Laura writes:
I'm especially curious to hear from those who did not introduce solids
until your children were significantly older than 6 months. Has anyone
observed a child that was averse to textures or had difficulty chewing or other
evidence of impaired oral motor skills after starting solids later than 6
months?
~~~ I introduced solids at 6 months, as we are told is appropriate. Neither
of my children chose to eat them at 6 months. My son had his extrusion
reflex and pushed things out. I offered again 2 weeks later and the food
stayed in and was managed appropriately. My daughter was uninterested until
about 8 months when she went for spicy things like hummus and refried beans,
and some whole wheat pretzels I moistened. They both went on to eat
heartily, and have no speech or feeding issues and are now 23 and 18 years of age.
They love to eat and have good appetites for all kinds of foods. That
brings up a point of distinction: I did introduce solids in a timely manner, but
I watched my children for capability and not just interest in eating them.
I have worked with mothers who also tried to introduce solids and the baby
consistently gagged or had other issues. One baby also had nursing issues
where I think if not for this mom's dedication and openness, this baby
would have been underfed. She worked with another IBCLC, saw me as LLLL for
support/info, baby had release of frenulum, bodywork, etc. When it was time
for solids baby could not manage them so mom basically stopped trying, as it
was a miserable experience for them both. At one year this baby was not
eating food, still gagging etc. This was many months later: Mom had sort of
kept this all to herself in the meantime. I explained to her that most babies
will be eating at least something by a year, yes and the gagging was
something to assess. When she saw feeding specialist ( SLT I think) she was
accused of not feeding her baby and told that her refusal had led to this
child's feeding issue. I think the feeding issue was there all along and this
mom was doing an amazing job for as long as she could. I really believe this
baby would have been FTT if not for her constant willingness to let him
nurse as much as he needed. The issue came when after 6 months, breastfeeding
moved into something that is complemented by solids, and this child had
issues that would not allow him to follow through. So I don't think by and
large that it is the moms not introducing solids, as much as the baby not
being capable, and the issues get switched around. Every once in a while I meet
a mom who does not introduce solids "on time". They wait, for allergenic
family reasons, or very rarely for emotional reasons of wanting the period
of exclusive nursing to be longer. Still, if they are open to be guided by
their baby's cues, the little ones seem to do fine with solids when they do
get them. I do wonder if formula fed infants, whose diet is boring, get
ting the same taste month after month, may be different. Maybe they become so
acclimated to one taste and composition (since human milk changes over
time), that they need SOMEthing different by 6 months or it just gets harder to
be open? Just musing...
I think the bottom line is we need NORMAL humanfed children to look at to
actually really have a good answer to this question. Just like we can't look
at the sleep of formula fed infants to determine normal sleep for human
little ones, maybe we can't look at formula and/or bottlefed infants and we
need to look at exclusively breastfeeding ( and maybe even at-breast only)
infants during this transition time to get a real answer.
Hope that helps.
Peace,
Judy
Judy LeVan Fram, PT, IBCLC, LLLL
Brooklyn, NY, USA
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