Said It Here

Baby won't eat solid foods or use hands

Babies transitioning to solids often rely on mouth-first feeding instead of using their hands, gag on textured pieces, or refuse anything beyond purees. This makes parents worry about transitioning away from milk or formula as their child grows older.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    letting the baby explore food however she is doing it even if it's face planting
  2. 2
    keeping food a low pressure situation
  3. 3
    trying small pieces of egg and watermelon
  4. 4
    trying cottage cheese

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/Parenting2 people · September 2026

“We’ve been trying solids for 1.5 months now, and it’s a completely different story: The Face-Plant Method: When offered finger foods (like steamed apple slices), her first instinct is to bend her head all the way down and try to eat it directly off the tray with her mouth rather than using her hands.”source ↗

“Because she’s barely consuming anything, I'm starting to worry we’ll be stuck EBF forever and she won't transition toward weaning down milk as she gets older.”source ↗

Acceptable_Mind_1994 · r/Parenting

“My son LOVES puree. He will eat just about anything we feed him minus Turkey. However, he's approaching 10 months and my husband and I are struggling to figure out how to move him away from purees and into more textured foods.”source ↗

“We've tried small pieces of egg and watermelon and while he appears to like the taste swallowing it has been the issue. He literally can make himself throw up trying to swallow small pieces.”source ↗

Big-Intention8500 · r/Parenting

Where this came up

r/Parentingparentingweaning

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