You have offered your baby countless foods and used all sorts of silly tricks like “Open up for the airplane!” but your baby is still refusing to eat anything besides their bottle and maybe some puffs. Frustration sets in and you want to pull your hair out. When your baby won’t eat solids it is hard to find the patience to figure out the problem.
This is one of the stages where you find that each baby is so different. You may have already had a child or two and this was not a problem at all. It can throw you for a loop when you have a 9 or 10 month old that will not eat but the first step is to realize that they can survive on just breast milk or formula for the 1st year of their life. Patience is difficult. There are some tips that can help warm up your baby to solids.
5 Tips When Your Baby Won’t Eat Solids
1) Cut back on formula or breast milk. The typical max recommended daily intake is 32 oz. It’s highly likely that your baby just isn’t hungry. Talk to your doctor about recommendations specific to your baby. Check on his growth as well. If your baby is full then they won’t feel the need to eat the foods you are offering.
My twin boys were bottle hogs. They absolutely loved their bottles and I had to gradually offer a little less formula (we were over the 32 oz. daily intake level). It made their appetites for new foods much bigger.
2) Play with foods. Learn to make it fun, and help him to have fun. Don’t push for him to eat. This is so hard to have the patience. Plan enough time for meals that you don’t feel rushed.
Make a little game out of trying the food. If he tries the carrot Mommy will spin in circles, if he tries the pear Mommy will hop on one foot around the kitchen. Be silly.
Also, this post about using a fun picky eater container system by my friend Kristy from On My Kids Plate helps with introducing new foods.
3) Wait 45 mins after a bottle. Try offering solids about 45 minutes to an hour after a bottle. That way he isn’t too full for intake and also isn’t too hungry to enjoy. Definitely don’t wait until they are too hungry, no one is in their best spirits when hangry!
4) Stay positive. Keep trying and stay positive, even when he gags or spits food out. Gagging is normal and babies can take up to 20 separate exposures to a certain food before they rule it out. Gosh that seems like a lot of wasted food. 🙂 Keep trying though, mix up their options.
5) Mix their favorites in with the new offering. If your baby likes pears and you are offering up a new veggie then mix a little pear in with it. That’s what all the new baby food pouches are doing so we can do it at home too. Make your own pear/spinach mix and apple/carrot. As adults we don’t eat our vegetables plain so let’s make it tasty for the little ones. Let’s make little gourmet eaters.
It may seem hard to have patience but I promise that every kid will eventually eat. I always tell myself on all difficult transitions that no kid goes to Kindergarten still drinking from a bottle, not potty trained or not able to do any of these skills that we stress over while they are babies. They will eventually get it but some tips and tricks always help get us over the hump of teaching our little ones.
I hope these tips for if your baby won’t eat solids will help.
If you are looking for more tips:
Experienced Parents Tips For Transitioning From Formula To Milk
and
Bottle Feeding: Am I Feeding My Baby Too Much or Too Little?
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We had this issue with my son, he didn’t have any interest in “real” food until almost 10 months old. We gave it a few more months and then by the time he was a year old he was ready for food 🙂
These are good tips! Luckily I haven’t had any trouble introducing solids to my kids around 6 months of age. They love it but I know a lot of babies want to wait a while.
These are such great tips for any parent who is having this challenge with their baby! Fortunately, our four kids never had this problem and were good eaters when the time came to start adding solid food.
Great tips for a picky eater. I never thought about waiting 45 min. Makes sense cause their tummies are so small.
These are great tips! I know my sister in law had some issues trying to get one of my nephews on solids and this would have been a big help!
These are really great tips. It can take some trial and error to find foods that your baby will like, but using some of these suggestions can make it a little easier.
Such an informative post, this would be quite helpful. Thanks for the tip, I’ll try this method someday.
I don’t know if this is still a good idea or not, but my mom suggested that I give Ashley new foods when she was hungry, before the bottle. Just small amounts, enough to try it. It seemed to work and she then filled up with the bottle later.
When I was little, I would spit out meat baby food and only eat veggies. Which baffled my mother. But I kept that pattern into childhood and became a vegetarian as soon as I was able. My mother looked back at my baby food days and just laughed because she realized later that was a sign.
My 5th born wouldn’t eat solids until he was about 14 months. He would gag whenever he saw food or a spoon. Sometimes they just gotta grow out of it, and other times they may not be ready yet. These are some great tips to try!
My son refused to let me feed him anything. We thought we would have an issue getting him to eat solids but that wasn’t the case. He just wanted to feed himself.
We had issues with my son and solid foods. He was almost a year before he was really eating them. His pediatrician kept telling us he would be fine and he was!
After raising five kids, I learned (mostly the hard way) that nearly all of my stressing about my picky eaters was wasted. They all grew up healthy, were extremely successful in school, and are now happily out making lives of their own. The fact that at least two of them seemly survived on nothing but fishy crackers and carrots for months at a time apparently didn’t make a dent. Be kind to yourself.
My favorite tip: stay positive! Feeding my little cousins get so messy that it’s only my positivity that keeps me going.
my kids didn’t have this problem. They were ready to eat food at 6 months!
Urgh, I am dealing with a 6 year old who is an extremely picky eater…so I can relate to this post. Patience has been the key to me keeping my sanity and not allowing this to stress me. When she is hungry she does eat, so I know that she will not starve to death. lol.
Thrifting Diva
http://www.thriftingdiva.com
I agree that making sure there is patience and time. So difficult to actually practice sometimes. 🙂
I’m starting to give solids to my son and I find this very helpful! These young ones can be very picky and we need to consider these things
Mixing favorites with new foods is such a great tip! Especially easy to do if you’re doing purees.
I know a few babies that had a sensory / oral aversion to solid foods and went to therapy to get more comfortable with foods. Now they eat better. I wouldn’t worry too much about solids but if they are 1 year or older then I would definitely look into some outside help. Some babies seem to get into solids as early as 6 months and others take their time.
These tips are really very helpful. When my daughter does not want to eat food I always try to stay positive. I think when she gets hungry she will eat automatically. I don’t have to urge her!