Very many questions.

[Elizabethy0]

So, my darling daughter is 7 months old. We've been offering her food for 6+ weeks, mostly finger food, some purees, bits of risotto / bolagnaise etc. We've been doing 2/3 meals a day for probably 4 weeks. She enjoys it! I'm getting use to the mess..

She's very good at picking stuff up, & getting it in her mouth, & often bites bits off with her 2 new sharp little teeth! She can turn many foods to mush in her mouth.

Occasionally she'll let me put puree / more liquidy food on a spoon, & guide the spoon to her mouth with her hand. Only occasionally though. Her holding the spoon is useless - she'll just chomp the spoon handle.
If I try & put spoonfuls of puree etc in her mouth she clamps her mouth shut.

she's hardly swallowing anything

We've seen a tiny bits of broccoli in the poo. But otherwise it's the same as ever pretty much. very little is actually going down. We went to stay with my parents last week, & my mum did lots of forceful get-the-puree-in-her-mouth, & her poo did change then , but now it's back. I don't really want to go for that approach, & DD doesn't want to let me either...

I've been breast feeding her with very occasional expressed bottles, that she'll only take if she's not seen me for ages.

Does any one have any advice? Am I doing anything wrong?

I'm keen to speed things up if possible as I'm tired of breastfeeding. Tired of being starving / having no sex drive / battling a distracted baby who nurses to let-down then lets everything get soaked while she looks around, & I'm getting bitten. Alot.

(Any advice on Stopping the biting? I always delatch her, tell her mummy doesn't like that, it hurts, she must be gentle.. but it's happening several times a day, for several days now.)

I'm not worried about her weight gain, she's a chubby little thing. But I don't want to disrupt her sleep, which we've just got sorted. (Or close to. She's only waking once a night after a dream feed, which is a big improvement)

AND she won't take a bottle or drink water out of a cup or a sippy cup (I've not tried a valved one yet). She just blows bubbles / bites the cup.
I'd like to start giving her a bit of formula which would help some of my breast feeding issues, which I think I'm going to have to introduce veryyyy slowly, probably mixed with my expressed milk at first, & after I've not been seen by her for a while.

I'm sorry, this is now a very long message :/
With lots of problems. Does anyone have any advice?
Do I just need to be more patient & cope with the biting?
Thank you. Xx

[lizandimo]

I hate to say it but it's probably still early days as far as swallowing lots of food goes. My DD was probably 9 or 10 months before she really got the hang of things. But it sounds like your DD is doing great, if she's interested, happy and picking up food to put into her mouth. You aren't doing anything wrong, so try not to worry about that. It takes a while to start eating for lots of babies.

The biting sounds really hard to deal with and whether you want to persevere or try to wean her onto formula is totally up to you and what you feel is best for yourself and your DD. Is she teething and could that be causing her to bite? Have you tried a few different types of sippy cups? We had various ones but the first one DD got the hang of was one with a straw - it did take her a while to get it though.

[ches]

Well, you described my DS1 - apart from the only waking once a night. I worked full-time and he refused both bottles and food. He's now a strapping nearly 10yo, so I can tell you it will all be fine. I can't do anything to help with your urgency. DS1 didn't eat food every day until he was 2yo. I nursed him until he very reluctantly weaned at 33 mo. The biting is probably teething pain, so you could try ibuprofen 30 min before nursing. Ibuprofen was a big part of both of my boys' diets until they were 3yo.