Ally and food...

Ally is almost 9 months old.  As of today, I don't think I have gotten her to eat more then 2 to 3 bites of anything without gagging or keeping her mouth so firmly closed you would have zero luck getting the food into her.  I am completely at a loss on how to change this.  With Sam, we started him on oatmeal cereal around 5 months.  So perhaps because we started him so early, he just went with it.  No matter what you gave him, he ate it.  He loved it all.  However, he was the slowest eater ever, and because of this, Paul and I were in no hurry to get Ally started with baby food.  Honestly, with both of us working full time, we barely have enough time in the evening to get dinner made and just have time with the kids, adding in taking the time to spoon feed Ally, when it wasn't really necessary, didn't make it to the top of our priority list.  And I am starting to wonder if because we didn't even really attempt to try until she was around 7 months old is what is going on here, or if she just doesn't care for food.

I am not concerned about her not getting the nutrition that she needs.  I am nursing her, so really she only needs that for the first year, but it is just such a huge difference from where we were with Sam, it makes me worried about how we will get her to transition to food at all.  I have the pantry stock piled with all sorts of fun organic baby food items that I don't think she will ever get to eat!  At least I didn't make a ton of baby food for it to be going to waste in the freezer...

A few examples of attempting to get Ally to eat food:

 

We have tried: oatmeal cereal, green beans, carrots, apples, sweet potatoes.  Each one of those has been mixed with breastmilk as well just to see if she will eat it that way.  I have taken a banana and just mashed it up for her to eat... no luck!  She closes her mouth as firmly as she can, and then as soon as you take the spoon away again, she is all smiles.

We just recently started puffs.  She makes a terrible face when she actually gets one in her mouth, but she likes to play with them.  Eventually she has to learn to like to eat right??

She drinks from a sippy cup no problem.  In fact she got ahold of Sam's cup and drank his milk the other day and loved it.  I just don't think she cares for baby food.  Maybe she is just going to skip this stage and go right into people food?  I will just keep taking it week by week and see what happens!