What Am I Doing Wrong?????

[Manxie]

Help

I started my bubs on solids two weeks ago, she is six months old. Up until this she was exclusively breast fed.

I started her off on the farex and have since introduced pear, apple and sweet potatoe. She became constipated (badly:( ) which I think was due to the farex so I laid off that for a day.

The problem is now she just dosent seem to like ANYTHING I try. It sits in her mouth for a while and then evenutally its spat out. I have tried making it more runny, adding breastmilk etc but it dosent make any difference. She will take a small amount of farex with breastmilk for breakie but thats it.

What am I doing wrong? I'm getting a bit desparate as I know she's hungry, shes breastfeeding three hourly and has started waking overnight for another feed:(

I was thinking of trying something sweet like yoghurt or a commerically brought fruit puree as it may be sweeter but is that a really bad idea??

I hope someone can help

From
Desperate and covered in damm sweet potatoe:rolleyes:

[the_queen]

LOL covered in baby mush *sigh* yes I remember those days.....:D

They say it takes up to 7 times of trying a new food before a child will actually like the taste of it. And spitting it out is pretty normal, I'd say. At this age, solid food is about experiencing texture and taste, and about learning how food comes on a spoon, not just in a booby (or bottle);) The more she gets used to it, the more she'll eat (probably :) all kids are different, and they all go at their own pace.)

Yogurt is a good idea, that was one of Vally's first foods, I think I bought the brand name "Baby yogurt" but I'm pretty sure you can just buy good quality plain or fruit-sweetened yogurt. Get a 1kg tub, it's much cheaper and she'll probably only have a couple of teaspoons at once to begin with anyway. If it's sweetened with fruit then it's not "bad sweet" IYKWIM. Or buy the natural yogurt, and put your own home-made puree'd fruit in it. That way you know there's no added sugar. It's easy to make puree'd fruit, hard fruit eg apples, you just cook it up in a tiny bit of water then blend. Soft fruit just blend it up. As the Wiggles say, Mashed Banana is generally a bit hit with kiddies!!!

(I think if there's a family history of dairy allergies you should wait a bit longer before giving yogurt, but your GP or child health nurse could give you more info about that)

GOOD LUCK!! And HAVE FUN!!!! :D On a nice day, you could take the highchair outside and feed her out there, less mess on your kitchen floor!!!!

[Rainbowbrite]

It took MJ, now almost 9months, ages to eat. Even now we have days where she'll eat 3+meals, other days she has nothing but bm. Its just experimentation at that age.

On the constipation side of things, MJ still gets badly constipated if i dont keep up the water, prunes & sultana's. I never thought i'd say it but i miss the bf poo's.

RB

[Manxie]

Thanks guys-guess I'm just worried as she is so hungry. Also I am a bit over the 3hrly sometimes 2.5hrly feeds and definately over the middle of the night feeds:rolleyes: Never thought I'd say this but perhaps I might have to give her formula for a feed?? Maybe I'll post in the breastfeeding section tomorrow.

I have brought a couple of tins of pureed fruit just so I can check that my consistency is o.k. so I'll see what I think tomorrow.

I too long for breastfeeding poos and the days of just having to whack her on the boobie and that was that:D

[Rhys'Mum]

I hear you...

My little man has actually taken to solids but unfortunately he cut back hard on his milk feeds and so now we have returned to multiple night wakings, increasingly frequent feeds and no weight gains.

I have been frantically expressing for a week and taking medication to try and rebuild my breast milk because I can't seem to produce enough for his rollover feed (he is starving and gulps down an EBM bottle after my feed) and he is genuinely hungry at night.

But tale of woe aside...

Rhys actually responded to some weird and wonderful things first up - zuccini, carrot, choco - wasn't interested in fruit or rice cereal. I mixed small amounts of cereal powder into zuccini or choco once he'd started eating. Now he's particularly fond of prunes (which work well for constipation) and he has suddenly taken a like to the pear and banana flavoured rice cereal. I'd suggest you keep trying a range of things (introducing each new thing for 3 days and 1 at a time) and eventually you may find something they like (well at least for a while anyway).

Good luck with it.

PS don't panic about using store bought, they are nutitionally sound (according to the handout booklet on moving to solids that our MACH nurses provide) and many good mothers use them.