Kelly asks, "Have any of you had clients whose children did not start solids
until around 12 months (nothing but breast the whole 12 months) or older and I'm
wondering how many had texture aversions?  I posed this question to my
dietitians' listserv and there was some info provided about a 'small window
of opportunity' to introducing solids, somewhere in the 6-12 month range.  I
know each child is different and we should watch the child, not the calendar
to know when the child is ready, but I was wondering when it's "too late".
My concern is not nutritional as much as developmental."

Kelly, no clients, but a personal experience.  My now 19 year old twin sons
refused solid foods until about 8 months, and then had serious texture
aversions until they were about two, gagging on lumps of any kind, so I just
pureed everything way past the time I thought it was "normal" to do this.  I
have clear memories of crumbling biscuits (?cookies) for them because they
couldn't seem to handle their own bite-sized mouthfuls, and slicing up a
banana for them, and then carefully cutting the slices into *quarters* so
that they could swallow it! Although I really worried at the time, I took
the line of least resistance and never made an issue of it, but of course
eventually they outgrew it, and these are the kids that can now (both)
swallow a whole paracetamol without anything to wash it down with
(admittedly, only about once a year, each), something most of the rest of us
could never manage.  Sometimes I think we forget how wide the range of
"normal" is with these developmental skills.

Pamela, Zimbabwe
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