A couple of questions please

[cuckoochick]

Hi!

I have a couple of questions so hope it is ok to post them all in the one thread!

1) What do you do about LO taking off massive bites of finger food that they then can't deal with? This has happened a few times in the last few days with foods that C usually eats/munches/chews on just fine (cucumber, baby corn). She has taken too big a bite and then just sits with the food in her mouth for aaaaaages, periodically trying to do something with it but not getting far. She has no teeth yet. When I try to get into her mouth she freaks out and screams, clamps shut and it is really difficult. I have tried all sorts to encourage her to open her mouth. Today, the offending piece of baby corn eventually came out but after 10 minutes of us just sitting there. I really don't want to get into battles with her over it.

2) Is there any guidelines on the amounts of solid food I would expect DD to be eating at 8.5 mos? She just doesn't really seem bothered by it and I keep reading on here of babies taking 2-4ozs of food at a meal time and often I am lucky to get a few baby spoons into her. I have to admit she prefers fingers foods or whatever I am eating so we usually do a mix of the two. She is such a monkey and will eat my food happily off a fork. She had a tantrum for my curry and rice tonight and refused to eat the courgette souper I made for her! I should add that I always give her solids 1 hr after BFs but I am just worrying about things like getting iron into her diet (especially as my iron levels are low and I am taking supplements).


Thanks!

[<Catherine>]

Hi Nicola,

I'm not going to be a lot of help with most of your queries here, but just wanted to day don't fret too much about the solid intake. LO's get most of what they need from milk up until 12 months, solids during this time are just for experimenting with taste and texture really. DS was exactly the same, I couldn't get much into him at all at this age, his apetitie soon changed though and he now eats really well

[cuckoochick]

Thanks Catherine! She is such an angel but when it comes to food I swear she has a glint in her eye that plays us every day!! I know I shouldn't worry or compare her to other babies but I have been avoiding getting her weighed because the last few times she was starting to creep down the centiles and since then she is eating even less. Still BFing well though!

[Shiv52]

Funny I was just wondering about this today because M at 9 months ate SO much more in comparison to Rosa.  Today at lunch she'd a few spoonfuls of spinach and sweet potato until she got fed up and then a few spoonfuls of fruit.  whereas I know M at that stage was having 2 cubes of savory (R isn't even eating a cube!), 1 of fruit and a yogurt!  But like Catherine says I really wouldn't worry.  If she's sleeping well and content then no worries.  I find R eats better at dinner if I give her what we are having and I have increased the finger foods as she prefers them overall!

With the eating too big a piece, I make exagerated chew movements and say 'chew chew chew' and she starts to gum whatever is in there and gets it into a manageable size to swallow.   Heaven forbid I take anything from her mouth as she has a canary.  She wanted to eat a piece of chalk today and bold mummy took it off her and she was not impressed.  Its funny now though as she lifts something and looks at me and goes 'ah ah?' and if I repeat it she knows she can't eat it! 

Your new profile pic is GORGEOUS!!!