refusing new foods

[ENMS]

DS is 9 months. Due to issues with reflux and intolerances, we have been on and off with solids. Currently he eats pears 3 x a day. It is his first pass. I'm trying to introduce new foods (bananas, oatmeal,quinoa, avocado) but he outright refuses anything that is not pears. I have hidden avocado in pears and it ended with pears refusal for a few days!

Anyone BTDT?

He also seems to have an issue with texture. I am trying to make thin purees, tried blw but not better really.

[Buntybear]

Bumping for you x

[creations]

Hi Elise
How's it going now?

I was wondering if you tried the pear cooked in different ways because the texture and taste changes a little say between steamed and baked pear wedges.

How about pear puree spread on toast fingers? or stirred through pasta twists?
(rather than hiding other foods in pear which leads to losing trust in the pear, this would be visibly a different food but with a recognizable taste)

Does he ever look at your food with interest or try to reach for any of it when you are eating?  Are you sitting him at the table with you when you have your meals?  Does he play with food you leave on his high chair tray?

[ENMS]

Hi Creations

It's not better Lately he's refusing his pears. There's so much going on it's hard to pinpoint what's the problem. We're trying to wean his reflux meds, and he seems to be teething in the back of his mouth although I don't see anything or feel anything there. But he's definitely bothered and is constantly biting his fingers.

This week we were trying oatmeal. I did not want to trick him into eating it, but I offered it before or after his pears. I try to say out loud 'now this is oatmeal', show him and then give it to him but of course he doesn't understand so a few times he opened his mouth, took a bite, and was very unhappy. I don't know how else to do this though? Do I sit him down at a different time than meal time to offer a new food? I don't want to screw everything up. I want him to trust me.  He has also started daycare. Late this week he was taking his pears no problem at daycare, but not from me

I find what makes it so hard is this stupid FPIES thing... I'm not even convinced he really has that honestly. He never had a severe reaction, and he has diarrhea no matter what he eats. Pears is just milder, he gets a few bouts of liquid poo and some regular poo too so we call that a pass. We're seeing a GI on Tuesday and I'm hoping she can guide us better. With that FPIES thing I need to introduce only one thing at a time, for one full week. But how in the world am I supposed to do that when he refuses every new food?

I've tried baked and steamed pears, and freeze-dried. I must've done something wrong with the baked because they were really dried out. Steamed he's interested but he can't pick up cubes they're too slippery. He picked up a wedge and sucked on it, but didn't really eat it.  But for now I don't mind. I try to just give him a variety of foods on his tray when we're eating - steamed pears in a mesh feeder, a pear wedge to munch on, a few cheecha puffs... And just let him be, play and experiment with it, try to be not involved kwim, so that he can do it on his own.

Since oatmeal didn't work we're now trialing cheecha puffs - it's the nutritionist who recommended it to us, it's basically potatoes and a pinch of salt. It's one of the few ready-made finger foods that have few ingredients and that seems to suit FPIES baby.  He seems to like it so far and first time we offered he took a bite so it shows that his aversion is really related to us feeding him. So I'll stick with that for a few days more, and then I like your idea of pasta. It's something he can feed himself as well, and I can dip it in pears puree.

He's not too interested in our food. But maybe I'll try for one of our next trials, to do something we eat often that I could coax him into taking from my plate - maybe carrots, or even those little pastas.

[creations]

oh dear Elise.  I'm so sorry to hear things are no better.

With slippery foods you could try a plastic fork.  I used a little take-away plastic fork that come with shop bought fruit salads or pasta salads (and as I never buy those I got mine from my mum!), they are much sharper than baby forks (which are useless for stabbing) but relatively safe for LO.  I introduced the fork at 6 months.  I held it out to LO, loaded, for him to take and eat from the end.  It worked brilliantly for us.

One thing though, not sure why you're weaning the reflux meds...but do you know that poking and prodding towards the back of the mouth and finger biting can be a sign of reflux pain?  It's the acid coming up, it can look like teething, but also reflux tends to flare up with teething so if there IS teeth movement weaning meds right now may not be the best idea.
It could just be that when I tried to wean it was horrendous and took me over a week to work out what the problem was and I felt awful that I put DS in that pain.

I have to run DS's bath now but I'll come bakc if I have any more ideas.
I hope your appointment turns out to be helpful xxx

[koe2moe]

Elise, i have no experience, but want to offer hugs!!

[ENMS]

oooh fork is a great idea. duh I didn't think of that. I tried to put a small cube on a spoon but of course it just got dropped on the tray when he picked it up. I'll try one of those small plastic forks it may work out great 

re: the reflux meds... his reflux had been perfectly controlled for the past month, I mean 100% and yet he was still having issues with solid foods. Also, one of the main symptoms of his reflux (or so I thought) was that he was very uncomfortable DURING a feed - which I now know was caused by his severe tongue tie that got finally clipped successfully in July - and we always under-estimated how much his tongue affected his feeding and his discomfort. So I needed to see if 1) too little acid from the meds was hindering his digestion and 2) did he really still have reflux at all or not. He is not spitting up anymore and was an extremely happy baby on his milk only in the past month, even happy still when we went back to regularly eating pears.  We started the wean right after his last tooth was out so i was hoping we'd have time before the next one popped in 

I did NOT know that these were symptoms of reflux pain  very interesting. I'm leaning towards giving him back the meds but am waiting until we see the GI on Tuesday. He's not in outright pain (doesn't look like it  ). But his sleep has been a bit disrupted since we started but not too bad - some shorter naps and earlier wake ups. Grumpy sometimes but not lots. Pain meds seem to help so I'm a bit confused, could be teething, or his ears maybe that are bothering him, we're going to the paed tomorrow so I'll get everything checked out we should then have a good idea if anything else could be explaining these little things.

Today we went to a little café for lunch bc it's my birthday and he ate happily a few cheecha puffs all on his own and then took all of his pear puree. It was so great I almost cried. Best bday gift I could hope for   

[ENMS]

thanks koe

[Buntybear]

First Happy Birthday and second good luck for your appt!

I agree with Creations in that just try pears in every form that you can think of! Keep it interesting - as much as one food can be! This is what I have had to do with Olly when he was little as he was so restricted anyway but also fussy.

Great news on the puffs - at least that is a new taste and texture to him which is FANTASTIC!

Olly was never interested in what was on other people's plates. Still not interested TBH which is a godsend as he doesn't try to pinch food he is allergic too!

[creations]

Today we went to a little café for lunch bc it's my birthday and he ate happily a few cheecha puffs all on his own and then took all of his pear puree. It was so great I almost cried. Best bday gift I could hope for 

Oh that's lovely!   Happy Birthday

With the fork, at 6 months my DS was still quite spastic in his movements, jerking around and not getting things exactly where he wanted.  I held on to the fork (just the end of it) but let him lead with it, so that he didn't stab himself in the eye or shove it right to the back of his mouth.  Your LO is older so might be much more in control, just thought I'd mention.

Here's a bit of an 'out there' thought - feel free to ignore.
Next time you are ready to start a trial (ie after the week is up with the puffs) cook a regular but plain-ish meal for yourself ie meat/fish with 2 or 3 veg and a carbs, leave out salt and spices when cooking.  Then sit him with you at the table.  Eat slowly and see if he is interested in anything on your plate.  After a little while pop one of each item on his plate and just let him do as he pleases.
I know you need to trial one thing at a time, but what if you gave HIM the option of what to trial next?
So either let him have a try (if he will) of ALL of those items for one meal, then day 2 reduce down to ONE of the foods and continue with that for a week.  I realise that a reaction from combining could be delayed and you might need to trial that single food a bit longer than a week to get a true reading.  After that trial you can move on to trial anything else he took from that meal.
OR
pop one of each item on his plate, let him play with them and choose, then once he has put something in his mouth remove that plate and replace with a clean plate, add a little more of that single selected item.  This way he never gets the combo of foods in his mouth but still gets to choose.
If he only plays and doesn't eat any of the foods I would just keep doing it each day until he chooses a food.
I was thinking what would I do in the situation, and I think this is it.  But like I said, feel free to ignore, I am not in your shoes.

You need to do what you feel with the reflux wean.  I only reduced DS's meds by 0.2ml I didn't even think his meds could be doing anything any more as they haven't been increased in so long and he only has 2ml twice per day, which is just about nothing!

(posted same time - I see offering food from your plate might not be a winner after all.  DS likes to see what I've got and I can see him do a comparison of plates so perhaps it's just personality thing.  Sometimes with a new food he won't try it but offers it out to me for me to bite his piece, I call it checking for poison because he will try it as soon as I've tested it and not dropped dead).

[koe2moe]

happy birthday yay on eating puffs

[ENMS]

thank you ladies

I will continue to be creative with the pears I'll try the fork and I'll try to bake again. Maybe I'll bake steamed pears for just a little so it changes the texture of it since I can't seem to be able to bake them alright from scratch  Also with the mesh feeder. He does seem to like mealtime when sitting at the table with us, and if I'm able to give variety I think that'll help (even if it's variety with only pears  ) and also if he passes the puffs, then I can do so much more variety with potatoes! I just want mealtime to be happy and stress-free for him, so I think it's the best way and then go progressively once he eats a bit more.

Creations I think that's a wonderful idea. I'm thinking of finding some small pasta, putting them together with carrots and brocoli and then letting him choose one of these.

[Buntybear]

Another peary idea - grate them? 

[ENMS]

oooh great! do you cook grate it raw?

sooo exciting to be thinking of the dinner plate I'll be making him tonight

[Buntybear]

Yeah, raw. Not too ripe though as they will just squish!