11 Month Old Refusing to Eat

My kid never really ate baby food. I found it too messy and a pain in the butt! I just waited until she was able to pick stuff up herself. Anyway, she loved shredded cheese (hates cheese now though!). I noticed she was always picking up little pieces of string/lint from the carpet so I tried shredded cheese that looked the same. It worked well! I remember she loved peas, cheese and cheerios. With the broken leg you want to push PROTEIN for healing. Good luck!

J.,
If you are still nursing, your son is probably refusing baby food because it tastes bland and yucky. Breastmilk tastes like the food you eat. Why not try feeding him from your plate - either in small bites, or you can blend/mash it. . also, the injury is probably affecting his appetite, but this is a time of big change in pallete. my 12 month old just went through this fussiness. . #1 finger food around here has been bread - not wonderbread, but whole wheat/multi-grain bread (like from a bakery, low-sugar banana bread, maybe even bran muffins. these breads provide ample fiber and a reasonable amt of protein. you can spread the bread with hummus (made from garbanzo beans) for extra protein, cream cheese, mmm peanut butter if you're not worried about allergies or almond butter if you are. . . also, i picked up some dried fruit (peaches, mango, apricot, definately apples would be good too) that i've given to Rene' for breakfast. dried fruit doesn't break up in chunks like raw fruit, so it doesn't have the same choking hazard. Rene mashes and sucks on the dried fruit until its gone. . you can also start on soft-cooked pasta at this stage. Rene really liked broccoli mac and cheese where the broccoli florets have been slightly overcooked - he doesn't like the stalks. If your son has the ability to hold food and gnaw, you can also give green beans - again, slightly overcooked - as fingerfood...
Hope this helps!
Ray

He probably is ready for regular food. My daughter quit eating baby food at nine months. She is 12 months old now and all she eats is what we are eating. I would just feed him regular food and take him off the baby food.

My daughter is 10 .5 months and is the same way! I just try to encourage her to eat evey meal with me/us, I'll make a little baby foods, and i give her little pieces of what were having. This seems to be working slowly, she will usually try whats on her tray and sometimes even eat the baby food i've made for her......
also...
have you tried a mesh self feeder? My daughter likes those.

J.,
As long as you are nursing him he is getting all the nutrients he needs. I am sure he is ready to be done with baby food now, so I would try food. Any food that you eat that has fiber is okay for your son. If its veggies I buy fresh and steam them, my son really enjoys that. Eggs are great for protein, chicken cut up small ect. Keep offering healthy food (which it sounds like you are) just remember the texture is so different from baby food so it may take offering it 10 or 20 times before he will eat it. Keep working at it, it can get frustrating but he will eventually eat. Sorry to hear about his leg, poor baby! Good Luck
B.

I suggest that you try offering your son some avocado at meal time. My son loves it - I started offering it to him around 9 mos or so mashed, but now he eats chunks of it. Pick a ripe one (soft to the touch - you don't want too firm) from the grocery store, peel it & remove the seed, and cut it into chunks for him. Avocado is rich in protein & it doesn't have to be cooked before eating. So, it's quite easy & nutritious.
Also you might try scrambling some eggs for him, or offer him cut up pieces of waffles or pancakes. Those are good first table foods that they can easily pick up & can eat easily (are easy to make, too so you don't spend too much time laboring over meals if they don't like it). Good luck.

Hi J.,
My name is T.. I just wanted to share my experience with you.
I nursed my son until he was 16-18 months old. He never ate much of the baby foods either. He nursed a normal amount. He didn't even like taking a bottle. When he was born he was 10lbs 2oz. He stayed healthier than my sisters baby , she bottle fed her baby. Her baby was more prone to sickness and ear infection than my son was. He was rarely sick. I believe that was due to nursing him. It builds his immune system up when he nurses. If you eat right, then he is eating right when he nurses. Remember too, they get growth spirts, sometimes they will hardly eat anything then all the sudden they eat everything in sight. Just make sure to have healthy things to snack on. I had to laugh at my mom, when my son was born and I was nursing him, she told me that he needed more than that to grow, and that he would be unhealthy and get sick. Well it turns out that he was rarely sick and the healthiest of all her grandkids, and she has alot of them. She has since changed her mind about breast feeding. Now my son is a healthy 16 year old who is 6'5".
Good luck with your baby.T.

I know alot of babies learn what table food is and they are DONE with babyfood out of a jar.

If he doesn't want it, and I don't blame him I would concentrate on table food and offering a wide variety and smooshed up or itty bitty bites of table food. My daughter would chow down mashed potatoes, mandarin oranges, and cheerios at that age and had NO teeth. I offered her everything I would eat (maybe not steak) and just made sure it wasn't going to choke her and she LOVED it all. I concentrated on her feeding herself easier for me and made her more independant and she loved feeding herself way before one years old. She made alot of messes and needed alot of baths but we were both happy. I have alot of great home videos of her body covered with different foods. Oatmeal is the worse to clean off of a child and highchair.

As long as he is nursing well he is getting everything he needs. Offer him finger foods, table foods. Forget the baby food, he's pretty big for it now. We never did commercial baby foods, only homemade baby foods, and by 9 months both boys were self feeding table foods. www.wholesomebabyfood.com is a great resource for first foods, finger foods, etc.

Shredded chicken, soft veggies, small diced fruit, noodles, cheese (Kraft Krumbles are the perfect size cheese!), toast, cottage cheese, crackers, hamburger crumbles, etc are all good finger foods. Just give him a plate of food and let him go. He'll eat what he needs/wants. :)