Almost 11 months, refusing spoon, aaaargh : (

[GingerNut]

Just when I thought I had parenting reasonably under control!

DD will be 11 months next week. She's been on solids since 5.5 months and was doing well, eating a good range of meat, fish, fruit, veg, dairy and cereals. She was down to about 14oz of formula a day - she was never a big formula drinker so it was sometimes a struggle to even get that into her.

Recently she was sick for 3 weeks with a really vicious virus and stopped eating; she was on tiny amounts of formula (but plenty of water; thankfully she loves it) for most of that time. She wasn't able for solids at all.

When she started improving we started giving her solids again but she had no appetite and would only take a few spoonfuls of food at any given meal, as well as the small amounts of formula. Her appetite returned with a vengeance at the weekend though; she actually drank 44oz of formula on Saturday; even at the height of her formula consumption pre-solids she never came near to that. So her appetite is totally back! But she's refusing the spoon - she actually cries if we try to spoon feed her. She may be trying to be independent, or she may be associating it with the meds we've had to syringe into her mouth lately (which she doesn't like at all), but either way, spoon feeding is not an option.

So, obviously (to me anyway; my parents, who mind her during the day, are of the opinion that we should just persist with the spoon. I dread to think how that's going for them today!) we need to move on to a baby led weaning approach - I don't think it helps anyone to make her cry at every mealtime and still not get anything into her.

But how do I approach this with a baby who suddenly has a bigger appetite than she's ever had before? She's well able to eat a slice of toast and cheese or a broccoli floret, but she was having such a range of different stuff up till now, it'll take ages to teach her to fill up on finger food, won't it? In the meantime, what do I do about formula?

Also, she lost so much weight while she was sick that she's back at her 7 month weight. She was always on the 72 percentile for weight and now she's just below the 50th; not such a huge deal but she's on the 95th for height so she's pretty thin for her size. She's not noticeably skinny and the hospital weren't concerned but it worries me that this is the time she picks to refuse to eat : (

Advice and encouragement welcome, I don't even know what I'm asking!

[Lemonthyme]

Why not offer a bit of both, finger foods and spooning until she's up to speed?  I still spoon food in with my 12 month old because although he can feed himself, when he's tired especially he gets lazy with it and wants to be fed but I also find with some finger foods he can feed himself he maintains a bit of independence.  He probably has one meal every other day which is completely self fed now and every meal he feeds himself at least one type of thing.

I don't think there's anything wrong with mixing and matching tbh, just go with what your baby seems to want I reckon!

[GingerNut]

That's the problem, she doesn't want to mix and match, she cries at the sight of a spoon near her face.

[Lemonthyme]

Then I think it has to be BLW if she's not going to entertain a spoon at all.

[Lolly]

What happens if you load the spoon and give it to her, or leave it loaded on the tray for her to pick up?

We did a combination of finger foods and mush from the start. I often would give them finger foods to start and then bring out the mush when they were busy with the finger stuff and sneak a few spoon in.

Laura

[~inbalance~]

I would definitely not try to feed her with the spoon anymore.  You can try loading it and giving it to her as Laura suggested, but if she is stressed out by you feeding her then abandon ship!  She is at an age where finger foods will become more prevalent anyway.

Here are some helpful links:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=70142.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=92560.0

I don't think you should worry about her weight.  Obviously she has been sick so that has something to do with it, but it is normal for babies' weight gain to slow down at this age.  Has she actually lost weight or is she just dropping percentiles?  Because that is normal too.

I can understand the frustration of wanting to get more variety in her via spoon, but it's no good if she won't open up and you certainly don't want to cause any negative associations.  She can get a good variety out of finger foods.  You can offer her almost anything you eat now, minus the added salt or sugar.  The key is to offer a good variety. 

[GingerNut]

Martina, she lost well over a kilo in the three weeks, to get back to where she was at 7 months.

I'm feeling a bit better about the whole thing now. My parents were actually okay, they gave her an egg sandwich (an old favourite of everyone in my family!) for lunch and she thought it was the best thing ever, and I gave her toast with garlic and herb cheese for tea (she loves strong flavours!) and a pile of grated apple and gruyere, and she polished the whole thing off like a pro, laughing delightedly the whole time. Clearly BLW suits her : )

I'm sure I'll settle into it nearly as fast as she has; having my parents on board as well is such a help. We've had some unpleasant disagreements over her care lately and I just didn't want another one but it looks like they might do what I'm asking.

[~inbalance~]

Hope BLW goes well!