Jenna of 6.5 months is beginning to lose interest in her solids
I have started to follow the weaning plan for my second daughter, having had success with it for my first. I began to wean Jenna at 5 months. The first month went really well. She ate a wide range of vegetables and by 6 months was accepting lentils and chicken. However, over the last two weeks she has started to refuse solids. At first it was just lunch and I thought the cause could be tiredness. I moved lunch from 11.30am to 11am but it has made no difference. She screams at the first sight of a spoon. The same thing now happens at breakfast and tea.
I had her weighed this week for the first time in 6 weeks and she has dropped from the 25th to the 5th percentile. Please give me some advice as mealtimes are becoming very stressful.
Jenna weighed 7lbs 1oz at birth and now at 6.5mths is 14lbs 11ozs. She drinks between 20-23 ozs of milk a day.
As Jenna suddenly started to reject the spoon, check to see if her gums are bothering her as she may well be teething. Offering her a cooled teething ring or clean, damp wash cloth to suck on, could help especially just before mealtimes.
Encourage her to become more of a participant at meal times. At this age babies can become quite independent and want to feed themselves. As she is not really able to do this yet let her “help” you. Provide her with a spoon to hold and show her how to dig into her bowl. This can become quite a messy stage but she may accept her food more readily if she can feel it with her fingers. Some babies will happily hold their spoon whilst you carry on feeding them, others prefer to try to get a spoon -loaded by you- into their mouths themselves.
Begin to introduce some simple finger food. Giving this alongside her food will give her something to focus on whilst you get some spoonfuls down her.
Give her some small pieces of steamed or lightly cooked vegetables such as carrot and parsnip batons. Using a spoonful of cooked frozen mixed vegetables is a good way to introduce Jenna to finger food. Very ripe pear can be offered as an alternative. At first you may feel she is not eating very much, but if it offers her a distraction whilst you feed her, then let her experiment with them.
Once Jenna is coping with vegetables and fruit, begin to offer fingers of lightly buttered toast, a rusk, rice cake or bread stick. A useful idea once she is happy to eat bread, is to spread small pieces of roll with some of her solids such as chicken casserole. Again this will encourage her to feed herself.
Whilst Jenna is drinking about the right amount of milk for her age, it may help if you begin to offer her only 2/3rds of her bottle when she wakes at 7.15am. Then offer her the rest once she has had some breakfast. As she is having cereal mixed with milk, this will also add to her daily intake, so cutting back a bit on her 7-8 ozs at 7.15am should help.
Filling herself up with too much milk can lead to rejection of solids. This often happens when gums are sore from teething, as a baby finds sucking more soothing than a hard spoon. Cutting back by a small amount should help Jenna to have a better appetite at mealtimes.
To encourage Jenna to be interested in her tea, offer her a smaller 2.30pm feed. At present 6-7 ozs is probably taking the edge of her appetite at 5pm. Offer her some grated cheese on her teatime savoury, add it to sauces or begin to offer small sticks as finger food. This will all help her continue to keep to her daily milk intake.
Keeping tension out of mealtimes is important for you both, as Jenna will quickly pick up on your feelings, which makes the situation worse. If possible get someone else to feed her at times. Perhaps your partner could give her some solids over a weekend. Try involving Jenna’s sibling at mealtimes. Could they eat tea together? Watching an older child eat can be very helpful, as well as introducing the social side of mealtimes to Jenna.