baby wayne

When Otis was 5 months old we took him to his regular visit with the Maternal Child Health Nurse, and she suggested trying him on some baby food. He is such an enthusiastic breastfeeder, and big for his age, so we all thought he would love this new way of eating. How wrong we were.

The first few times he was a bit bemused, but went along with it happily enough. But after a week or so he started clamping his mouth shut and refusing to eat. I say eat, but he wasn’t really swallowing, merely tolerating having the food in his mouth. We had been giving him rice cereal, a common first food for babies, but thought perhaps he didn’t like the bland, cardboardy taste, so we tried some other foods. Apples, sweetpotatoes, apples mixed with sweet potatoes, commercial baby food – all rejected. We decided that perhaps it was a bit early (most babies start eating around 6 months) so we waited a week or so and tried again.

At six months we dusted off the baby spoons and tried again, only to have all our attempts rebuffed. Many of the times we tried to feed him he would turn his head away, but if we did manage to get any food in his mouth, he would screw his face up like we were feeding him poison. We went away for Christmas, and decided to give it another go when we got back.

At 7 months of age we try again. All of my friends from mothers group are discussing baby recipes, bringing huge containers of food that their babies practically inhale, and Otis is still refusing to eat anything. Again, we try different things. Peaches, pears, pumpkin, mashed banana, avocado; not even organic rice cereal with apple and banana can tempt him.

Our trusty baby bible, Baby Love, has this to say:

“A number of very healthy thriving breastfed babies have mothers with such an abundant milk supply that they see no need to eat anything and end up exclusively breastfed for a very long time. They often refuse most food until they are nine to twelve months old”

Eek. As Otis is no longer taking a bottle, I am his sole source of food. This has been ok up until now, but its been almost 8 months and I am starting to need to do things on my own, to be able to be out for more than a few hours at a time, or at times when he usually has a feed. Most babies of Otis’ age are having 3, maybe 4 breastfeeds a day; Otis is still having 7 and I have to say, its getting a bit exhausting.

So we’ve started trying the food thing again, this time with yoghurt, baby jellies, and pureed vegetables. I never thought we’d give him much bought baby food, but after lovingly cooking a variety of organic vegetables only to have them stubbornly refused we decided to do it this way until the eating gets going. And it will, eventually, (hopefully!).

not that he's fading away or anything