My baby is 9 months old and still has no teeth she is breastfed and hates gerber foods and cannot chew help?

Question

I try to feed her gerber foods or what I'm eating but I put it in the food processor but she will only eat maybe a spoon full if I'm lucky. The doctor didn't seem to be concerned since she didn't loose any weight but she wants to be nursing all the time. I'm a stay at home mom but its hard when we want to go out as a family, she is so attached to me she hardly goes with my husband and she just might go with grandma because she is breastfeeding so much. Can any one help please?

Answer 1

She doesn't need teeth to chew, the only part of your mouth that can be used for chewing is where the molars eventually come in.  You can NOT chew with your front teeth -the human jaw isn't muscled that way.  Very few toddlers have opposing molars when they are on "normal family foods" and they do find chewing with their gums.

Many babies, particularly breastfed babies, do not like being spoon fed.  Babies like to be in control.  

There is no need to give pureed foods at all, ever.  All it does is delay the development of oral skills, increase the risks of overeating and constipation, and make kids picky about texture.

However even some healthy babies will refuse all solids until 12 months, some because of allergies, and some for other reasons.  Breastmilk is nutritionally complete for at least the first year.  Just keep offering the opportunity for her to self-feed and she will eventually.

My first ate everything at 6.5 months and my second barely eats a thing at 9 months (though he loves certain flavours like curry and jerk chicken.  He tends to spit things out after sucking on them for hours)

http://askdrsears.com/faq/bf4.asp

I also have found that some infants are not developmentally ready for solids until 8 or 9 months. You can click here to read about what signs to watch for to determine when your infant is ready for foods. Breast milk is nutritionally complete for at least the first year of life. This means that infants can go for at least a year on breast milk alone, without eating any foods, and be nutritionally complete. Offering foods between 6 and 12 months of age is simply for social development and to get infants used to eating.

I encourage parents not to try to coax their 6 month old into accepting solids before he shows many of the signs of being ready. This can create a picky eater and negative feelings about eating.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/676279...

She said children should be fed only with breast or formula milk for six months, then weaned onto solids to improve control over how much they ate.

This could prevent babies becoming picky about food.

Mrs Rapley has spent 25 years as a health visitor, and she said: "I found so many parents were coming to me with the same problems - 'my child is constipated, my child is really picky' - and they couldn't get them on to second stage baby food."

[...]

After six months, Mrs Rapley said babies were capable of taking food into their mouths and chewing it.

Therefore, feeding them pureed food at this time could delay the development of chewing skills.

Instead, she said, they should be given milk and solid pieces of food which they could chew.

Mrs Rapley argued that babies fed pureed food had little control over how much food they ate, thus rendering them vulnerable to constipation, and running a risk that they would react by becoming fussy eaters later in life.

She blamed the food industry for convincing parents that they should give children pureed food.

She said: "Sound scientific research and government advice now agree that there is no longer any window of a baby's development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids."

http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro...

Won't he choke?

Many parents worry about babies choking. However, there is good reason to believe that babies are at less risk of choking if they are in control of what goes into their mouth than if they are spoon fed. This is because babies are not capable of intentionally moving food to the back of their throats until after they have developed the ability to chew. And they do not develop the ability to chew until after they have developed the ability to reach out and grab things. The ability to pick up very small things develops later still. Thus, a very young baby cannot easily put himself at risk because he cannot get small pieces of food into his mouth. Spoon feeding, by contrast, encourages the baby to suck the food straight to the back of his mouth, potentially making choking more likely.

It appears that a baby's general development keeps pace with the development of his ability to manage food in his mouth, and to digest it. A baby who is struggling to get food into his mouth is probably not quite ready to eat it. It is important to resist the temptation to 'help' the baby in these circumstances since his own developmental abilities are what ensure that the transition to solid foods takes place at the right pace for him, while keeping the risk of choking to a minimum.

[...]

Ensuring good nutrition

Babies who are allowed to feed themselves seem to accept a wide range of foods. This is probably because they have more than just the flavour of the food to focus on – they are experiencing texture, colour, size and shape as well. In addition, giving babies foods separately, or in a way which enables them to separate them for themselves, enables them to learn about a range of different flavours and textures. And allowing them to leave anything they appear not to like will encourag

Answer 2

Egg yolks (hard boiled), mashed up...steam or roast veggies like carrot, sweet potatoes and squash, then mash them up instead of pureeing (leaves some texture for baby).  Baby cookies, something that crumbles easily like Ritz multigrain crackers, toasted multigrain bread - cut off the crusts and cut them into sticks she can hold and gnaw on...well cooked pasta chopped into small pieces, cooked brown rice, cooked green peas, well cooked green and yellow beans...lots and lots of things.

Answer 3

Try puree kent pumpkin- its sweet and most babies like the taste.

My son is almost 10 months old and he still hasnt got any teeth! Dont worry, they can still chew, its important for them to develop the muscles along the jaw and mouth.

Kent (sometimes called j*p) pumpkin was one of his early favorites. I just stemmed it or you can boil it in a small amount of water. Blend, cool then serve. He also liked puree pears.

My son is breastfeed b/fast along with toast, small snack like yogurt for morning tea. Lunch is bite size pieces of ham sandwich (1 piece of bread no butter) with b/feed. Small snack for arvo tea, like a small banana.  Dinner is vegetables with meat so like pumpkin, broccoli, carrots blended up with puree chicken. Currently im cutting his b/feeds down to 2 a day, so we give him a sippy cup after dinner.

Keep persisting. Getting her on solids will give you a break from breastfeeding her so much. Its tiring for you, I totally understand where you are coming from. Keep trying with her, get her to sit in her highchair at the dinner table with the rest of the family. Let her play with a spare spoon as you are feeding her. Lost of encouragement and praise when she does have some food.

Best of luck x

Answer 4

My son didn't get teeth FOREVER, but he wanted to eat everything (except baby-food).

Chopped bananas

scrambled eggs

diced peaches

any well cooked veggie- my son loved overcooked frozen broccoli

brown rice

oatmeal

yogurt

cottage cheese

cheese cut into tiny cubes or shredded

crackers

rice cakes

soft fresh fruits...melons, strawberries, peeled and sliced grapes

avacados

I could go on and on

Answer 5

My son ate what I ate...mashed and well cooked...didn't use a food processor and he did well. (he didn't get teeth until he was one)

Try her with something like mashed potatoes and see how she does.