weaning a baby uniterested in milk or solids....
in Baby
hi ladies, I'm just wondering if anyone has had experience of this or can offer some advice.
My little boy will be 26 weeks next week and I know we need to attempt to start weaning. The problem is he has always been a dreadful feeder. He was in hospital for 2 seperate weeks between 8 and 12 weeks as he would scream, arch his back whilst bottle feed (or as soon as you laid him in feeding position) and basically refuse. After many treatments for reflux and hypoallergenic milk failed, we were left to get on with it and basically his given up on by doctors and told his feeding probs are behavioural. This meant for nearly 3 months i had to do what is called 'sleep feed' - he would only take formula when half asleep (this was not same as dream feeding). It was a terribly stressful time - hence his weight gain has not been good as would only take 3oz about 5 times a day. Thankfully he seems to be growing out of this as will now let us feed him in his bouncy chair but we often have to use something to distract him to get him to keep eating (he takes much less than the recommended formula still and is on a special dense milk and under care of a dietician). My worry is that I tried puree weaning on advice from HV at 17 weeks, but after a week of doing well, he stopped opening his mouth for the spoon and I felt I was forcing it in, so we stopped becasue I didn't want same problems with solids. Now he's getting to be 6 months I worry as he shows little interest in food still. I'm hoping to go BLW as hopefully if he has control he will take to it more but I just don't feel the interest is there as he still has little interest in milk.
We eat infront of him as much as possible and he sits in his bumbo on the floor with us whilst we eat tea. Any food I put infront of him gets brushed onto the floor or if he does put it in his mouth he just spits it out. He does put toys/hands in his mouth though.
Has anyone come across this before and had success?
When you do BLW do they often just play and squish the food about before actually eating?
It's just so hard as for the past 6 months I've read about how much milk everyone else's baby is guzzling and now they are gulping down whole jars of food and my boy is still barely taking what a 2 month old would and even then he needs coercing into doing that
PS my HV are rubbish so that's a no go!!
Many thanks
Suz and Josh :? :roll:
My little boy will be 26 weeks next week and I know we need to attempt to start weaning. The problem is he has always been a dreadful feeder. He was in hospital for 2 seperate weeks between 8 and 12 weeks as he would scream, arch his back whilst bottle feed (or as soon as you laid him in feeding position) and basically refuse. After many treatments for reflux and hypoallergenic milk failed, we were left to get on with it and basically his given up on by doctors and told his feeding probs are behavioural. This meant for nearly 3 months i had to do what is called 'sleep feed' - he would only take formula when half asleep (this was not same as dream feeding). It was a terribly stressful time - hence his weight gain has not been good as would only take 3oz about 5 times a day. Thankfully he seems to be growing out of this as will now let us feed him in his bouncy chair but we often have to use something to distract him to get him to keep eating (he takes much less than the recommended formula still and is on a special dense milk and under care of a dietician). My worry is that I tried puree weaning on advice from HV at 17 weeks, but after a week of doing well, he stopped opening his mouth for the spoon and I felt I was forcing it in, so we stopped becasue I didn't want same problems with solids. Now he's getting to be 6 months I worry as he shows little interest in food still. I'm hoping to go BLW as hopefully if he has control he will take to it more but I just don't feel the interest is there as he still has little interest in milk.
We eat infront of him as much as possible and he sits in his bumbo on the floor with us whilst we eat tea. Any food I put infront of him gets brushed onto the floor or if he does put it in his mouth he just spits it out. He does put toys/hands in his mouth though.
Has anyone come across this before and had success?
When you do BLW do they often just play and squish the food about before actually eating?
It's just so hard as for the past 6 months I've read about how much milk everyone else's baby is guzzling and now they are gulping down whole jars of food and my boy is still barely taking what a 2 month old would and even then he needs coercing into doing that
PS my HV are rubbish so that's a no go!!
Many thanks
Suz and Josh :? :roll:
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Replies
However today we finally had some success! For the last few days i have put the spoon in his mouth and held it there, slightly raised at the end and he kind of sucked the food off the spoon and it was as though something clicked and he understood, then today it was mouth open, in, swallow, mouth open!
I guess it just takes a while for them to 'get it' although Joshies problems are obviously much more serious than Freddies but over the last few days he hasnt messed with his bottle either??
Hope someone can help you hun x x x
Since doing it, she is more interested in our food than she used to be, and we are starting to do bits of BLW too she is eating tiny corners of toasted cheese etc and her afternoon feed is now a snack of banana pieces etc with some follow on milk in a sippy cup.
As a point of interest, I am trying her on Hipp Organic follow on milk atm from Aptimal First, and she LOVES it. Maybe they get p'd off sometimes with the taste of the milk?!
Abby (2 yrs), on the other hand, is an excellent eater and I put that down to her never being forced or coerced into eating anything. If she just wants to eat chips one meal we let her as we know she will eat extra vegetables the next day. I'm hoping Charlie will pick up a relaxed attitude to food from her.
H xx
He was watching my eat a pizza last night with interest so I let him have a bit of the tomato sacue off my finger and he loved it!! I'm a bad mummy - he's had chocolate, pizza and yoghurt so far!!
Interesting that other have had the lack of mouth opening and fussing - maybe I'll give it another go in a few weeks, just scared incase it turns into aversion.
Blondefriend - I can empathise with your situation - they were talking of an NG tube for Josh when he was in hospital and screaming whilst fighting off bottle. Luckily we have kinda of turned him around although far from perfect still. I'd be happy to chat/email more if you wished. I hope you have found websites like littlerefluxers as there are other mums with tube fed babies on there. I am also part of a facebook support group for mums of reflux babies and also have lots of good links to similar sites with people with problems.
My LO is 16 months now but I could have written your post at 6 months. It's so hard and I think people who haven't experienced this can never fully understand what it's like. My LO barely drank anything, and even the small amount she took was such a struggle. She'd drink fine in the night though when she was sleepy. It was hell. No one else had a similar problem and HV etc was useless. We were advised to wean at 17 weeks but felt it was bad advice and held out to 24 weeks. She didn't get diagnosed with SR until 23 weeks when I switched to formula and they couldn't fob me off with 'oh it must be your flow/supply etc' anymore. By then she truly related feeding with pain.
I won't lie, weaning was a nightmare. We did a mix of purees and finger foods. We had to do A LOT of persuading to eat. Making her laugh and quickly shoving a spoon in. Was awful and I didn't know what to do. BUT at about 10 months something just clicked.
I think she finally 'got' finger foods, and by that age was able to eat more interesting things so it had more appeal. She's still a very fussy eater. Won't eat any veg, will only eat what she likes best. Won't eat anything wet and lumpy like bolognese. Everything has to be quite dry and bite-able. Like chicken pieces, waffles, toast, cheese etc. But it's soooooo much better than it was and I don't feel as stressed about it anymore.
He will get there. My main advice is to try to make feeding fun. My LO hated the highchair at first so we would let her eat on the floor and made it into a litle floor picnic event so it was fun to eat. And we make a massive fuss when she eats well, but try to ignore her when she starts throwing things. Also try to eat the same as him. Sometimes my LO won't eat something but if I take a bite of it she will then want it! hehehe!
A lot of people struggle with weaning, even if they had really good milk drinkers. It must be so new and bizarre to them. But it will come. It might be that he's fussy like mine, but you will work out what he likes to eat and he won't starve himself.
Email me if you want to talk about this more.
Then at 7.5 months it all just suddenly clicked and he started eating 3 meals a day plus snacks, feeding himself, and eating anything put in front of him. So you may find that going gently and just offering little amounts and not pressuring your LO will mean than in a month or so he will do exactly the same.
Little buggers just like to wind us up I think.
Anyway as for the weaning - I expect it will be hard work - he's a beautiful boy but he sure makes me work hard for it! I shall be going back to work in April, he will be nearly 9 months and he will be in nursery a few days a week so I'm hoping something will click then when he see's other babies eating. Until then I shall persevere with sharing my food, sitting him with us and next week when he's 6 months I shall have another go a weaning with a mix of puree and finger foods (whatever he will eat basically!). oh and turn into mummy the entertainer again!!!
Thanks for the advice. I'm part of a FB group which is pretty newly set up and have made contact with another lady through a friend who is currently going through hell sleep feeding so it's nice to give a bit of support having began to emerge through the other side. If anyone wishes to join or work with me to offer as much support to others please feel free to get intouch.
Suz x