Help with Discipline/Spitting While Eating With 6mth Old?

[BeachgalNY]

Hi!

Today brought a new challenge and I'm wondering if any of you might have any advice on it. My six month old son, who started solids about a week and a half ago, started spitting/blowing raspberries with his mouth full of food today. I've tried everything I can think of (covering his mouth, saying "No" in a myriad of ways, leaving the room, etc.), and he won't stop. Any ideas?

I'm lost on this, but it definitely makes me want to avoid feeding him solids.

I have no idea if he's old enough to really even understand my "no", since anything I'm doing is mostly just making him laugh, and it's certainly not making it stop. Can you even discipline (I'm not talking about punishment, just figuring out how to help them behave in conductive ways) a child this young? There were green beans everywhere this morning.

Thanks for any advice anyone has!

 

[Pertie]

You definitely won't achieve anything by 'disciplining' him about this. In my opinion, that is totally inappropriate.

He's learning about food, how to use his mouth etc etc. Mess is an important part of a baby's development - have you considered baby led weaning?

Honestly, relax, for his sake and yours

 

[BlueHadeda]

Welcome to the wonderful, messy road of solids! It's VERY normal, what your baby is doing, and actually great that he's able to do that! Not all babies get it right at 6 months old already.

I agree with pp, relax and join in on the fun! I don't like mess though, so what I did was to let baby try a few bites, and if baby continue to spit the food out, I clean him up, take the food away, and leave it for an hour or two. Then try again. Solids at 6 months old isn't for nutrition really. It's for learning, and your baby is certainly learning. I do understand that you want to make sure he has healthy and good eating habits from early on, but now's not the time just yet. Give it a few months, let him get to know food and textures and tastes, and practice that vital mouth muscles that he'll need for speech.

 

[BeachgalNY]

Thanks, Bluehadeda, I appreciate that!

Pertie, how would BLW help with this? I deal with a lot of anxiety, and food allergies run in my family on both sides. Dealing with the fear-fraught experience of him learning to swallow and not knowing what caused an allergic reaction is unlikely to help me relax, if I actually need to do that.

 

[Rachel_C]

I'd just leave it too. It's his mouth and you're putting food into it - if he wants to spit it out he should be allowed too. I'd just back off and put down a mat

BLW might help because you wouldn't be putting anything in his mouth - the spitting *may* be a reaction to you controlling it instead of him (although it may not, it could just be him having fun, which I wouldn't want to discourage). You also wouldn't be feeding purées apart from the odd thing you'd have puréed yourself, so it'd be a lot less messy!

BLW isn't about chucking everything and anything at your child even if it might be dangerous for them. If there are specific food allergies you're concerned about, you can still introduce those foods in a controlled manner e.g. if LO might have a problem with strawberries you might hold off on them for a while, then give them one day when he's only having other foods you know he's okay with. There is some suggestion that babies with intolerances or allergies instinctively know to avoid those foods too, so BLW might actually help in that regard. One of my daughters wouldn't touch eggs until she was over a year old so we never pushed it in case she knew something we didn't. She started eating them when she was older so either she grew out of it or she just didn't like them - either way, we left her to it and she knew what she needed and I didn't have to worry. Like I said though, if you're concerned about particular things you can still introduce them gradually.

Babies have to learn to swallow eventually whatever you feed them... they can learn it while they're babies when the gag reflex is far forward so offers a lot of protection or you can hold off until baby is older and the gag reflex is further back and LO is less able to push food out safely. I don't know if it's been studied but I would be 100% on the side of BLW being safer