very picky eater

[halloweenmommy]

My daughter, 9 mo. old, started solids at about 5.5 mos old and started off pretty well.  She ate her cereal with gusto.  Once we started to add other things the gusto started to wane.  It came to the point where she wouldn't eat anything without banana mixed in with it.  She would eat a pretty good variety of food as long as it had banana in it.  That has since changed as well.  She no longer likes bananas, which means she will no longer eat anything.  I was making my own food and she seemed to like it, but now won't eat any of it.  I decided to try her on some of the jarred foods and now we have a few favourites - apple.mango/kiwi, banana/grape/plum and apple/plum.  Unfortunately those are the only things she will eat right now.  The public health nurse lectured me yesterday and I feel like a terrible parent... apparently my lo should be having foods with chunks in it or finger foods exclusively.  I shouldn't be feeding her pureed foods anymore at all.  She said that I am making a picky and lazy eater.  She said that I should cut out one breastfeed a day (she is still feeding 4 x /day at 7, 11, 3 and 5:30) so that she is hungry for her solids.  I'm not sure that I want to cut out a breastfeed, but I do want to increase her solids intake.
At what age can they have cottage cheese?
My big problem right now is that she doesn't like the taste (or doesn't seem to like the taste) of most foods.  If she doesn't like something we give her she spits it out and then won't eat much of anything else, even her favourites.  I was told that she won't starve herself and to be very relaxed about the whole thing and that she would eat when she was ready.  I don't want her to go without a meal.  She already hasn't been gaining weight very well and has dropped to a lower percentile group...
Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.  Thanks in advance,

[RachelC]

I don't know how much advice I can give you, but I had to comment on some of the public health nurse's comments.

Breastmilk (or formula) should be the main source of calories for the 1st year.  At 11 months, my dd2 is still on 4 bfs a day (6, 10:30, 3 and 5:30/6).  She still eats purees (but also does eat finger foods).

She can have cottage cheese at this age.

I do know it is hard, but please do try to relax.  Babies are very good at picking up on our emotions and if she can tell you are stressed about it, she will be too (and associate that with eating).  She will not starve herself and it is ok to skip a meal.  Have you tried finger foods?  A banana, a plum, a kiwi?  Try something totally new as a finger food (cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, toast, scrambled egg yolk).  Keep offering the same old foods too... and new ones.... sometimes it takes 20 offerings of a food before they will eat it.

Her weight gain has slowed... is she getting taller?  moving around more (hence burning more calories)?  I haven't had dd2 weighed officially, but at 9 months she was 16lbs 3 oz and yesterday I weighed her at my dad's (the method of weighing myself then weighing myself holding her and subtracting) and she only appeared to be 16 lbs (that's 2 months later!).  I do know she grew taller as we were at the beach for a week and when we went to go home we had to adjust the straps in the car seat.

I hope that helps, I can see I am rambling on a bit (sorry  ).

[tylersmommy]

Rachel had some good points...weight gain slows down a LOT as they start to become little toddlers. It was right around that age that Tyler dropped from the 75th to the 50th percentile, and that's where he's stayed ever since (he's 2.5 now). That's just how he's built. I'm so sorry that your public health nurse made you feel so terrible, there's really no reason for that! Just about every piece of research out there will say 2 things: that breastmilk/formula should be a baby's main source of nutrition, and it doesn't matter if their solids are smooth, chunky, or finger foods. Food is food, and I can promise you she won't go to college eating purees!

So take a deep breath and relax, because it sounds like you're doing just fine!