Solid frustrations

Alena won't eat solids. She just down-right refuses them.

Well, almost all of them. She'll eat carrots and bananas without a fuss.

However, she's been losing weight and I need to get her eating solids on a
regular basis or the doctor will have me supplement with formula to bring
her weight up.

I've tried offering solids before the breast.
I've tried mixing bananas and carrots (not at the same time) into her other
foods
I've tried only giving her solids for a two hour period...

Nothing. Maybe a few bites.

If I give her nothing but carrots and bananas, she gets really constipated
and takes on a yellowish hue... (not yet actually, but I'm worried about
this as it has happened to my cousin's baby...)

So, mommies and daddies of the group, what should I try now?

"Lina" wrote in message
le.rogers.com...
Alena won't eat solids. She just down-right refuses them.

Her body is just telling you she's not quite ready.


However, she's been losing weight and I need to get her eating solids
on a
regular basis or the doctor will have me supplement with formula to
bring
her weight up.

How much weight? Over what period of time? Has she recently started
rolling or crawling around?

Solids are not calorically all that for an eight month old, so trying to
push solids over breastmilk is not necessarily the best way to strike at
her weight loss. At her age I would actually be pushing her to nurse
more often and offering solids in between nursing.

I've tried offering solids before the breast.
I've tried mixing bananas and carrots (not at the same time) into her
other
foods
I've tried only giving her solids for a two hour period...

Nothing. Maybe a few bites.

I can't remember where, but I remember reading that the only two things
a baby can control for themselves are what and when they eat and how and
when they sleep. My gut reaction is to say that if you're pushing
solids that much she's just pushing you back by not taking them.


If I give her nothing but carrots and bananas, she gets really
constipated
and takes on a yellowish hue... (not yet actually, but I'm worried
about
this as it has happened to my cousin's baby...)

A yellowish-orange tint is normal for a kid that eats a lot of beta
carotine containing foods. But I'm confused. Is your "not actually
yet" directed just toward the change of color or toward the constipation
as well. If she is constipated, how are you defining that? Movements
less often are not constipation. Movements with lots of straining but
normal consistency are not constipation.

So, mommies and daddies of the group, what should I try now?

To start with, give up more details on the weight loss and her activity
levels. Then I'd really suggest pushing nursing, not pushing solids but
offering them at the same time every day. Something new every few days
until you catch what she likes and then adding that to her rotation.

--
Rhiannon
Mom to M. Girl (2 1/2 years) and O. Boy (8 1/2 months)

"She's A Goddess" wrote in message
news116c.31201$_w.530662@attbi_s53...

"Lina" wrote in message
le.rogers.com...
Alena won't eat solids. She just down-right refuses them.

Her body is just telling you she's not quite ready.


However, she's been losing weight and I need to get her eating solids
on a
regular basis or the doctor will have me supplement with formula to
bring
her weight up.

How much weight? Over what period of time? Has she recently started
rolling or crawling around?

She lost a pound in about a month. The gastro interologist said that it was
partly the reflux and partly because she needs more solids.

Solids are not calorically all that for an eight month old, so trying to
push solids over breastmilk is not necessarily the best way to strike at
her weight loss. At her age I would actually be pushing her to nurse
more often and offering solids in between nursing.


I've been doing that as well since we can't get her to eat. Since I can get
her to nurse a LOT, I'll keep doing that.

I've tried offering solids before the breast.
I've tried mixing bananas and carrots (not at the same time) into her
other
foods
I've tried only giving her solids for a two hour period...

Nothing. Maybe a few bites.

I can't remember where, but I remember reading that the only two things
a baby can control for themselves are what and when they eat and how and
when they sleep. My gut reaction is to say that if you're pushing
solids that much she's just pushing you back by not taking them.


If I give her nothing but carrots and bananas, she gets really
constipated
and takes on a yellowish hue... (not yet actually, but I'm worried
about
this as it has happened to my cousin's baby...)

A yellowish-orange tint is normal for a kid that eats a lot of beta
carotine containing foods. But I'm confused. Is your "not actually
yet" directed just toward the change of color or toward the constipation
as well. If she is constipated, how are you defining that? Movements
less often are not constipation. Movements with lots of straining but
normal consistency are not constipation.

She's been constipated when she started the bananas. She was on iron,
getting (some) iron fortified cereal, and then the bananas. She wasn't
pooping at all, and then when she did she was crying from it. We could see
her screwing up her face, turning red, and grunting to pass stool.
On reccomendation of the pediatrician, we stopped her iron and her cereal
since she wasn't really interested in it anyway. She kept eating the
bananas, but it only helped her stools a little bit.

So, mommies and daddies of the group, what should I try now?

To start with, give up more details on the weight loss and her activity
levels. Then I'd really suggest pushing nursing, not pushing solids but
offering them at the same time every day. Something new every few days
until you catch what she likes and then adding that to her rotation.


She's starting to crawl (just recently), she can move backwards (not
forwards) and she's rolling everywhere, but has been doing that since
January. She has only recently started to refuse the solids (about a month).
Nothing really traumatic that I can think of has happened to her while
eating, nor during anything else. (We've had a long year already, but
nothing that I can see that would trigger her not eating.)

I'll keep offering her the breast as often as she wants it, and I guess I'll
just pray she'll start eating again soon.

Before she stopped eating, she was eating about 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of
oatmeal as well as one ice cube worth of vegetables twice a day... So I'm
not sure what's going on.

Lina wrote:

she's been losing weight and I need to get her eating solids on a
regular basis or the doctor will have me supplement with formula to bring
her weight up.

*boggle* As the mom of an allergic baby, I'd suspect food allergy (to
one or more of the solids) as a cause of weight loss, unless you're
limiting her access to bf. In which case I'd say just bf more. It's
not like formula is more calorie-dense than breastmilk, and fruits and
veggies are *less* calorie-dense.

If I give her nothing but carrots and bananas, she gets really constipated
and takes on a yellowish hue... (not yet actually, but I'm worried about
this as it has happened to my cousin's baby...)

If not yet actually, then don't borrow trouble. There's no harm in a
"yellow from carrots" baby.

Phoebe

Lina wrote:

She lost a pound in about a month. The gastro interologist said that it was
partly the reflux and partly because she needs more solids.

What are they doing to treat the reflux? I could understand "partly
because she needs more *calories,*" but substituting formula for bm
sounds like ignorance more than science.

She has only recently started to refuse the solids (about a month).

Have you tried offering finger foods? Caterpillar started to refuse to
eat from a spoon about that same time, but she'll eat almost anything
she can shove in her mouth, or we feed her with our fingers or
chopsticks (and sometimes I can get her to eat what I'm eating if she
gets it off my spoon). She really likes french fries and sweet potato
fries, and they're pretty calorically dense.

Phoebe

Will she eat finger foods by herself? Perhaps it is starting to be a power
struggle. Do you still feed her?
--
Sue (mom to three girls)
I'm Just a Raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll World...

Lina wrote in message
le.rogers.com...
Alena won't eat solids. She just down-right refuses them.

Well, almost all of them. She'll eat carrots and bananas without a fuss.

However, she's been losing weight and I need to get her eating solids on a
regular basis or the doctor will have me supplement with formula to bring
her weight up.

I've tried offering solids before the breast.
I've tried mixing bananas and carrots (not at the same time) into her
other
foods
I've tried only giving her solids for a two hour period...

Nothing. Maybe a few bites.

If I give her nothing but carrots and bananas, she gets really constipated
and takes on a yellowish hue... (not yet actually, but I'm worried about
this as it has happened to my cousin's baby...)

So, mommies and daddies of the group, what should I try now?

Lina wrote:


She lost a pound in about a month. The gastro interologist said that
it was partly the reflux and partly because she needs more solids.

I find it unusual that she a) was eating solids at one time but has now
stopped and b) she is actually losing weight, a whole pound.

I had a baby that refused solids until he was 10mos and then ate very
little. He never stopped solids though, he just delayed the start. He also
did not loose any weight and in fact kept gaining on breastmilk alone.

Both mine would go off their solids if they were teething or had a cold or
virus.

Keep us posted. If she loses more weight I'd probably be more aggressive in
finding a cause instead of chalking it up to less solids. Maybe it is the
reflux? They might be related (both symptoms of the same problem) but not
necessarily as a cause (i.e., lack of solids causing a weight loss).

I found oatmeal to be very good for constipation in my babies so you might
try mixing her banana with that to see if she'll eat it. Luke was eating
regular oatmeal at 8 months but you could grind the oats as well.

It might just be that all is well and she experienced a temporary blip in
weight gain too. Hope things get worked out quickly!!

--
Nikki
Mama to Hunter (4) and Luke (2)

"Phoebe & Allyson" wrote in message
...
Lina wrote:

She lost a pound in about a month. The gastro interologist said that it
was
partly the reflux and partly because she needs more solids.

What are they doing to treat the reflux? I could understand "partly
because she needs more *calories,*" but substituting formula for bm
sounds like ignorance more than science.


Not a while hell of a lot. They have her on a pill which she needs to take
with solids (see the dillema?)but other than that, nothing.
She has only recently started to refuse the solids (about a month).

Have you tried offering finger foods? Caterpillar started to refuse to
eat from a spoon about that same time, but she'll eat almost anything
she can shove in her mouth, or we feed her with our fingers or
chopsticks (and sometimes I can get her to eat what I'm eating if she
gets it off my spoon). She really likes french fries and sweet potato
fries, and they're pretty calorically dense.
We tried really soft carrot cubes (really small, like the size you find in
pre-bagged veggies) but she gagged. We tried banana the same way, nothing.
She's 8 months, but a bit behind still... so I'm not sure if she's ready for
finger foods.


Phoebe

"Sue" wrote in message
...
Will she eat finger foods by herself? Perhaps it is starting to be a power
struggle. Do you still feed her?
--
I posted up a bit about carrots and bananas, but what other finger foods are
good for her at this stage? The foods she's tried are bananas, carrots,
sweet potato ( I have cooked one that's still unmashed in the fridge right
now... should I try sweet potato fries??), peas, squash (the vegetable not
the Australian juice) and prunes.
Apples seem to give her a bit of a rash, so we stopped those asap.

Lina wrote:
Before she stopped eating, she was eating about 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup
of oatmeal as well as one ice cube worth of vegetables twice a
day... So I'm not sure what's going on.

My guess would be teething. When my younger two were about 7-8 months old,
they pretty well lost interest in pureed solids altogether and preferred
finger/table foods when they ate anything solid at all. By and large,
though, they mainly gave up solid foods for a couple of months and subsisted
on breastmilk. Neither of them either lost weight or stopped gaining (and,
in fact, my third is a big solid chunk of a boy and always has been) weight,
so I don't for one moment believe that solids are "necessary" for weight
gain in infants this age. Solids may be *helpful* in terms of getting enough
iron in their diets and it's nice to get them accustomed to different tastes
and textures, but my feeling is that any doctor who tells you your baby is
not gaining weight at this age because of lack of solids just doesn't know
what he/she is talking about. As others have pointed out, breastmilk has
more calories and fat per ounce than most of the solid foods you'd be likely
to offer a baby this age, so it's just not logical to believe that adding
more solids to the diet would increase weight gain unless it adds to the
baby's total caloric intake (IOW, the solids don't displace breastmilk).

IMHO, you should breastfeed her as often as she wants and even offer
occasionally when she's not asking. If she seems at all interested in
something you're eating during a meal and it's a single-ingredient,
non-allergenic and not chewy food, offer her a bite. I remember when my
daughter was about 7 months old, she grabbed a cracker out of my hand, bit
into it, and chewed with a beatific smile on her face. That was when I
realized that she wasn't refusing solids because she didn't like food but
because she was bored with all the slimy, pureed stuff!

Now, in your baby's case, it sounds like the reflux is contributing to the
low weight gain and I do suppose your gastroenterologist may think that if
she ate more solids, she would keep them down more easily than milk and
therefore get more calories from them. That's just a guess, though. But if
she doesn't want them, I would NOT force them on her and would, in fact,
back off altogether for a little while. If it is, as I suspect, teething
that's causing her disinterest in solids then it will pass in a couple of
months after she cuts the offending teeth.

Good luck and HTH!
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [2] mom)

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman