DD still on purees at 1yr old

[Ironmaiden]

She wont eat my homemade food with lumps, she'll eat that awful powder mix packet stuff with one or two cubes of my food mixed in but retches on lumps, but, she'll eat jars with lumps in!
I want her to be eating our food at this stage but she refuses, retches at the 1st mouthful and has even thrown up a few times when I've tried different lunches (scrambled egg, fish pie etc)
She wont eat fruit unless pureed.

Don't know what to do, don't want to give jars but am fed up with throwing away all my homemade efforts!
Anyone any advice?

[bundle]

will she eat finger food? toast? pieces of fruit? would she pinch something off your plate if she thought it looked interesting?

[kiskidee]

i have one like that. she is just accepting bits. i give her pieces of apple to keep her occupied and she takes teeny bites and gags on them but as time has gone on, she is gagging less and actually swallowing tiny bits.

also find that if she is given ginger biscuits and digestive biscuits she takes tiny bites and sucks them till they go mushy. now can almost eat a whole digestive with just a few crumbs lying around.

i am following the idea that if i try to force/hury her up, food will just become a battleground.

[PanicPants]

I'd try finger food.

[Ironmaiden]

How do you get a full meal into a baby with finger food tho? If she's interested in it at all most of it ends up being squished and on the floor!

[littlerach]

tiny bits of pasta, cheese, veg, potaits, bread, anything really.

[Ironmaiden]

Kiskidee - how old is your dd?
Bundle - I tried toast and scrambled egg at lunch time, the egg was a definate no but the toast she put in her mouth, what she didnt spit out she choked on...
I was eating shreddies for breakfast this morning and she badly wanted some so I gave her a fairly milk-soaked one, she still gagged!

[kiskidee]

13 months. we were in spain the week after easter and she was still gagging on bits the size of fleas. another thing to try is broccoli. she will 'eat' the bits off the florets without choking.

another thing to try is to put frozen spinach in natural yoghurt. if it seems to be too sour for her, add a bit of high fruit jam. has to be healthy.

i let her weetabix go to mush as she wont eat it if it hasn't gone mushy enough.

[kiskidee]

my dd absolutely refuses egg in all shape and form. scrambled, boiled, just the yolk mushed in mayo...

on the 'bright side' if you can call it that, the paediatrician i saw for her eczema said that egg is an even more common allergen than cow's milk so maybe her body is saying something.

[tribpot]

My ds is nearly a year and doesn't even eat purees. He used to, but now has gone off them. The most we ever get into him is a bit of toast, or pitta, or he will normally have some porridge with his daddy in the afternoon. My SIL keeps saying "don't let him have any milk before food" so I deliberately made sure that he hadn't had any for at least 3 hours before giving him lunch today (as she was here) - he still did nothing more than gnaw on a bit of pitta.

I'm sure he'll get the hang of it, as will your dd. This is easy for me to say, cos ds is still on 5 bottles of formula a day, but I just wouldn't bother making her anything special. If she doesn't fancy what you're having, let her have milk. This may not be an option if she's dropped more bottles / feeds though.

The best way of getting my ds to consent to eating the merest whiff of a solid is for him to see other babies doing it, so (assuming your dd isn't in nursery) arranging some lunches with mums with kids of a similar age may well help.

[CorrieDale]

"How do you get a full meal into a baby with finger food tho? If she's interested in it at all most of it ends up being squished and on the floor!"

Yep, we had that problem at first. DS wasn't eating anywhere near as much as his little mates for a good two to three months. But practice makes perfect, and by now (11 mo) he can eat his own weight in pasta. Finger foods are definitely worth persevering with.

[Ironmaiden]

So do I effectively starve her into eating?! She's a great eater as long as it's smooth consitancy!

[katiebl]

I think its a case of trying solid finger foods and seeing how she gets on. Give them alongside her pureed food. She will get there eventually and the main thing is not to worry.

My ds is 19 months and has eating problems - one of them being only eating pureed food or finger foods (alongside other things about it). This is not too depress you, but to say that since I have been looking into pre-school kids with eating problems I have found out that most of them sort themselves out before they start school. So just keep trying and although it may take a while she will get there in the end.

Sorry if this isn't really advice, but been talking to others (like myself) who have got into terrible states about toddler's eating problems and the best way we've found is just to go easy and just try introducing things again and again.


Umm that's all - not supposed to be a lecture, but just worry about others getting to the state I have with my ds (his diet taking over our lives kinda thing).

[kiskidee]

i am not starving her into eating. i give her what she likes pureed and give her pieces of finger food to experiment with. in time, she will eat lumps. in fact she is just accepting pasta. i have a niece who did this and have heard of other babies too. one day they just decide to eat. how many grown ups do you know who eat only puree?