advice needed HV wasnt very helpful. long one sorry!

[mumof2girls]

Hi all, I weaned baby early (about 4 months) as she was showing definate signs of being ready and no amount of milk would fill her up etc etc. Health visitor also agreed she was ready. Gabriella also has reflux and is on infant gaviscon.

The weaning was very easy she took to food really well, we started with the baby rice then introduced new flavours etc. She was still having 32oz of milk as well as breakfast and a tea! Health visitor said she only needed 22oz but if she wanted more then she obviously needed it. After a few weeks she did decrease her milk and had around 22oz per day. I make her 3 bottles a day two 8oz and one 9oz for bedtime.

Over the past 3 weeks Gabriella has started messing about with her bottles, spitting the milk out turning her head etc then she started doing it with her food and we had to really distract her to get her to eat her food. We have even given her a spoon to "help" us feed her lol. Problem is she is more interested in finger foods, she grabbed my husbands sandwich and started eating it and managed really well, so we have been giving her a bit of toast and rusk, these carrot crisps a bit like cheese puffs etc and rice cakes and she loves it! Now she is really refusing pureed food, I make it quite thick as she hates anything watery because it just dribbles out! So shes not eating purees well or her milk, im lucky if I can get 5 oz in her each bottle although at bedtime she tends to take 6oz.... is this enough?

I asked the health visitor who said shes very advanced in eating finger foods and said to keep doing what im doing and offer soft vegetables as a finger food. She is 6 months old and weighs 16lb 2oz but last week she weighed 16lb 3 so shes actually lost one ounce in a week. Health visitor wasnt bothered as its only an oz but surely she should have put on in a whole week???? Im going out of my mind....... any tips would be greatly appreciated thanks xx

 

[angelstardust]

Try a cup for her milk rather than a bottle.

Will she eat pasta? Can she chew food? If she can I'd just go for giving her 'normal' food that is soft enough rather than trying to feed her purees. Try baby friendly cottage pie, spaggy bol etc. Anything that is not too hard or slippery really.

Do try not to worry, she won't let herself starve and in my experience, most babies seem to have hungry days and not so hungry days. I always looked at what they ate over a week rather than a day.

 

[polo_princess]

It may well just be a little phase she's going through, Brooke prefers finger foods over spoon fed stuff, the last week she will spit it out and then eat it off of her hands

Just keep at what your doing, perhaps offer finger foods and puree's at the same meal? That way she will get both?

 

[mumof2girls]

Thanks for your replies, I have been out and bought some carrots and brocolli which are steaming now. I plan to give her those as a finger food but also mash some up and try and get some in while shes eating the finger foods, its really worrying me she has only had about 6 oz of milk all day, its just not enough. I do think a lot of it is a phase. I have been giving her an empty cup to practice with for a few days and last night she was doing the bottle herself for a minute or so. Will offer her the cup with some milk in with her tea to try and build that up a bit. Thank you so much I have been so worried about it all. My other daughter who is 4 on saturday was nothing like this she was a fantastic eater all the time lol..... but thats kids for ya! x