feeding problem?

[Anonymous]

I’m hoping someone can give me a jumping off point. Dominic is 9

months old. We delayed solids until 6 months due to a family allergy

history. We started off with the basics, and he seemed only mildly

interested, but would open his mouth at least a few times per feeding.

Now he never opens his mouth, and the Cheerios he was previously

accepting are starting to get ejected almost instantly. He has the

dexterity to finger feed, but the only thing he seems willing to gnaw on

are the teething cookies we’ve tried, and then only briefly.

Is this cause for concern? It is certainly frustrating to prepare food for

him, and then have him totally refuse. I think he is gaining fine, but will

know for sure at his 9-month appt, which is on the 8th. He is lean, but

also tall for his age, as my dd is and was. He has been exclusively

breastfed, and never had feeding problems before from the reflux,

despite OALD (although I had some problems with him clamping down to

slow the flow). I’ve been trying to time his feedings so that he is actually

hungry, but find that it is a fine line.

[Anonymous]

Colton didn’t start eating solids until way after he was a year old. What we did was try every month to see if he would take any solids and how he did. If he didn’t take them or didn’t do well with them we would stop and start again the next month. We finally found that he didn’t like the jarred baby food so we would either make our own or feed him whatever we were eating and he did great. I think every baby is different and they all start eating in their own time.

[Anonymous]

My two refluxers flatly refused table foods until well after a year of age. Ellie was 18 months old before she’d eat anything but purees. Today at age 3 she is a terrific eater so I think what I did with her was a success. I kept offering but didn’t push her and eventually she became interested and began sampling foods and she learned to like a wide variety of healthy foods.

Myles just started eating table food at around 13 – 14 months but he is still very resistant to most foods and is mainly living on purees and about three favorite table foods. His doctor was mortified by this but I feel that he will probably eat table foods when he is ready like his sister did.

I’m not an expert and I’m not sure if I’ve handled it properly with my babies but Ellie is a great eater and I’m holding out hope that Myles will be too one day.

[Anonymous]

Thanks–I’m realizing that I’ve been pushing too hard, and will back off and

start over. The fact that he was opening in the beginning, and has stopped,

tells me that I need to let him show me when he’s ready.

[Anonymous]

Sarah,

Yes, I think that’s true. Pushing will only make them more resistant.

One thing that helped with Myles, and I’ve seen posts here about it being recommended by feeding therapists, is distraction with toys. I began giving Myles some “special toys” that I reserved for feeding times and let him play with them while I fed him. He’d open his mouth more and eat more this way. I worried that the distraction may be causing him to not really know that he was eating IYKWIM, and therefore it might be a bad thing, but again I read here that the feeding therapist says a distracted baby does know he’s eating.

I’d rotate the toys so that when he became bored with them I’d have something else to wow him (!) and I kept these toys out of sight so he only got them at mealtime.

Thais, (Matthew’s mom) posted a lot of the feeding therapy tips that she was taught by Matthew’s therapist. I think it’s all posted in the feeding aversions forum if you want to take a look at it…..not that your little guy has a feeding aversion. Myles didn’t, but the tips still were helpful, especially the mealtime toys which he still loves.

[Anonymous]

Any possiblilty he could be teething? I know that causes a lot of kids to not want to eat solids…

Robin

[Author]

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