Thursday, September 21, 2006

I need a baby manual

This is my "Give me advice - any advice" post... so please do not be stingy, I will try anything.

Has anyone had issues with their babies not wanting to eat baby food? Please tell me what you tried or give me ideas... here are the issues:

Georgia is 10 1/2 months old.
She has the 2 front bottom teeth
She is getting the top two middle teeth - one has broken through, the other is just under the surface
She will take her last dose of amoxycillan for an ear infection tonight
She will drink her bottles now (last week she wouldn't - probably due to the ear infection... otis media... i am so smart. smrt).
She will NOT eat her babyfood. I have always given her 1/2 jar each of veggies and fruit at lunch and dinner. At breakfast she was eating 1/2 of a banana. Now she will not eat any of it. If I cut up a banana for her it ends up on the floor, on her lap, in the chair and in her hair - none in her mouth. So now I'm giving her toast...

The babyfood... at first I thought she was refusing the meats, so I stuck with veggies and fruit - no meat combos, but then it turned into refusing the veggies, so I would try to mix the veggies with the fruit - 1/3 spoonful veggie, 2/3 spoonful fruit - but now she is rejecting all babyfood - including fruits. By rejecting I mean, screaming at the sight of it, crying when I put it in her mouth, pushing it out of her mouth, spitting it all over, letting it drip out of her mouth - and any other form of rejecting that you can think of.

So I try to give her table food, but since she doesn't have teeth (and can't eat everything) I don't feel comfortable that she's getting enough to eat... Today I gave her some pineapple and she seemed very, very happy with that. I also gave her some sweet potato fries and she'd put a piece in her mouth and let it fall out. She used to eat frozen peas and frozen corn like it was candy, now not so much...

So I'm stuck. She's not eating a whole lot and then she's crabby when she wakes up in the morning and crabby before meals. Anyone have any ideas?

I know this could be due to that second tooth trying to break through, but good gracious, I want to skip meal time altogether because it has become the most miserable time of day... actually, the 1/2 hour before meal time and the mealtime itself are the most miserable times of day, which means that there is very few minutes of quiet happy time when she is awake.

Someone solve my problem - PLEASE!

11 comments:

Mommy Brain 2:10 PM  

HMMMMMM.....Just when you think you've got them figured out they go and change all the rules on ya...don't you hate that!

10 1/2 months old...My knee jerk reaction is that either she's going through an independent stage and wants to feed herself or she still doesn't feel good, either her stomach is bothering her or her mouth or throat is.

If she's trying out her independance I'd go with banannas, cheese, cut up fruit, steamed veggies, breadsticks and so on and just let her feed herself. Her main calories should still be coming from formula so solids should be mainly supplemental or for fun. Even with only two teeth she will probably surprise you what she can eat.

If she's still under the weather, try ibuprofin: the other wonder drug. I hate these kind of "storms"...never knowing what is wrong or when it will end.

One more trick...when my kids were tiny like that, making dinner was always the worst time of the day. They would be hanging on my leg while I stood at the stove. I would put them in their highchair and give them dum dum suckers or the safety suckers...it worked like a charm. They would sit there and eat and play and I could finish dinner. I know some readers will gasp at this suggestion...but it was a life saver for me! Sorry for the long post.

Anonymous 2:39 PM  

Oh Lord have mercy I HATE food issues! And I still have them to this day. With Cade. :)

Welp, I agree with Ms. Mommy Brain. I'd also try not heating up the baby food, or heating up the baby food, whichever you don't do. At this age too, I think she can have most table food, you'll just have to stick it in a food proc. to get it mushy. Mashed potatoes? French fries? Go back to stage 2 babyfood? And Christine is right - most calories are coming from formula, thank goodness. Could be those teeth.....

Jen 3:03 PM  

We were always off baby food by like 10 months and my kids don't get teeth til very late~Amelia's FIRST tooth was at 13 months. She was eating brats and chicken very nicely with no teeth. She'll surprise you with what she can eat. We also always had them at the table eating with us so that seemed to help. Esp. with Greta cuz she would do whatever her big sisters were doing.

Also, remember what a portion for a baby is. My ped. once told me one ice cube is a portion. So even though it seems like they are eating nxt to nothing, she's getting enough~especially with formula.

HTH and Bon Appetit Miss Georgia!

Jen 3:03 PM  

Miss Georiga like "Miss Georgia" not like the beauty pagent Miss Georgia! :-)

Anonymous 4:18 PM  

Jana,
I have Nora right now and she's 9 months old, I've had her a few times this week and she's cutting her two top teeth, she is very happy to chew on cheerios and those fruit puff things (gerber). She has refused her bottle and her mom told me to put oragel (sp?) on her top gums about 1/2 hour before feeding her and it works, she eats much better. Those poor gums hurt, hurt, hurt. That's my 2 cents. All four of my children ate everything in site and still do. I guess I've been lucky here.

Anonymous 9:04 PM  

Look at Parent magazine from this month..it has 52 great table food ideas with great photos for kids under one. My pediatrician always told me not to worry about food for our kids. If they are getting enough formula at this age, that is most impt. Don't stress!

Anonymous 9:30 PM  

ok - won't repeat what's already been said but can say "hear hear" to much of it...

i made my own baby food for the most part. he liked texture at 10 mo age.. didn't need such soft food that the prepackaged baby food made. i just cooked up whatever veggie or cihcken, whatever and blended in the blender. easy. :) jas was eating blueberries one night.. blended some for seth.. maybe some frozen fruit blended with a little juice or water would taste good cold on her gums (if that's what's hurting her).... i say try going around the jars and blend up "real" foods - liek what you are having for dinner as a try... this could be so many things and my advice meaningless esp if it's a gums or tummy thing... thank the Lord she can have formula. :)

Lisa @ Heaven Sent 9:36 PM  

Lots of good advice here. One idea I recently heard of is spreading the babyfood on the toast. That way she's getting it without knowing it...brilliant!!

Kary 8:11 AM  

Cool toast idea!!
My experience is this. . .she will not starve, and if she is starving, she will eat. . .even if it's creamed spinach on brussel sprouts. Millie did not get any teeth until she was almost two!! Not one. (In fact, she won the award at my peds office for going the longest without teeth. Hmmm. . .she also won the award of going the longest without pooping~this one had me worried). Anyway, my point is, she outgrew baby food way before her teeth came in. I just presented her the same stuff we ate. . only VERY tiny pieces. Some days she ate. Some days she didn't. You will probably find the same thing with Georgia.

i am not 12:32 PM  

Mommy Brain - Dum Dum suckers? Hate them. Good idea, but hate them. You must be one of those moms that bathes your kids everyday. Mine bathe once a month, so dum dum suckers are out.

Jen - HTH? What does that mean? You're way too blog chic for me:)

Dr. Beautiful - good advice, doc. Sometimes I just need to be reminded of that stuff, but when the thought of waking up in the middle of the night because she's hungry creeps in my mind, I start to freak out... And I did notice my otitis error, but who knows how to spell amox other than a doctor?

Missy - Georgia only eats those Gerber puffs at church for some reason. She won't touch them here. Is enjoying cheerios again, though. Orajel - I have some, I just haven't gotten around to that yet.

Cousin Jen - saw that article and was looking forward to some new ideas, but there weren't many new ideas AND a lot of those foods were either inconvenient or a pain to prepare...

Heaven Sent - baby food on toast?! Wow! Great idea. At first I was grossed out by the idea, but then I realized its kind of like jam. Tried it this morning and Georgia and Woof both enjoyed it very much. Will be doing this more often. Look at you mom of one - you're so smart!

Okay, so I wasn't freaking out - just frustrated with the misery of meal time - Georgia crying and screaming at the site of the baby food and me trying to feed her properly (so I thought). I have been cutting up her food into tiny bits (thanks for the size info Dr. Beautiful) and she is very much enjoying her new food. Steak & rice and carrots last night was gobbled up - AND we didn't have any screaming. Have to say I'm not sad to see baby food go - it takes forever to feed them with that. I've just been hesitant to cut it out because when I tried to cut it out with Ryann at this age she began waking up over night again because she was hungry. But if she's okay, then I'm okay:)

Thanks for all of your advice!

Anonymous 10:02 AM  

HTH = Hope This Helps

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