surviving on cream cheese and carbs

[rollingover]

My 9 month old son has existed on cream cheese, fruit, weetabix, bread, pancakes, crumpets and organix rusks for the last 6 weeks. He was eating "real" food up until then. How do I get him to start to eat something else? he wont take a spoon unless its breakfast, is fine in weight and behaviour, has been teething and i don't want meals to become a battle BUT am worried about his lack of tastes! Any ideas?

[DrP]

Teething is often going to put babies off their food. You mention that he won't take a spoon unless it's breakfast. Are/were you still spoon feeding him other things before he went off them ? If so maybe try introducing more finger foods - give him a selection of things, always stuff he likes along with something new. Praise him if he tries or eats something new, but don't make an issue of it if he doesn't. Tbh as long as he is happy and healthy I wouldn't worry about what he is eating atm. He's still young and until he's 1 milk is still going to be his most important source of nutrition anyway. He'll get there at his own pace, and trying to stay relaxed and letting him get on with eating what he wants is probably actually the best thing you can do for him.

[hiann]

Have a search for baby led weaning websites: some great sites out there! Thats what we do: Cara refused to eat puree after abt 3 weeks so we do BLW including preloaded spoons.

Tbh, most of what you said there rollingover is what Cara eats! I do a tuna pasta bake which I just put on her table and she picks out bits and tonight she had homemade pizza, tomatoes and cucumber and half a dozen blueberries. She really just gets what we eat at dinner time.

She's only just in past day or two "got" what food is abt and I have to be ready to put something on her table as soon as I put her in her highchair or she goes daft!

As DrP says, milk is the most imp food for them til they are one. BLW's motto is "food is for fun until they are one". Its just a very different way of thinking abt weaning. The most calorie dense food they can take is milk until this age as most of what puree fed babies eat anyway is fruit and veg: ie low cal!

[kyriane]

I agree, finger foods could be the way to go. I was just introducing these to my little one, she is only 8 months but was beginning to show that she wanted to feed herself. I made her little weeny sandwiches, for example, or gave her bits of cucumber, or steamed carrot, pasta shapes etc and just let her choose.

Unfortunately I've had to stop and step back to smooth purees because she has a terrible cough and any solid lumpy food is causing her to cough so much she throws up! Fortunately, she is tolerating the spoon, otherwise she'd be eating nothing. I cannot wait until her cough gets better so I can get back to the finger foods!