Im not sure what to do anymore! for the past 2 weeks about Kaydance will not eat any baby food off of a spoon! she will eat fruit/veggie puffs, and small tidbits that she can handle chewing up (still no large table foods) and drink her bottles, but thats about it. she wants to be able to feed foods to herself i think, but she still chokes sometimes and has a hard time getting certain things like fruits which are slippery all the way up to her mouth. i feel like she isnt really getting a balanced diet anymore becuase she just seems to be living off of formula and puffs! she will occasionally eat a meat or turkey stick (the gerber kind out of a jar lol) but im not sure where to go from here. i cannot get more than 2 bites of baby food into her off of a spoon, even if i give her a spoon of her own to play with!

anyone else go through this, or have any suggestions?

Nika, you might want to PM cln1812 (Cheryl). Her daughter, Tessa, also prefers to self-feed. I believe she is 8 months old and I remember Cheryl having lots of trouble getting her to eat baby purees.

hi obviously I'm not a parent yet, so feel free to ignore me, lol! But have you tried those mesh feeder things?? That way she can still have things like fruit but can feed herself with them with no danger of choking.
Also I know you don't want to be going backwards with this, but one of my friends child didn't have anything solid until she would feed herself completely. She just flat out refused anything off a spoon. She would want to try things off their plates though. She's now coming up to 3 years and has the most varied diet of any child I know, so it doesn't always mean they will suffer from it.

I will see if I can find a link to one of those feeder things

http://www.bibsandstuff.co.uk/acatalog/baby_safe_feeder.html#a64
hth a bit

Hey Dee, you are always welcomed to post hun!!!

I personally have not had any luck with the mesh feeder. I bought a package of 2 and Audrey doesn't like using it at all, so I thought it was a waste of money completely. She doesn't like the feel of the mesh. Some babies may take to it just like that but others may not, so I guess if you are up to trying it then go for it. I'm going to give one of Audrey's away to an expecting sister in law and the other to a friend. I also bought extra nets because I didn't think that I'd ever see them again, so I really wasted money buying them, even though it didn't cost a whole lot, still sad how much you can spend on a baby and realize they don't like what you bought them

Ah, just a gimmick possibly then... shame, it looked such a good idea! It is scary how much money you cna spend in the blink of an eye, isn't it.

(thanks gutter )

x

Dee,
No problem, who knows though, some babies may take to it, I just know that Audrey absolutely got no use out of hers. She just keeps turning her head. I've put the mesh peice in her mouth and she just gags.

i will try those mesh things, just cause at this point i feel like a couple of bucks will be ok if it gets some healthy food into her!!

its just strage that she used to eat 3 meals a day, off of a spoon, and now i cant get more than 3 bites into her and she will scream and cry! she used to open her mouth like a little bird- i dont know what happened!!!

Nika, are you giving her the same kinds of foods she took before? Or did you switch stages? Perhaps if you're trying to switch things up, she's noticing and doesn't like it?

Give the mesh-eaters a go. I love those things, but I'm too afraid to try anything with Kenadi yet because she has NO teeth and I'm afraid she'll get a piece too big in her mouth. I might try something soft like a plum or something though.

My two cents, she is tired of pureed food and wants some real food. Maybe just try giving her the small things she is able to chew. If she is cutting teeth she could be wanting to chew her food because it makes the teeth feel better...

When my kids starting doing this, out the window went the jars of baby food and I just starting cutting up and mashing down what we were eating...

thanks juls! thats what i was thinking too, but people keep telling me she cant eat real people food till shes like 10 months old!!! i think im just going to start feeding her what we are eating, which means we are going to have to start eating way earlier or shes going to have to stay up a bit later lol!

and ry, she wont eat ANY baby foods off of a spoon, i tried all 3 stages since she started boycotting baby food to see if that was it lol!!!

I actually started noticing Audrey becoming a bit pickier as we are trying the 8 month foods. She still doesn't much care for the little bits of potato that are in the food, so she tries to spit them back out. I also think she got a little fussier because of her teething though, so maybe that could be the reason...

Tessa is just over 8 months now. I never got her to take to purees at all. She completely refused them. DD has always preferred to self-feed. When she was around 7.5 months old, we were still mostly exclusively breastfeeding. One day I was holding her while I was eating a slice of apple, and she grabbed the apple from me and stuck it in her mouth. I bought some soft pears and sliced & peeled them and would hold DD on my lap and feed them to her. Those she loved. We did the same with avocado, smashed blueberries, cooked carrots. About 2 weeks ago, I got her to eat puffs and last week, she mastered cheerios. This week, I tried yogurt, and she ate it off a spoon. She also eats small bits of cooked ground beef off a spoon now. It may be time to move to big people food! Those baby purees aren't very tasty after all!

cool, thanks cheryl! i meant to PM you but i was at work and forgot!!! glad you found my thread i am going to start mashing/chopping up big people food and trying that with her. i think as long as she can easily pick it up herself she will eat it, but has completely boycotted the spoon lol!

Hey Nika and all:

Evie WAY prefers to self-feed too, and has been that way since about 6.5 or 7 mos..I think that's about the time she starting knocking the spoon out of my hand or trying to take it from me! She just wants to be independent, I think.

Sooo...we have dealt with this by letting her feed herself whenever possible. She loves cut up fruits: bananas, nectarines, plums, grapes cut very small...there's pretty much nothing she won't eat, and her little bowel seems to actually handle all of this miraculously well. And for a kiddo with no chewing teeth, she really does well at gumming up her food; she doesn't choke. For veggies, we'll cut up green beens or cooked carrots or broccoli; she also likes peas. For grains, Cheerios, Graduates puffs, and even chunked up bread. I swear, my little girl is a garbage disposal...gets it from her daddy!!

She'll still let me spoonfeed her sometimes, esp. with something she really likes, like a bit of mashed potatoes or something.

Best of luck!

Cheers,
Allison

thanks allison!!

well tongight we had lightly seasoned chicken and rice and corn, so when we were eating dinner i kind of cut up/shredded some of the chicken and gave it to kaydance along with some of the rice and a little bit of the corn. she totally chowed down on the chicken!!! and she had some of the rice too, but she didnt really try the corn. i didnt push it cause she had done so well with the other two and was starting to get kinda fussy. i think most of it ended up in her lap, but i saw her chomping on some of the chicken so i know she ate some of it. i think from now on im just going to have to stock the house with healthy food for once lol! it will be good for me and DF too

OMG Nika, glad to hear that the human food thing is working with Kaydance.

I still spoon feed Audrey, she has never tried to do it herself, EXCEPT lately she's been eyeballing her food on the spoon. It's as if she's observing me and trying to figure out how it works. I won't give her the spoon, I'll spoon feed her as long as I can, haha!!

Nika, I hope it gets easier with Kaydance!

Yay for Nika and Kaydance! I'm glad to hear that the self-feeding might be helpful. It Sure did help with Evie.

Cheers,
Allison

Oh, and if she likes meat...look for Gerber "Meat Sticks" (they come in varieties, like chicken, turkey, etc.). (They're like Vienna Sausages, only just for babies. I think they're slightly healthier or something.)They're with the rest of the "toddler food" stuff in stores. To me, they look/smell (I can't bring myself to taste them) disgusting, but Evie adores them. I'll give her 3 or 4 sticks at a meal when we have no meat that we could share with her. Definitely cut them up small, though-- choking hazard.

Good luck!
Allison

thanks allison!! i got a few jars of those, but we havent tried them yet. yesterday me and DF had eggs and bacon and toast for breakfast, and i gave some of the eggs to kaydance and i tore up some untoasted bread for her, and she ate every last speck of egg i gave her! she loved it, there wasnt even any in her lap lol! im slowly finding out what kinds of foods are her favorites. this morning i gave her some cut up strawberries and bananas and she had a lot of trouble picking them up cause they were slippery, but she actually let me give them to her off a spoon! i guess she just doesnt like baby food at all anymore lol.