Weaning!

Have you tried baby-led feeding? X

Food before one is just for fun- it's about trying different tastes and textures. Don't just give food she eats a lot of so that she's having a lot, she is still getting all she needs from milk. If you keep doing yogurt with everything she won't get used to other flavours. Plonk the food in front of her, let her explore. If some goes in her mouth, great, if not, great. We did purées under medical advice and ours didn't eat in much volume or anything more solid until she was past 10 months. If you're doing 3 meals a day, drop it to 2 until she's showing more interest. Use the solid starts app for serving advice if you want to pop a few more solids in front of her. I totally understand the stress, I found weaning super stressful but this is the advice I would give myself if I could go back in time - it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they eat or not eat right now, they're small, let them explore, let them learn, make mealtimes interesting sociable and fun. Don't put so much pressure on yourself!

Give them proper food! My first would never be spoon fed and loved eating proper food.

It’s all about texture and exploration at this age x

Give them proper food, one or two different things at a time. Sit with her and play with the food together, model touching it, smelling it, licking it and chewing it, make sure you make it fun with your facial expressions etc. Try different things each time and dont put any pressure on her to eat it.

Your job is to provide a range of nutritious food that is safely prepared to minimise choking (use the solid starts app if needed). Its up to her how much she does / doesnt eat. X

Should have clarified in the first post - we've been giving her (appropriate) solids from the beginning, BLW-style. She's very interested in things we are eating that she can't yet have, but has absolutely no interest in what's on her plate and now she's sad about it!

We model eating, we try to create a relaxed environment, we don't stare, we never force her. She's offered at least one solid with every meal alongside purees so she has choice.

She is left to play and explore with her food. We are super smiley and encouraging. But all of the sudden she's getting really distressed at mealtimes and doesn't even want to touch the food with her hands to play.

Just to add, I'm in the same boat right now with my 8 month old. He starts the meal quite happily and will shove all sorts into his mouth. We tend to mash up whatever we're eating and then serve it with sides of finger food. So it's a mixture of spoon fed and BLW. He will happily take a few spoonfuls but then at some point just gets upset/frustrated and starts crying until we clean him up and get him down.
I find it incredibly stressful as I am desperate for mealtimes to be a relaxing, bonding family time and I'm panicking that we're somehow creating negative associations with food.
It's so difficult, hoping it's just a phase, but we've been here for a month or two now ☹️