Struggling with weaning!!!

[Tanya4beauty]

Hi ladies, I've not been on here for a while so hello and hope you're all ok?
I'm having trouble getting my little man to eat! He will be 8 months next Saturday and we've been trying since he was about 5 1/2 months. I've tried absolutely everything including my own puréed food, jars/pouches and blw. He is now picking things up and putting them in his mouth and he will eat fruit pots but it's so frustrating!
He has been poorly pretty much for the past two months so that's not helping and e has dropped his milk intake too. At the moment he is still having 5 bottles in the day and two in the night!! I was hoping by now his milk feeds would have dropped. I just can't get him to eat even if he's not had much milk he's still not that interested.
Anyone had the same problem?! He has a milk allergy so is on nutramigen formula and currently this is our routine
7.30 milk
8.30 breakfast
11 milk
1 lunch
2 milk
5 milk
6 dinner
7.30 milk and bed.
My hopes were that as he ate more we would be able to wait longer between milk feeds and therefore drop feeds. I've tried doing his bottles a bit later as he never really makes a fuss but even if I get his 2pm bottle to 3pm he still creates for one at 5pm!!
Any ideas?!! I never had this trouble with my daughter. She just ate!! X

 

[Browneyed Girl]

My lo is 8 months and it has been a very slow start to weaning. He had a bad cold for the first couple of weeks but honestly I don't think he was ready, he hated having a spoon in his mouth and had very little interest in eating anything. I took a good 7 weeks before I went up to 2 meals a day and to be honest he still wasn't eating much. It's only the last few days that I've managed to get him on 3 meals, drop a bottle in the day and stop his night feed. Once he started eating a decent amount at one meal it sparked his interest in more meals really quickly. I would drop back to 1 or 2 meals a day and wait til he is interested in food before increasing it. When I stepped up to 2 meals I found breakfast and tea worked best rather than breakfast and lunch. I would bring dinner forward, my lo is too tired to eat after 3.30. My outline is:

7 bottle
8.15 breakfast
10 bottle
12 lunch
1.30/2 bottle
3.30 dinner
6.15 bottle and bed

Until recently he had a bottle straight after tea but doesn't need it. Looking at your routine your lo should be full from milk by dinner time and might also be too tired. Keep going - it will click!! xx

 

[Tanya4beauty]

He's fine at dinner time tiredness wise and to be honest I can't really bring it forward as I have my 3 yr old to feed too so I can't really do two dinner times. I guess I could try bringing it forward to 5pm for both of them but we are out and about quite a lot and that makes dinner time a bit of a rush! It was so different with my daughter she definitely just ate when I offered food and was no problem. I think it's just been illness and not being ready. I'm trying to go the blw way at the moment as he really doesn't like being fed.
He also can't really be full on milk as he's halved his intake from 6oz to 2-3oz per feed for the last two months!!
He's had two sickness bugs, a cold and a really nasty virus that lasted a month. He literally has had two days being well between each one

 

[Browneyed Girl]

I also found that giving my lo a spoon or some finger food helps distract him while I spoon feed, in the beginning I would give him roasted sweet potato sticks to eat and then try and spoon feed him the same food mashed so he didn't notice a difference in taste xx

 

[Tanya4beauty]

That's a good idea. It's so hard, It's been such a struggle! I'm hoping it will just happen one day! It shouldn't be this difficult! Xx

 

[Browneyed Girl]

Just read your reply sorry! Can you try and give him one bottle of milk at say 3 instead of 2 and 5? My lo started just taking 2-3 ounces but that's when I figured I could drop a bottle, not sure if your lo isn't eating yet but might be worth a try. My lo likes Organix finger foods and they've really helped xx

 

[Tanya4beauty]

Also my dietician has just told me to sit him with us at every meal and to offer him something spoon fed at the end of each meal like a soya yoghurt, alpro custard or a fruit pot. Sometimes he's interested but mostly not! X

 

[Tanya4beauty]

I have tried to drop the 5pm bottle but even if I manage to get him to 3pm with the previous one he still kicks off for his 5pm one!! The other day he slept through the 5 one as we were in the car and stopped at a restaurant for dinner so I decided I'd just offer him food and he had a full on meltdown until he got his milk!! X

 

[Aimee84]

Hiya as he's on nutramigen are you not seeing a dietician? We got sent to see one to help with weaning as my lg also has a dairy allergy and they were super helpful. I'm sure he will do it in his own time. My daughter eats better if we are all eating too, especially if it looks the same. At one point she would only eat a fruit pot for dinner but found if I offered other food afterwards she would eat that too. She gets finger foods at lunch and has done since six months as she prefers to feed herself. She loves bread and will eat anything I put on it. That's how we introduced new flavours, with the exception of Bolognese as she still refuses that. Maybe find something he will always eat by himself and try to introduce flavours that way. Illnesses always knock her eating and I think around then she learnt she could refuse stuff, she went off all porridge then for breakfast but will now eat weetabix. Also not sure what ur hv is like but ones near me are great with feeding issues, except the allergy side, might b worth having a chat with them too if your worried. X