My Baby is Not Interested in Eating Solids. Help!
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When starting out on their feeding journeys, some babies are very interested in eating solids and riveted by feeding. Some even sometimes overstuff their mouths and take bigger bites than they can seemingly manage.
Other babies may seem completely not interested in eating solid foods and purse their lips, turn away, or even throw food, utensils, and bowls. And some babies may be doing well with solids and then suddenly refuse them.
After having known only breast milk and/or formula for the first six months of life, solid foods are a new experience, and some babies need time and freedom to explore food before their curiosity is piqued.
It’s also important to remember that in the first few weeks of solid foods, babies don’t actually need to eat very much. Their stomachs are still very small, and even an enthusiastic eater may only be expected to eat about one to two tablespoons of food at a time around six months of age.
This post is for all the caregivers out there wondering how to get their babies interested in solid foods, what to do if their baby is not interested in eating solids, and what to do when a baby was eating and then starts refusing solid foods. I will go through some common reasons why babies refuse solids, tips to get your baby interested in eating solids, and when to seek more help from a professional if you are having trouble with feeding your baby.
Why Do Babies Refuse Solid Foods?
Whether your baby still hasn’t decided they are interested in solids yet or if they are suddenly refusing solids, there is a good chance the issue will resolve on its own in a week or two. But it can be helpful to try and figure out why, especially if food refusal has been happening for more than a couple of days.
Most babies between four and six months of age are simply not yet developmentally ready for solids and may need more time to develop both feeding skills and an interest in food. It is important to evaluate for signs of readiness to start solids (which typically emerge at around 6 months). If your baby isn’t showing them yet, it is a good idea to hold off for a week or so and then reassess.
If your baby was eating but is now refusing to eat solids, they may be dealing with physical discomfort. Two of the most common culprits of discomfort that can affect feeding are teething and illness. If your baby is acutely ill or showing signs of a tooth coming through (red, swollen gum), it is common to see a lack of interest in solid foods. It is okay to continue to offer food even if they aren’t eating, but be sure to offer breast milk and/or formula more often during these periods.
Sometimes babies refuse to eat because they are uncomfortable in their high chair due to improper high chair positioning. To help your baby feel properly supported during feeding and reduce the risk of choking, choose a high chair that allows your baby to sit upright with hips and knees at 90-degree angles. If your child is leaning back in the high chair, gravity may cause food to move further back into the mouth and make it difficult to learn to chew and swallow.
If your high chair doesn’t seem to be supporting upright positioning, you can use a rolled-up towel at your baby’s back or next to the hips for extra support. It is also helpful to have an adjustable footrest to improve trunk stability, focus, and coordination. If you want more info on finding the best high chair for your baby, check out my top high chair picks.
Quick Note: It is important for anyone feeding an infant to be trained in infant CPR and first aid. Get trained by a nationally certified Red Cross and Lifesaving Society First Aid Instructor using this EXCELLENT, 2-hour, self-paced online course from Safe Beginnings* - for 20% off, use my code: MALINA.
How to Help Baby Accept Solid Foods
There are several ways to help increase your baby's acceptance of foods. As a pediatric dietitian specially trained in infant feeding, one of the first things I always recommend is to use a responsive feeding style.
Using a responsive feeding style (while doing baby-led weaning, spoon-feeding, or a combination of both) is the best way to introduce solids and help babies (and older children) enjoy and accept a variety of different foods. Responsive feeding happens when the caregiver pays close attention to the baby's cues for hunger and fullness and warmly responds to them right away.
Another great way to encourage interest in foods is by providing plenty of opportunities to self-feed finger foods and giving babies the chance to explore food at their own pace, engaging all of their senses. This means playing with their food, and yes, it can be messy!
By letting a baby touch different textures, experience the feeling of messy hands, smell new foods before tasting, and even hear the sounds they make when smashed (does it make a loud bump or a soft, squishy sound?), babies are able to get familiar with new foods and textures so they feel more confident when taking that first bite.
If it seems too messy and you are not looking forward to cleaning bananas off the walls, I get it! It was hard for me as well with my girls, but in the grand scheme of parenting, it was a phase that passed relatively quickly. Some parents love these coverall bibs* to help reduce mess but still allow their little one freedom to move.
One of my colleagues in baby feeding, McKenzie Hoffman MA, CCC-SLP, has a great idea to help contain the mess: let baby explore purees and other squishy foods in a clean tub!
When to worry about a baby refusing to eat solids
If a baby is older than 8 months, has had a few weeks or months of positive opportunities to explore food, and displays the signs of readiness for solids but is still uninterested in food and refusing to eat, it may be time to get further evaluation from a feeding therapist. Some common reasons that babies continue to refuse solids include:
Excessive sensitivity to new sensory information
Tongue and jaw coordination difficulties
Food allergy or intolerance
Some babies feel overwhelmed with small or moderate amounts of sensory information, including light, sound, and touch. They may cry or act distressed in a brightly lit room or when music is playing. They may also pull away from certain textures or cry if their hands are messy. It can be really hard to have a positive experience with food if getting messy is a negative feeling.
We don’t think about it often, but the process of eating is actually a very complicated task. Chewing, moving the tongue, breathing, preventing food from lodging in the throat, and preparing food for swallowing all take a lot of coordination.
Some babies who have particularly loose or tight muscles (low or high muscle tone) can have a very hard time trying to manage all of these movements together, which can lead to excessive gagging and subsequent food refusal. (Although it is important to note that, in general, gagging when starting solids is a normal, expected part of learning to eat that doesn’t usually seem to cause upset or stress in most babies.)
Another potential reason why babies may refuse solids is that they may have had a reaction to a food before that was not apparent to the caregiver. If your baby has a food allergy or intolerance, they instinctively shrink from trying foods again. Some food reactions can happen hours after the food was ingested, as in the case of food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES).
Any suspected food allergies or intolerances should be evaluated right away by your healthcare clinician or allergist. In addition to food allergies, sensory processing difficulties, and oral motor challenges, if a baby shows any signs of the following, it’s time to call the pediatrician:
Aspiration (breathing in food or even saliva into their lung)
Dysphagia (disruptions in swallowing)
Feeding seems to cause pain
4 Tips to Help Increase Baby's Interest in Solid Foods
Role Model - Babies are keen observers and often learn by mimicking those around them, especially their caregivers; role modeling and eating with your baby as often as possible is a powerful way to inspire an interest in foods - even more powerful is when caregivers eat the same foods as a babies
Increase exposure - Exposing babies to new textures through sensory experiences, like a taste-safe sensory box which can be filled with items that are safe for your baby to put in their mouth and provide a variety of interesting textures (a few examples include cooked rotini pasta*, mandarin oranges*, or lumpy oatmeal*)
TOP TIP: Hiding toys or differently colored food items in the box as an incentive can encourage your baby to touch and interact with the texture if they are hesitant to get messy.
Increase oral sensory input can help babies who don’t like to feel new textures in their mouth acclimate to the variety of tastes and textures that come with solid foods; try using different textured toys, including bumpy, soft, compressible, and firm textures (for example, a toothbrush*, a molar teether* or vibrating teether*)
Let your baby get messy - Avoid wiping their face with wet washcloths and using spoons to catch food that lands on the face throughout the meal; this can be very irritating as it disrupts their exploration of food and can lead to food or high chair aversions and negative associations with feeding
TOP TIP: It helps to save the clean-up for after the meal, preferably away from the highchair in a neutral place like the sink or countertop that your baby does not associate with meals.
Remember…
The three biggest factors in helping babies accept and enjoy solids are:
Repeated exposure
Positive experiences with food
Time
Take heart if your little one is not yet showing signs of interest, and trust yourself to get extra support from professionals if you have concerns. Know that with a few extra days or weeks, when given repeated exposures to food and plenty of no-pressure opportunities to explore, most babies are motoring along on their own feeding journeys in no time.
If you’re getting ready to start your baby on solids, or if your baby has recently begun his or her feeding journey and you need guidance on food sizing, balanced baby meals, introducing the top allergenic foods, and making sure baby is getting the important nutrients needed for growth and development during infancy, check out my new online course for parents, based on my best-selling book, which will walk you through the whole process of starting solids using a baby-led approach.