I think this is another chicken-or-egg problem.  Children with poor oral
motor skills or sensory difficulties (which are often neurological in
origin and associated with motor difficulties as well) are apt to delay
eating solids.  So, when all children who are unable or unwilling to eat
solids at the mythical average time are taken together, there will be a
preponderance of kids with poor oral motor skills.  This does not mean
that delaying solids neccessarily caused the inability to eat.  I have
been counseling mothers for years to wait for true developmental
readiness for solids- the child sits up, grabs the food off the table,
and stuffs it into the mouth and chews.  Some babies do not develop these
abilities until later in the first year, and some babies have the skills
and use them with toys, but are not interested in swallowing solid foods.
 These are often children with allergies, and they may be following some
internal wisdom in avoiding allergens until they are more mature.
        On the other hand, if the child has developmental issues, those
should be scrutinized and therapy provided.  But I do not beleive there
is some 'magical' age by which a child must eat solids or risk losing the
ability.  Finger foods do help provide practice in many important fine
motor skills and sensory integrative processes, but the child does not
have to actually take in a lot of calories from food to have this
experience.  Remember breast milk is the perfect, complete food, and
every calorie of other foods the baby takes is one less of breastmilk he
will consume.  I have seen babies who were a year old before they ate
more than one or two bites of solid foods a day, but none have continuing
feeding problems.
--
Catherine Watson Genna, IBCLC  NYC  [log in to unmask]