Help Me Fatten up My Baby!

Lentils are small and my boys love them. French lentils (from coop) are even finer than what you can find at Cub/Lunds, etc. and hold up better in a salad. You can mush them too.

PS Soaking is easy and you don't have to soak lentils b/c they are so fine. Just cook for about 20 min (or follow package). Soaking other beans is easy too, but you'll have to cook them too. It is a lot cheaper than canned and frankly, I think they taste better. Chick peas (Garbonzo) are the only ones I think taste just as good out of the can. FYI, if you change the water a few times while soaking, and don't cook them in the soaking water, you'll avoid the "toots".

Good luck! Food issues are hard!!

Keep pushing the avocados and try to add fats to everything else the baby will tolerate. If she can't do butter, add some veggie/olive oil to the oatmeal.

If the doctor isn't that worried, don't fret about it too much. 10th percentile isn't bad. If she holds steady at 10th percentile for weight, it will be just fine.

Gagging wasn't so much of an issue, but if my son disliked a thing, we would sometimes "sneak it in" by giving him 3 spoons of a known favorite, then a spoon of something which he didn't much care for, and back to a known favorite.

Find out if you can water down, further puree the lumpy foods, to help get them in.

Consider letting her feed herself or feed you. My son thinks its hilarious to put cereal puffs in mommy's mouth.

another thing you might try is to delay mealtime by 5-10 minutes and start her off with the food she doesn't like but ought to be eating. they say a hungry man will eat a stone, perhaps hunger would be a good motivator.

Nurse more! Very few solids are as nutrient-dense and as easily digested as your milk, so offer to nurse more and cut back on the lowe-calorie solids.

First of all, look around your family. If you see a lot of long, lean people you shouldn't expect to have a short plump baby ! Second of all-- NO solid is as nutrient dense as breastmilk-- NONE of them, so the doctor's advice doesn't really make sense.....

I'd nurse more, worry about solids less, and be sure that she seems healthy, alert, and meeting her developmental milestones.....

Hi. So sorry you are going through this. Some thoughts, and of course check with your pedi:

1. Can you mix in date honey with sweet potatoes.
2. Olive oil into mashed potatoes
3. avocado and full fat cottage cheese. (I know your pedi said stay off cheese, but maybe cottage is mild enuf. our pedi at the time said stay away from milk, but do yogurt and cottage).
4. bananas and date honey
5. tehina and date honey
6. hummous

HTH
Jilly

I think you can find salt free beans if you look or cook your own. I would say not to worry too much. My second youngest was like this too and she is fine...very healthy actually. She is still small, weighing about 35 poulds at 5 yrs old. She is not a huge eater, but eats when she is hungry and has as much as she wants. She is more of a grazer. Maybe feed your little one more often and not wait until she is super hungry may help with solids. She should be able to eat what you eat by a about a year old, just make it small or puree it if you have too and not too spicy.
She will be fine.

My heart goes out to you Mama, as I remember that lousy panicky feeling that causes horrible thoughts like: "Maybe my baby isn't thriving? Maybe it's my fault? Maybe she isn't getting enough protein? Maybe I need to start force-feeding her?" ARGH!!! (For me, I remember really obsessing over protein, as if my baby was a pro football player or something.) Those thoughts will drive you nuts. And I'm sorry but the stupid doctors and their stupid percentiles ... will also drive you nuts. I must warn you that I've been on a rampage against doctors lately, but I really don't hate them, In fact I think it is important to listen to them and take in what they advise you. You just need to take certain things they say with a grain of salt. Like those percentiles. I recently posted another answer about this if you care to hear more of my rampage :)

1) Your little baby is fine. They are all so different. I can promise you that in due time, her weight-height will even out at her own pace. As long as she is eating/ drinking something, and she is not losing weight, she'll be fine. Even if she turns out to be small, that is normal for some people, thus a world of very different looking people. Maybe she'll be long and lean, and if so will always wind up in a lower weight percentile.

2) If your instincts are telling you she is fine, happy, healthy, and vital, then trust these and do not let your fears take over. It's hard because your fears are blown out of proportion because of your protective nature (this is also normal). You just need to keep the fear in check. And steer clear of future- hockey-moms who make you feel worse by rubbing it in your face (They mean well, they're just proud that they have such chubby cute kids.)
I went through a month or two when I was having breastfeeding/ pumping issues when my son was around 3 or 4 months. Looking back at pictures, he did look a little thin. But he was slowly gaining, just not fast enough until we straightened out the issues and he plumped right up. Still, he's never been chubby but he's tall. I'm 5'10" with a fast metabolism, so no surprise.

3)Do you know that in some countries, babies are exclusively breastfed until around 1 year? So don't feel bad if you need to continue that a little longer than you planned. That is all she needs until 1, any foods you start her on now are mainly to get her used to the taste and texture as well as the muscular movements needed to chew and swallow. But that can wait. Solids prior to 1 are not so much for the calories and nutrients as long as she's still getting plenty of breastmilk or formula. I didn't even start my son on solids until around 8 months, and I didn't push them the way many people do. Today my son is incredibly healthy.

4) I don't recommend dairy before one year especially if she's shown signs of intolerance. It could actually prolong an allergy whereas if she isn't exposed to dairy now she's likely to grow out of it on her own. At least that is what our pediatric allergist said. (See, I do listen to them sometimes!) ps. My son had this allergy too as an infant, then one day around 10 months my husband accidentally gave him some food with butter, and he was okay with it. Yet was still having a reaction to tastes of yogurt and other things. I asked the doctor and he said butter was mostly fat, and was probably ok to give him if he didn't seem to have trouble with it.

5) Here I go again listening to doctors advice, but I was told by one pediatrician not to give babies meat until after one year. He said the "pulverized" meats in some baby foods are ok though. Another pediatrician at this practice didn't have a problem with infants eating meat. I just wanted to point out that there are many different opinions and not all docs agree, obviously not all moms. My son hated the texture of any meat until he was around 14 months and since he couldn't have dairy until around 18 months, thus began my protein obsession. I continued to buy those jars of baby food with chicken or beef (organic) until he was at least 14 months!

6) sometimes you have to take cues from your baby. It sounds to me like she just plain isn't ready for alot of solid foods. Like other women have suggested, keep trying but don't stress about it. She may have sensory issues or be one of those kids who is very sensitive to texture, but now is too early to really say. I think you are doing the right thing with mixing a little fruit puree into her cereal or even try blending sweeter veggies in, a little at a time. I agree with the mom who suggested using a blender and mixing your purees into a very smooth blend. And also the concept of introducing a flavor one spoonful at a time. Like, my son never was crazy about avacado but i really wanted him to eat it. I found that I could mix a spoonful of mashed avacado into butternut puree and he'd eat it. If I went for two spoonfulls, he'd get wise and spit it out.

I wish you and your daughter the best of luck!

Make soup and purée the heck out of it. All 3 of mine loved soup as babies, especially minestrone and chicken noodle.

You can try to feed her avacado. It has good fat :)

My son had the same problem.
I gave him rice cereal in a bowl when he was ready. This was good to get him full and to help him grow. Andd it had to be super soupy.
He had a huge gag reflex. I stuck w/a lot of pureed vegies & fruits for a long while before trying real food into teeny bites (he just wasn't ready till he got a bit older).
I worked hard to get him to gain weight (he was a preemie & has his dad's
fast metabolism.
He eventually got to be w/i his percentile at the about the age of 1 1/2 or 2.
Now he's all caught up but still lean due to that metabolism.
Not sure you can smash the beans enough to not cause gag reflex at this stage. Almost any food can be pureed to bits in a food processor.
My dr. told me to introduce one food a week to ensure he is not allergic
to something so I stuck w/that.
I don't think I would try the cut up beef/chicken yet w/that gag relfex.
Pureed things (veggies & fruits) may be your best answer at this point.

DON'T give her beans! Not until she is over a year old or older, they would probably give her very painful gas. My daughter was in the same boat just taller(85th for height) and thinner(10th for weight). Any ways the dr said the number that really matters is weight for height percentile and if she is in less than 10th for weight for height then it becomes concerning. We ended up mixing vegatable oil and butter in with her food til she was 18 months under the advice of her pediatrician.

Send her to my house...2 boys 95+ since newborn! They are just solid!

I put all table foods for my daughter in the blender and just spoon fed her mushed up everything. Everything we ate for dinner, we blended for her. Yes, some foods are too salty but just see what she likes and make sure it is blended very well with no chunks. Mine was a premie so we had similar issues with eating and weight. Maybe she has a sensory issue, which has to do with textures. Maybe look into that a bit more. Good luck.

Keep doing what you're doing, she may not like certain foods or gag but keep offering and trying. It's all new to them and some little ones would prefer not to take the next step, lol ; ) Babies can chew with their gums so teeth aren't a requirement, plus she can roll the food around in her mouth, she just hasn't learned.

If I recall there are baby food pureed meats, (I did mostly my own home-cooked food for my kids) offer her those rather than chunkier cut up meat until she "gets it." If you do offer the chunkier versions of foods mash them up more and add a bit of breast milk or formula to thin them out. Mix pureed (Step 2, I think) veggies with the meat to make it tastier, and let her hold the spoon so she starts to learn to feed herself, which may increase her desire to eat.

Hold off on the beans, one of my grandsons had the worst gastrointestinal problems from them, his mom just did her own thing and fed him what his older sister ate :-/ Push the avocado, it has good fat. Offer it to her mashed and thinned along with some crackers, which will help her learn to hold foods and feed herself.

Since she tends to get constipated it's good she's not going to be eating cheese for awhile, it is really binding and I've had to curb my little guys eating of it.

Check out this site with excellent information of what she should be eating at this age (just skip the items her doctor doesn't want her on yet) and push the foods with more calories but make sure you keep her on the veggies and fruits as well, you're setting the tone for her developing eating habits and want it all to balance out in the end.
Keep offering, it may take awhile so hang in there!

http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/solidfood8to10mont...

Go buy a baby food grinder. Grind up what you are eating and mix it with applesaces to help her get use to the texture. Another thing you can do is pedisure. It gives essential vitamins and protein to the child. Hope this helps.