible face. It's like the tastes are too strong for her or something.
Breast milk is all she needs right now.. really. The docs won't tell you this, unless you are lucky. You can't get the same nutrients from food right now as from the milk. Don't worry, you are doing great!
If you're worried about weight gain push the breast milk, not the food-- it's a lot more densely packed with nutrients and calories than solid food. And I would try her on table foods-- you might be surprised! I think Isaac's favorite thing at that age was to gnaw on pizza crusts or frozen waffles....
She's not ready for a variety of foods yet, breastmilk should be her main source of nutrition. Let her eat the solid foods she likes, but if I remember correctly, my kids went through this too around 9-10months, but then WATCH OUT! In another few weeks she'll have you sitting on the couch nursing all day or eating everything she sees. I also never did jarred baby food. She is old enough to eat smashed up food from the table, as long as it's plain food, like real mashed potatoes with nothing added not from flakes. Babies have been fed table food not processed food for millenia ;) If all she is used to is the jarred food, that's why real food tastes strange to her.
One more thing you can try is holding her on your lap when you feed her, instead of putting her in a high chair. Let her graze off your plate of plain food, but don't push her to eat. Most importantly, be very nonchalant about it, don't push her to try new foods yet, and don't react strongly if she doesn't like something.
You do not make baby eat, you offer her the breast and stop offering table foods - soon enough you will be eating and she will want what you have then you move forward from there. I knew my son was ready - literally after the doc asked when I planned to start solids (6 mo visit) when I was nursing him while eating a Whataburger myself and he stopped nursing to try to take a bite of it while it was close to him! Later that night he got his first slurpy bites of avacado!
is there a reason "why" she can't have table foods? If she likes puffs, then why not just switch her to basic foods?
Even if she doesn't have many teeth, if the food is soft enough -she should be okay. I'm only saying to try this if you truly believe the gag/choking is related to "gross/yuck". :)
That sounds really frustrating (and worrying!). I have a 9 and a half month old too, and he eats stage 3 baby food and puffs, but gags on table food, no matter how little the pieces are or how soft. He loves the cereal most of all though. Do you mix it with breastmilk? You might try it pretty runny and see if she'll eat it if it tastes and is closer in consistency to breastmilk at first, if that works you can thicken it up as you go. At least that way she would be getting the iron and the extra calories from the cereal. I would just keep offering her foods, maybe pick one that she liked before and stick with offering that for a few days. My son would make an awful face whenever we would give him a new food until he'd had if for awhile, maybe switching to different things daily (or for meals) is throwing her off some. As for what your doc said to feed her, that seems like a lot. My son nurses for breakfast, he won't eat cereal after nursing in the morning and sleeps too late to nurse and then eat breakfast later, then nurses midmorning and has cereal (oatmeal, currently) and a fruit (either a smushed banana or a 1/2 jar of st. 3 baby food) for lunch, then he nurses late afternoon and has 1/2 jar of meat baby food and veggies (either 1/2 jar, or a serving that I've made) for dinner. He nurses again before bed and that is our day! So he basically gets 2 meals of food a day, he's 21.5 lbs and has always been a big baby so I'm not worried about him missing the extra meal. Good luck, I hope she gets her appetite back!
Have you tried baby food - it IS gross. If she is interested in what you are eating - feed her that. Just make sure it is a soft enough texture and appropriate size for her. Also no honey until she is 12 months old. Also - she may be much more interested in 'finger' foods (whether or not they should be finger foods) or playing with the spoon herself. And yes, it is way messier.
You'll know she's ready when she steals food off your plate! Also, I made my own baby food for easy stuff--pears, carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes. The jarred stuff grosses me out! Other stuff I just mashed. My son loved "popped" peas at that age--I'd just squish them a bit and let him go to town. Or thawed frozen blueberries.
If I thought they needed to eat a filling meal, I mixed baby oatmeal with fruit puree--like applesauce or the pear puree I made.
Please don't let the doctor freak you out! If she's breastfeeding on demand, she's getting what she needs. And a lot of babies don't gain when they start really moving around.
I'd just switch her to table food. My youngest never liked baby food at all! I started giving her table food at 7 months and she's now a super healthy, tall, smart little devil. :)
Avacados are a great start, noodles, steamed veggies, toast, etc.
Our oldest did that for a while. My husband added cinnamon to the rice cereal, and then he did fine. Maybe try to add spices and see if that helps. Also, we used a baby medicine syringe to get our oldest to eat because he wouldn't open his mouth. We put the syringe in the corner of his mouth and aimed the food at his cheek. He started eating a lot better after that. (Iit sounds mean, but we just put a little bit in his mouth at each time. He would gum it for a bit and then swallow.)
