Why Your Uncoordinated Baby is Eating Just Fine (with Videos!)

Disclaimer: This post in no way constitutes medical advice. If you are concerned about your child’s weight gain, food allergies, or general food consumption, make sure to consult your health care provider.

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When our babies are brand new eaters, they often look uncoordinated, sloppy, and sometimes even upset when being introduced to solid foods. (For our discussion, purées are a “solid” food). You might be concerned about your baby and wonder if they’re ok. In this post, we’ll look at some video examples of what new-eaters look like when tackling a very common first food: thinned down baby cereal. We’ll also take a closer look at what that first food should look like.

As a matter of housekeeping, if you haven’t already read my post What Now? My Baby Hates Solid Food and Spits it Out then I would recommend doing so. That post outlines some of the common reasons parents are concerned about their baby’s desire to eat. This post elaborates, gives examples, and provides visuals for what we discussed in the other post.

Additionally, if you’re looking for common feeding concerns for older babies or younger toddlers, I’ll refer you to 8 Weird Things Babies Do While Eating That Are Totally Normal. If you’re looking for information about brand-new eaters, this is your spot. In this post we’ll discuss babies roughly 4-6 months of age.

Finally, this post discusses feeding using a traditional weaning methodology. You can also approach feeding your child from the Baby Led Feeding methodology. Both methods are affective and have merit but, in this post, my focus will be traditional.

Now, on to our examples.

Why does my baby seem to dislike solid food so much?

You might have noticed when you started your child on solid foods that they had lots of movement, turning their head away, making faces, spilling food all over their face, sticking their tongue out, spitting food, and so on. All of that movement and mess might make you think that your baby doesn’t enjoy solid foods. Let’s see what might be going on.

We generally begin introducing non-milk, solid foods when a baby is old enough to sit with assistance, has good head control, and start showing interest in the food that you’re eating. For many babies, this falls between 4-6 months of age. It just so happens that during this stage of development, your baby is also doing a lot of other growing and developing. They are learning how to control their arms and legs in smooth movements. They’re learning how to use their tongue for more than suckling a nipple. They’re excited by new objects (like spoons) to explore and chew on. There’s a lot going on for your little one! In a word, they’re still uncoordinated. And its ok! They’ll get the hang of it!

Those factors, along with the new-ness of the food, can all contribute to your baby looking like they aren’t enjoying what you’re feeding them.

But let me reassure you:

• Does your baby “spits” out food?
  • at this age it is more likely that they are still learning to control their tongue
  • it was merely their uncoordinated tongue pushing the food out by accident
• Does your baby turn their head away?
  • it’s likely that they’re distracted or still processing the new-ness of the experience
  • give your child a minute to regroup
  • if your baby turns their head back around with a calm face and/or open mouth, then keep going
  • if you baby turns their face away paired with fussing or crying, then put the food away and try again another day
• Does your baby hit the spoon away?
  • it’s more than likely that they’re actually trying to grab it to claim it as their own (more on that below)
  • at this age, your child still hasn’t perfected grabbing objects so their attempt might look like they’re pushing away unwanted food
• Does your baby make a face?
  • it’s likely from the surprise and new-ness of the food and not from dislike
  • continue offering tiny bites of food with plenty of time between each bite for your baby to process, taste, and acclimatize to the new experience

What first foods should I be giving my baby?

When we first begin introducing solid foods (“solid foods” is just a technical way to say “foods that aren’t breastmilk or formula”) we want very thin, gruel like texture. You will take the food your child is already used to eating (breastmilk or formula) and add the smallest amount of a purée or baby cereal of your choice. Some ideas are oat cereal, rice cereal, apple purée, carrot purée, or banana purée.

You can start with a purée straight from a baby food jar. There is nothing wrong with that. However, your baby might be too overwhelmed with the newness of it. Think about it. Their entire life (all 4-6 months of it) they’ve only ever had warm, sweet pure liquid milk presented from a nipple (breast or bottle). All of the sudden they have a fruit or vegetable flavor that’s thick (to your baby a purée is much thicker than their typical liquid milk!) and from a spoon. When you thin down the purée with a flavor and texture your baby is used to (their milk), you dramatically increase the likelihood of their accepting it from the get-go.

In this video, I chose oat cereal. It makes a nice thin gruel, smoother than adding a purée. If your child doesn’t enjoy the small amount of texture that a fruit or vegetable purée adds to their milk, then switch to a cereal for your next attempt.

As your child grows more familiar with purées and cereals in their milk and more familiar with eating from a spoon, you can gradually add more and more purée/cereal (or combination of the two) to their milk, making it thicker and thicker as the weeks go by.

How much per bite (plus a trick to save you some hassle!)

When you first introduce solids, you’ll want to use a small spoon, preferably a spoon specifically made for infants. I’ve found that many of the things marketed as “necessary” for infants aren’t truly necessary. An infant spoon, however, is extremely helpful. Babies have tiny mouths and even a small adult spoon would be uncomfortably large in a baby’s mouth.

Tip: if you don’t have an infant spoon handy, try flipping an adult-sized fork or spoon around. Use the handle to feed your baby. It’s often much smaller and more suitable to your baby’s mouth. Depending on your style of utensil, this might not work with thin gruel but it almost always works with fruit or vegetable purée.

At the beginning, even with the baby-sized spoon, you’ll want to only fill the bowl of the spoon partially full. Don’t fill it to max capacity yet! Doing so will flood your baby’s mouth, leading to gagging and potentially having baby breathe their food in instead of swallowing it.

Just give your baby tiny little tastes. Allow them to adjust to the idea of solid food slowly. If they seem excited about it and are opening their mouths for the next bite, go ahead and put more in the spoon. Just make sure baby is swallowing easily, without sputtering or coughing, as you go along.

As a reminder, your baby is still uncoordinated! So, even this small amount may dribble out of their mouth. And it doesn’t help that this gruel is super thin! It’s going to be a bit messy and drippy (which might make your baby look even more uncoordinated). But it’s all ok! You and baby are doing fine. 🙂

As an additional tip: have two spoons out. Your baby might want to grab the spoon you’re using to feed them, making it take twice as long and a mess to boot! With two spoons out, your baby can play and explore one. You can have the other one available to do the actual feeding. (Sometimes, three spoons might even be necessary! Baby has two hands after all!) Sometimes it turns into a revolving spoon circus. Your baby plays with a spoon but drops it to grab the one you’re feeding them with. You give them that one and pick up the one they dropped to refill for the next bite.

To all you parents and caregivers out there wondering if your baby is eating alright as you come to this new milestone, you got this! And so does your baby. Happy Parenting! xoxo, Briana

Hello! I’m Briana!