10.5 Month - Eating Enough Solids?

[FrankiesMom12]

Hi Ladies - The two areas I find most mysterious in motherhood are sleeping and eating (hence the number of times Becky has helped me out in the sleeping forum).  I'm trying to figure out if my 10.5 month old son is eating enough solids.  I'm also REALLY struggling with introducing finger foods as I'm really anxious about choking.  I am breast feeding; however, I plan to start the weaning process at a year.  I do plan to do a relatively slow wean, removing one nursing session every few weeks.  I'm also anxious about this as my son truly refuses to drink breast milk from a bottle or sippy cup and generally drinks just a bit of water from the sippy cup (I know this is OK for  now as he's getting most of his hydration needs through my breastmilk).

The good news is my son is a GREAT eater.  He really enjoys purees, and even the few finger foods I've given him.  He's getting really great at the pincer grasp, and I just need some general help around whether or not I'm first, feeding him enough solids and secondly, advice around table foods.  In terms of the purees I've giving him, I generally have done jarred organic purees and recently started to make some of my own meat-based purees with a thicker texture than the jarred ones offer.  He struggles through the homemade purees, and I'm not sure if my expectations are out-of-whack and perhaps I'm making them too thick.  (He tends to take the puree into his mouth, but won't swallow it unless I offer him a bite of a much looser jarred puree or some yogurt.)  Below is his feeding schedule:

06:30 - Nurse
08:00 - Solids; 2 tbsp cereal mixed with 4 ounces of fruit puree (jarred)
11:00 - Nurse
12:00 - Solids; 2 tbsp cereal mixed with 4 - 4.5 ounces of fruit/veg puree (jarred); slice of cheese broken-up for him to feed himself
3:00 - Nurse
4:30 - Solids; 4 - 4.5 ounces of meat/veg puree (sometimes homemade, sometimes jarred); 2 - 3 ounces of full fat yogurt; sometimes I will give him a meatball I made broken-up for him to feed himself.
6:10 - Nurse
02:00 - Nurse (he actually skipped this session and slept through the night 2 times the past week which is very new for him)

I will also give him puffs, a rusk, a teething biscuit, etc. after his lunch or dinner while I prep the "adult" meal for dinner.

Thanks for your help!

[<Catherine>]

Bumping for you

[creations]

If you are anxious about choking can you take a short paediatric first aid course so you can see/practise what to do in case of an incident?  My friend's kid choked on a water bottle at age 14yrs (whilst at school) and was rushed to hospital, all very very scary, she was fine in the end but it really highlighted to me that people choke at any age and on the things we fear least.  It could be that your anxiety is being picked up by LO so he might be reluctant to really go for it with the family meals, they really do follow our lead on what is safe and what is not.
The home made purees that he is not keen on might be due to different taste rather than texture if he is used to jarred foods.  There isn't really any real need to go from puree to lumpy to finger foods so perhaps just skip that stage and gradually increase the finger foods and family meal foods whilst reducing the shop bought puree.  I would actually do quite a rapid wean on the puree and jarred foods at this age and just crack on with family meals. The only real way for a child to become accustomed to what his family eats (and so join in with family meals rather than being fed separately) is to be given those foods, some time and patience, they need to become familiar with the flavours and textures of what YOUR family eats iyswim.

With finger foods (family meals too) bigger is better, easier for LO to handle.  I skipped purees all together and went straight to finger foods but I did adapt my cooking, no salt, no sugar, and chopped veg etc into larger wedges or fingers for him to pick up and self feed.
I would prob drop that night feed now as he has done a couple of nights and you want to wean BFing at 12 months, so perhaps from now settle without feeding at night.

hth

[ZacsMumme]

I found with T at this age he needed more protien, and substance. Have you tried legumes? Chickpeas, beans, lentils? Different grains? More meat? My LO loves falafel ATM and it seems to fill him up.
Fats are good too. Mini muffins, scones...