Weaning HELP!
Hi lovely parents, I really need so.help and advice. Currently sat here crying after another unsuccessful breakfast. My little girl is 27 weeks and we've been trying weaning for 4 weeks now and it's pretty much unsuccessful and I'm at my wits end. Her weight gain is still ok and I did ask at the health centre last week but I came away feeling like I was doing something wrong but also not knowing what I should be doing different.
LO is EBF and does take a bottle of expressed milk. We wake up and she'll play for about an hour then have some milk and play for an hour more before breakfast. We be tried baby rice, weetabix (both made with breast milk), yogurt and fruit, melon, banana and other fruits but she'll have about half a mouthful at most. We've tried both letting her feed herself and spoon feeding. She'll suck a bit of melon and have a small amount off the spoon but then really gets grumpy.
We then have snacks throughout the day which go slightly better. She eat a bit of bread stick and quite likes cucumber. She loves sucking on my apple cores when I'm done.
We then have the same drama at dinner. We keep trying new things but to no avail. She'll play with it but doesn't eat much.
Older family members aren't helping ("when you were little we started weaning at 3 months so by this age babies were happy eating and you knew they were getting all their nutrients". Great. Thanks. So helpful).
I'm starting to worry now that she's not getting enough food or is going to become a really fussy eater. She still breast feeds throughout the day happily.
We've tried eating all together and lots of praise.
Sorry for a long post. Really hope someone can help!
Replies
I could have written your exact post about 4 years ago!
My mum and MIL were pushing me and pushing me to wean my baby girl from about 5 months, and in all honesty, she just didin't give a crap about food until she was about 8 months old - no kidding, like you, she'd have a taste, but really didn't care. So, i realised stop putting so much pressure on myself and my baby.
Remember, weaning is about tasting food, starting to eat, it's not yet about them having 3 proper meals a day for quite some time - their main food source is still milk until baby turns one.
So i would say to you, please don't stress about this - your little one is just not that into food yet, but it will happen! I would scale things back - keep giving her milk as you usually would, maybe offer a little yogurt, and some finger food so she can chew on some toast, the apple slices (if she likes them, puree some apple or get a pouch so she can try it) but please don't stress honey, she will get thee, it just takes some babies longer than others.
BTW my daughter who didn't wean well at all now ADORES food. I would say at 9months old, she finally got it, so i'm sure your lg will get there too.
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply! That makes me feel so much better. I'll definitely try and be more relaxed about it and try and ignore everyone else. I think unexpected it to take a few weeks and then be ok. Thank you for putting my mind at rest!
What I would say is that food at this stage is just for fun. Babe doesn't actually NEED the nutrients from food as she is getting it all from her milk. Please try not to worry. For what it's worth, your food schedu8seems perfectly done to me! 💕🦄
I’d say the same as everyone else .. baby will want food when they feel ready until then it’s all about getting a taste for it. My little boy weened very easy to breakfast but everything else was very hard and still is now at 1 and a half some days he’ll eat everything some nothing.
keep going with purees and try a range of food and try not to get dis heartened it will happen My baby hated banana and now it’s his fav they just make it up as they go along like we do hehe