Hi,
My little one is now nearly 9 months old and refuses to eat food. I started weaning her from 6 months and cook majority of her meals myself (nearly all). She took to food really well until recently. Now she cries and refuses to go in the highchair. I have to play with her and distract her inorder to get food in her. She's still having 2 breastfeeds (morning and night) and a bottle of formula (180mls) mid afternoon. I don't force feed and have tried everthing like eating together, making meal times fun and encouraging finger foods. Nothing seems to work and this is really starting to worry me as I feel she's not getting enough nutrition. Any advice would be very appreciated

Hi hun, afraid I haven't got any great advice but just wanted to say your situation sounds a little similar to mine.
I too make all Kade's own food and breastfeed (4 times a day) and up until a couple of months ago he would eat quite happily but now I find that after the first 5 or 6 spoonfuls he pushes my arm away so the only way I have of getting food into him is by distraction.
Basically if I didn't do this he wouldn't eat.
The annoying thing is, is he will quite happily polish off every scrap of food so long as I give him something to play with or have a book on his tray while I read it and sneak mouthfuls in lol.

Not sure if it's a phase or not but maybe if distraction is the only way your lo will eat, it's worth doing?

Good luck xx

AAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry but that's how mealtimes have been with both my boys at times so I know how you feel hun!

Ethan is 17 months and has only ever let me feed him while he plays with his toys in his high chair. Like Louise said it is worth it if that's the only way she'll eat because it does make life easier. The only problem is it makes a rod for your own back because when she becomes a toddler and won't let you fob her off with distractions it's worse (although she may feed herself then).

Have you tried letting her dip a spoon or breadstick in her food while you feed her? She might like to pretend she's doing it herself and at least there's a point to this playing, she's learning to feed herself. Let her put her fingers in if you can stand the mess as well. Will she eat sat on your knee and taking food off the highchair tray to get it back in her good books?

Keep doing what your doing, making it fun etc - what doesn't work today might work tomorrow.

I had exactly the same with my first son (who is now 6 and eats like a horse!) and didn't listen to my HV advice at the time but she was so right............DON'T WORRY THEY WON'T STARVE! Honestly, no matter how picky they are they really will eat when they are hungry and it won't last forever, try not to worry. Just keep offering healthy foods and the odd bit of high calorie food if you think she's not getting enough calories.

Good luck
x

We went through this with Sonny, we had to trick him into taking a mouthful of food, usually by pretending to let him drink from his beaker then shoving the food in his mouth instead

Another thing we did was to give him his own spoon & he used to let you feed him whilst he was playing with it, it ended up covered in food too cause he would shove it in his mouth whilst full but whatever, it worked. Try also introducing some soft finger foods during the meal, that way lo feels involved & feels independant.

But like others say, lo wont starve, they will eat what they want but tbh, I hardly cook real meals for sonny anymore cause at 15 months he only wants to feed himself so fish fingers, chicken goujons, peices of poached fish & peas, carrots, potatoe wedges, smilie faces or new potatoes are the main diet for him these days. If i do try to give somethign on a spoon we always end up in a huge mes cause he wants to feed himself all the time, the only thing I feel safe letting him spoon feed himself is mash, not so much mess :)

Thank you all for your advice. It's really reassuring to know that I'm not the only one! I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully one day she'll snap out of it - fingers crossed