I have written before about how we got into breastfeeding forever and ever and ever. Our oldest daughter didn’t take solids. It’s not that she spit them out and it dribbled down her chins. (She was after all, a very, very chubby baby!) That is what most babies do. They make faces, unsure of what to do with the taste or texture. The food kind of unceremoniously falls out of the mouth and onto whatever baby is wearing.
Not Lizzy. Texture (or taste, or smell, or the way it looks) made her gag and generally what comes after gagging is vomit. Vomit in babies, in case you weren’t aware, is most often projectile. Thus, Lizzy’s first experience with solid food was projectile vomit–all the time.
Common sense, and a wealth of experience from various pediatricians say that when your child rejects solid food don’t give up. Try something else. Try the little airplane move. Try a different taste, a different texture, a different spoon–whatever. But everyone knows that normal children eat solid food and therefore, you should, keep trying.
What we didn’t realize at the time is that Lizzy wasn’t normal when it came to eating. Normal advice didn’t work. So, frustrated and tired of cleaning up vomit, I stopped trying. . .and I switched pediatricians. I exclusively breastfed this child for 13 months. She continued to receive the bulk of her nutrition from breast milk until well after 2 years of age.
Lizzy continued to throw up food at least weekly (if not more often) until about age 6. (She is now almost 8.) What we didn’t know then that we know now is that she has hyperactive reverse peristalsis and a hypersensitive gag reflex. Those folks, are the technical terms for, “she throws up really easily and is super sensitive and that makes her gag.”
So what do you do when your baby won’t eat solids and trying again and again seems to defy logic? These were some of the lessons that we learned the hard way:
1. Put the solids away and keep breastfeeding. (If you are bottle feeding you should talk with your pediatrician if you have this problem. He/she may want to prescribe additional nutritional supplements.)
2. Forget the mush! Babies do not have to start out on mush. In fact, it will lessen the choking hazard if you allow baby to nibble on pieces of food from your plate that are too big to choke on. However, the action of chewing helps babies not to gag to the point of vomiting.
3. Don’t use infant cereal. Your baby doesn’t really need it and it is fine to start with fruits like banana or avocado. If your baby throws up however, throwing up banana is much more pleasant than throwing up cereal.
4. Do mention it to your pediatrician. In all likelihood, this is something your baby will outgrow. But it takes years for this type of sensitivity to go away, not weeks or months. Your pediatrician will want to help you monitor your child’s eating habits to make sure she is getting what she needs.
5. Do NOT try, try and try again! This is one case where it is okay to let your child take the lead and initiate starting solid food. In a child who is hypersensitive, where eating causes frequent gagging and vomiting, continually trying to feed him will result in him associating eating with gagging and vomiting.
Related Articles:
5 Cultural Myths About Starting Solids
The Rules of Natural Child Spacing
Breastfeeding for the Long Haul