baby suddenly only wants to feed herself...but now can't consume enough to satisfy her hunger?

[hellosailor]

Sorry - another thread about weaning..would appreciate any advice!

My baby is 8 months old and has been eating 3 pretty hearty meals a day for some weeks. Since this has been established she has been for some time on just half a bottle of milk before breakfast, (with the second half mixed in with porridge or cereal) a bottle mid afternoon, and a bottle before bed, in other words the daily 20oz required at this age but not more.

She has always cheerfully eaten pretty much whatever I've cooked for her and fed her with a spoon, chicken casseroles, fish pies, macaroni cheese, lentil bakes etc, as well as finger foods.

Overnight 4 days ago she won't open her mouth for food, at least not after the first couple of mouthfuls. Sometimes any attempt to feed her makes her angry and upset (obviously I don't keep trying if this happens!) Other times, and I know this isn't ideal, if you make her chortle, play aeroplanes, pretend to be snaffling it yourself etc, you can get her to eat quite a lot of the bowl by, well, let's face it, trickery. I don't really want to resort to this if she is now going to be resisting spoon feeding permanently. There are exceptions - you can still spoon feed her macaroni cheese and she opens her mouth with gusto - so there are obviously some foods that she likes so much she is still prepared to be fed! But she can't have macaroni cheese for every meal..

She will however still feed herself, which is great, but this is the bit I can't quite get to grips with.....

she is obviously not at all as dexterous at feeding herself as I am at feeding her and therefore is suddenly consuming a LOT less than she is used to!

I very much want to be able to relax about this and adopt a 'food before one is just for fun' attitude, but I guess I don't understand how - unless your 8 month old baby is still on a lot of milk feeds a day, or feeds during the night to make up the calories, or is breast fed on demand, food can be 'just' for fun, when only a matter of days ago it was the bulk of what was sustaining her?

She doesn't want to settle for her lunchtime nap as she doesn't have milk before lunch, is just used to having a carby meal, but now she's smearing that meal over her neck, dropping it on the floor, pinging it off the spoon like a catapult instead of letting me feed it to her, so she is too hungry to settle. Do I just start re introducing milk feeds? This feels odd and...the well worn phrase....like we'd be going backwards..

Similarly, she woke at 5:30 am today and could not be settled back to sleep, she was clearly hungry, which is what I presumed would happen when we got to the end of yesterday with her having consumed a fraction of what she is used to consuming for the last 2 months when I feed her?

I know that people say reassuringly that babies who feed themselves will take enough and if they want it they'll eat it, and if they don't want it, they won't, but that doesn't seem to factor in that quite a lot of the time they may be trying to get it into their mouths and missing/dropping it/crushing it to nothing in their fist before it reaches their mouth? Just watched her try to feed herself a bowl of porridge except she always gripped the porridge end of the spoon and put the handle in her mouth...at the end of the 'meal' she hadn't eaten any porridge...

She clearly isn't taking what she needs because she is hungry and not sleeping well as a result? If I had started with BLW from day one then I guess this wouldn't stress me, but I'm finding it really hard adjusting overnight to the fact that my daughter is only eating a small percentage of what she was, and not because she is less hungry, but because she doesn't yet have the physical capability to feed herself what she would like to consume. Half an hour or 45 mins of trying to spoon her usual bowl of porridge into her own mouth, or use her hands, maybe results in her having managed to swallow a few spoonfuls - I was brought up in a very 'waste not want not' family and my heart sinks every time I have to throw away a bowl of weetabix with hardly a dent in it, or clean whole contents of a bowl of weetabix off the floor instead of seeing it disappearing into her tummy.

How can I relax and go along with her for the ride, while getting her to eat enough to satisfy her hunger and settle at sleep times?

edited to say that she has just cried and cried and refused to go down for her morning nap because she is hungry, having not managed to get most of her breakfast in her mouth, but having not let me feed her...:'(

[jollybaby]

Is she teething or coming down with a viral illness? Miss jb went through phases like that and it was so dispiriting when before she would wolf down huge bowls of weetabix and porridge. Both illness and teething could be upsetting her sleep patterns too. These phases passed after a week or two and she would happily take food from a spoon again after.

Miss JB is now one and feeding herself a lot more - both finger foods and with a spoon. I do sometimes worry when I see how much is on the floor after a meal but am trying to relax and tell myself that she has eaten what she needs. Tough isn't it!

In terms of practical advice - The baby bjorn spoon and bowl set was recommended on here - I think by fuschia. It's expensive - around ?18 but the spoons are really easy for them to hold and feed themselves with. May be worth a try.

[Fuschia]

I recognise this! Am doing blw but baby (11m) sometimes makes a real hash of feeding himself of even, like last night, falls asleep in

The car on the way back from

The park and misses dinner totally

I am

Bf and we cosleep and he definitely takes more milk when he needs to (which makes me think offering more milk during this transitional phase would be a natural response and the way things are designed)

[hellosailor]

Thanks jollybaby and Fuschia - I actually bought the baby bjorn spoons yesterday as I remembered Fuschia having mentioned them on another thread! I was hoping that the short length of the handle would help but having had several attempts with them yesterday, they were actually less effective for getting food into her than a normal weaning spoon cos the surface of the bjorn spoon is shinier than a rubber spoon and the food slips off waaaay before it reaches her face!!

Jollybaby, there is nothing else to suggest that she is coming down with a virus so far, but I will watch for other signs in case this explains the overnight turnaround..similarly, she has no teeth and I can't see one coming but perhaps one will pop through all of a sudden! it does lift my spirits to hear that miss jb went through phases like this and then took food from a spoon again - were the phases always linked to a virus or teething or did they ever happen for no apparent reason? (she said, hopefully...)

Fuschia, you're right, I will of course up her milk intake to replace foods if necessary, don't want her to feel hungry, but just wish she'd go back to scarfing down the (zillions) of pots of food I have made for her in the freezer...

[Fuschia]

Try the bSby bjorn spoon with sticky food

Works with porridge that's not too runny and with fish pie etc if missed with stiff mashed potato

Use two spoons, your job is to load a small but of food ...

[KatsuQueen]

Hi, we went through this with Minikatsu at exactly the same age. (I think it is pretty common and a developmental thing). What worked for us was, giving him his own spoon and letting him do whatever he wanted with the food, while sneaking food into his mouth with another spoon whenever possible. Mealtimes were very very messy, he wanted to touch the food and squish it with his hands. There was often more food on the floor, on his hair, etc than he had actually eaten. (We have photos!) You just have to make double trhe amount of food, the wastage is awful I know, but we found it was the only way.

NOw he's nearly three and the novlety of feeding himself has worn off, he loves to be fed!

[cuppa tea]

It might help to not think so much in terms of 3 meals a day, but perhaps give smaller meals and lots of snacks/finger foods in between. 8 month olds still have small stomachs and I think probably the more regimented eating that us adults tend to do is probably strange to them. Over the course of a day with lots of snacks, plus small meals, she's probably getting more than you think...even when most of it seems to be on the floor.

The only way they can become more dexterous is by age development and practice. My second baby refused point blank to ever eat anything off a spoon, so I was somewhat pushed into giving him chunks of food from the off. Some days he ate very little and sometimes loads. His ability to get the spoon in his mouth improved VERY quickly. There's nothing like the motivation of being hungry eh? Really I would try very hard to relax and go with the flow. I honestly think babies know what they are doing even when they are 8 months old and there is no way they want to starve themselves! I don't mean at all to sound brutal here, but if she was really that hungry she would chomp off the spoon you were feeding her with. I don't think there is any harm in upping the milk if you think she needs it is there? I wouldn't worry about the 'rules' of this and just do what you think is best. I know where you are coming from though...I had all these worries with my first.

[jollybaby]

Hello sailor - sometimes we could link the off phases to illness or teeth, but as the others have said I expect development did play a part. It was around this time she began to resist lots of other things too - like being put into her buggy!

[hellosailor]

yes yes jollybaby!!! She has simultaneously just started to resist being put into her buggy!! I think you're onto something!

Relieved miss jb was doing similar stuff at 8 months...maybe it'll all come out in the wash, as it were....

[hellosailor]

lots of thanks for your advice jollybaby, Fuschia, Cuppa tea and KatsuQueen, will be using these tips and trying to relax about it...while repeating the mantra 'everything's a phase!....'

[Sanne Panne]

KatsuQueen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hi, we went through this with Minikatsu at exactly

> the same age. (I think it is pretty common and a

> developmental thing). What worked for us was,

> giving him his own spoon and letting him do

> whatever he wanted with the food, while sneaking

> food into his mouth with another spoon whenever

> possible.

Same here! Keep them busy with finger foods. Either get more of the same food in with a second spoon or, during a fussy phase, keep them busy with breadsticks and raisins and sneak some spinach in. A week later they'll be wolfing down mango with a fork + two hands. Or stuffing their mouths with fusilli and pesto. Just be there to strategically add whatever you think is missing, be it calories or nutrients or both.

Good luck... some days this works a treat and some other days just suck. I think that once you accept that you're ready to live a happier life ;)

[mrs f]

does anyone have the link to the baby bjorn spoon? I can't seem to find them and need something baby f can feed himself with asap!

Loved the look of the one Alih posted but can't find them in the uk sadly...

[jollybaby]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_16/275-0205747-9146637?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=baby+bjorn+spoon&sprefix=baby+bjorn+spoon

Hope that helps

[snowboarder]

These? I like them for bigger snowboarder but find them a bit big/wide for the baby. They have them at Soup Dragon I think....

[hellosailor]

that's them mrs f - the link snowboarder has put up.

You can get them in soup dragon - you can buy them in a pack with the matching plate, which I didn't bother with, as you can also get them in there in a pack with just the two spoons and no plate which is a few quid cheaper..

[mrs f]

Oh thanks everyone!