We have emigrated and my baby’s development is regressing
Please help… we emigrated to Australia four weeks ago with our 9 month old son, and despite seeming to be happy he does seem to have gone backwards in his development. He was finger feeding quite confidently before we left, and now he refuses to put any food in his mouth at all, although he will put an empty spoon in his mouth, and in my mouth. He is happy to eat finger foods, i.e. toast, fruit etc and is eating quite lumpy food, but I have to feed it to him.
When we first arrived here we put him straight into the 6-9 month routine and although he slept, he refused to eat for three days and since then, although his appetite has returned with a vengeance and he is eating really well, he won’t feed himself. He was also almost crawling before we left: he was able to push himself along on his tummy with his feet ‘commando’ style, but since coming here he has gone back to flailing around on the floor like he did when he was four months old. He has also started to suck his bottom lip when he is tired. The doctor has told me that he is probably anxious and has reverted to ‘being a baby’ because he has been so unsettled and that once he feels settled he will catch up.
I just wondered if you had any tips to speed up the catching up process. Is there anything I can do to get him back on track?
He has been on Gina’s routines since he was 4 weeks old for both sleeping and feeding. At 7.20am he has 7oz of follow-on formula milk at breakfast, still out of bottle because despite taking a beaker for water from 4 months old he began refusing to even have it in his mouth at 7 months. We have just found one he likes but have not yet introduced it for milk. He then has either porridge or baby muesli with fruit made with 3oz of formula at about 8.15am. He takes a mouthful of very diluted juice out of a beaker at about 1030am. He has lunch at about 11.40am and typically eats about 10 cubes of (usually) homemade food. He is a vegetarian baby who eats fish, so lunch is either a fishy something or a lentil and rice something. He has been fed on homemade food almost exclusively until we emigrated at which point he went for a couple of days on jars while we were settling. He has a good amount of juice and a good amount of fruit after his savoury course. His fruit is chopped and I always put some on his high chair tray for him to feed himself. He’ll pick it up and squidge it around, but won’t put it in his mouth.
He has 7oz of milk at 2.45pm out of a bottle. At 5pm he has tea, about 6 or 7 cubes with toast followed by a milky pudding. He then takes about 4oz of milk at 620pm. I am planning to give him less formula at 2.45pm tomorrow to try to make him take more at 6.20pm. Tristan wakes at around 6.30 am, (he was waking later, but we are not able to fully black out his room in our rented house) we leave him until 7am. He then goes back to sleep at 9am for half an hour. He goes to bed at 12.15pm until 2-2.30pm. He then goes down to bed at 6.30pm. He settles himself to sleep. If he wakes and whimpers a bit we do nothing; if he really cries for longer than 5 minutes I go and check him. If he’s really crying it’s usually because he has a dirty nappy so I change it and put him back down. If he doesn’t have a dirty nappy I rub his tummy to calm him and then he goes back to sleep by himself. I am always the person that dresses him after his bath, feeds him and puts him down to sleep. He is rarely (almost never) unsettled at bedtime and doesn’t wake in the night.
I hope you can help,
Helen
The big change in your life has really had an effect on Tristan. In a few months I feel sure he will be much more settled, enjoying his new life and will have caught up again. Meanwhile I would continue to follow your daily routine as this will give Tristan the security he needs. At his age he is very aware of the big changes in his life, but if the day-to-day details remain the same he is likely to settle down quicker to his new life.
Continue to provide plenty of finger foods at mealtimes but don’t push Tristan to feed himself. Keep on feeding him yourself, but every few meals hand him a spoon and ask “Tristan do it?”. If he refuses just continue to feed him without fuss. Find colourful finger foods to offer, present it in a fun way, cutting fancy shapes or making simple faces with the pieces to try to tempt Tristan to pick up his food.
Sometimes presenting his usual food in a novel way may tempt him to using his spoon again. Disguise a half jacket potato as a hedgehog, using small sticks of cheese as the spines, and peas as the grass around him.
I am sure once his anxiety has gone and he feels more secure in his new home he will just begin to feed himself again. Be patient and let him do it in his own time.
The same principle applies to his regression in crawling. Give him plenty of floor time and get down with him. Play games with balls or cars, something he may begin to chase. Encourage him to roll from side to side and stand up whilst holding onto sturdy furniture or your hands. As Tristan’s anxiety about his new surroundings diminishes he will become more adventurous physically. You may have to “baby” Tristan for a while, give him plenty of reassuring cuddles and a simple routine to help him adjust.
I wish the very best of luck in your new home and life.