Spoon Refusal and Finger Foods

[mommy_to_2]

Hi,

I am new to this forum, but am desperately looking for some advice.  My LO is 9 3/4 mos old.  We started solids and weaned to a bottle at 6 mos.  From then she was a very good eater, she liked a wide variety and had no troubles with being spoon fed. 

Now that she is older we have progressed to basic finger foods such as cheerios, banana's, and mum mum's.  The finger foods were given in addition to her regular meal time diet of cereal, veggie and fruit (all pureed).  In the last week she has started to refuse to open her mouth for the spoon.  Because of that we have tried a wider variety of finger foods.  Peas, pasta, and others cause her to vomit because her gag reflex is too strong.  Since she has started refusing the spoon most of her diet has changed to liquid.  Before we were averaging 3 - 4 bottles a day (24 - 32 ozs.), now we are at 4 - 5 bottles a day (32 - 40 ozs.).

I need some advice on how to solve this problem.  Has anyone else experienced this?  It is causing me some stress as I feel that we are getting way off track.  She is angel/textbook baby.  She is still sleeping through the night and taking her regular naps.

Thanks in advance for any advice that you can give me.

[linfran]

My ds is just one and he did EXACTLY the same at the same age.  My PA's little girl is 9.5mo and is driving her mum MAD with the same thing!!!!

You are not alone!!!!

This phase lasted with my son for a couple of weeks.  I just kept offering him stuff and also gave him a spoon to try and feed himself - he would take a bit more if I let him try it himself.

I'm afraid though wth us it was a case of not making a big deal of it, offering him food at mealtimes and even though he ended up taking more formula again I reckoned at least he was getting something.

He now is eating properly again, has a tremendous appetite and eats pretty much anything.

[lilmonkey]

Your lo is perfectly normal.  I believe all babies goes through stages of spoon refusal.  Have you tried giving her a spoon to hold or play with while you feed her or let her feed herself as you sneak in your spoon?  I remembered a time where I had 5 spoons on hand just to distract dd enough so I can sneak in my spoon with the food.  Also, I tend to overcook peas, pasta, noodles, meat, veggies, etc when I first introduced them to her.  As for your lo not wanting to eat at meal times, have you considered offering it again after a 10-15 min break? 

I used to be very stressed about dd's solid intake (she had food aversion) but I slowly learn to let go and just let dd take the lead.  Shortly after she turned 1, she began to eat table food just like dh and I.

HTH

[mommy_to_2]

Thanks for your responses.  It is nice to hear from other mom's who have gome through the same thing. 

I guess will have to perservere without being pushy.  Do you have any advice on good finger foods to try and how they should be prepared?

 I found a link in the FAQ's that had a lot of information as well.

Thanks again.

[Lu_C]

My 9 mo DS has also just started rejecting the spoon (not complete refusal!) I give him a spoon too, but I also give him broken pieces of  salt free rice cake which he really seems to like so, even if I don't manage to get the spoon in before he gets the rice cake in, I know that he's getting something.
I have to say, I am also remotivated knowing that there are others out there with the same concern; he is taking milk more readily but I have cut down how much I make for him (from 230ml to 170ml) to try and get him taking more solids (he doesn't finish that a lot of the time either!). He's a very active little chap so I do worry about how little he's taking, but he's still gaining weight. My niece has always eated very erratically and is thriving...I guess they know when they're fully or hungry just the same as us.
The only problem we're having is that he's waking very early in the morning (3 - 5am) which I am certain has something to do with the day routine (which is very solid); so I've restarted with a DF at 10pm just to try breaking his waking pattern and make me feel comfortable doing PD from 3 - 6! Broke the pattern last night so with any luck sanity is just round the corner!

Any comments or ideas for more finger foods would be very welcome

Stay happy xx

[linfran]

My son loves banana, pear, slices of cheddar, homemade sponge cake, pieces of chicken even little ham sandwiches.  oh, yes and cocktail sausages!!!!

[mommy_to_2]

We are still having problems with spoon refusal.  It seemed to get better for a couple of days but now we are even worse than before.  To add to the mix she is having a lot of problems with the texture and size of any of the finger foods that I have tried to give her.  This morning she gagged to the point of vomiting on a piece of baked sweet potato.  I am trying not to stress too much about this.  I have come to the conclusion that she will eat when she is hungry.