30 August 2026 · Veronica Chi

Business & Product Director · Mum of two

Baby Refusing Solids: What to Do

Refusal is normal at every stage of the first two years, and the useful first move is not a technique — it is working out which kind of refusal you are looking at. The causes at six months, nine months and fourteen months are genuinely different, and the responses that help are different too.

At six to eight months: not yet, rather than no

A baby who turns away from a spoon in the first weeks is usually not refusing food. They are refusing an unfamiliar object arriving at their face, or they are not quite ready, or they are simply full of milk.

• Check readiness again: sitting supported with a steady head, coordinating hand to mouth, and swallowing rather than pushing out. If one is missing, wait a fortnight.
• Offer solids after a milk feed, not instead of one. A hungry baby wants milk, not a novel skill.
• Let them hold the spoon, or use a second one. Control resolves a surprising amount of spoon refusal.
• Try a finger food instead. Some babies who will not accept a spoon will happily gnaw a carrot baton.
• Do not chase the mouth with the spoon. Hold it still and let them lean in.
• Keep offering without pressure. It genuinely takes weeks, and almost none of it goes in at first.

At nine to twelve months: distraction and control

• Appetite genuinely varies day to day. A big day followed by a small one is normal.
• They want to do it themselves. Refusal of a spoon at this age is very often a request for the spoon.
• Milk may be crowding out solids. By nine months solids should generally be offered first and milk reduced towards 500 to 600ml a day.
• Teething and illness suppress appetite for a few days at a time.
• Distraction rises sharply. A quieter room, no screens and no toys on the table often restores half the meal.

At twelve months and beyond: the normal collapse

Appetite drops sharply around the first birthday because growth slows, and this alarms nearly every parent. A toddler eating a fraction of what they ate at eleven months is usually doing exactly what a toddler does.

Food neophobia — wariness of new foods — peaks between about eighteen months and three years, and is a developmental stage rather than a behaviour problem. It coincides with the age at which children discover that refusal produces a reaction, which is why it feels like defiance.

What helps at every age

• Divide the responsibility: you decide what is offered, when and where. They decide whether and how much. Holding that line is the single most effective thing on this list.
• Never pressure, bribe, praise eating or use dessert as leverage. All four are associated with worse intake and more restriction over time.
• Serve the food alongside something familiar they will accept, so the meal is never all-or-nothing.
• Eat the same thing, at the same time, in front of them. Modelling beats instruction by a wide margin.
• Keep meals to twenty to thirty minutes and end them without comment.
• Reduce grazing. A child who has snacked at eleven is not hungry at twelve.
• Let them touch, smell and play with a rejected food. Handling is a step towards eating and often precedes it by weeks.
• Stay neutral. Visible disappointment is a reward for refusal, and children read it accurately.

The things that make it worse

• One more spoonful. It overrides the appetite regulation you are trying to preserve.
• Cooking a second meal on demand, which teaches that refusal produces a better option.
• Hiding vegetables exclusively. Some is fine; if it is the only way vegetables appear, the child never learns to accept them visible.
• Filling up on milk or juice before a meal.
• Turning the meal into a negotiation. Long conversations about eating make the table a place where something is being extracted.

When it is not ordinary refusal

Speak to a doctor, health visitor or dietitian if any of these apply. Several are straightforward to address and all are easier earlier.

• Weight gain has flattened, or they have dropped across centile lines.
• Refusing all solids consistently beyond about nine months.
• Fewer than roughly ten to fifteen accepted foods by around two, or whole food groups excluded.
• Coughing, gagging or a wet-sounding voice during and after most meals, or pain on swallowing.
• Vomiting after feeds, back-arching, or persistent distress at the table.
• Eczema, rashes, diarrhoea or blood in stools alongside particular foods.
• Extreme sensitivity to textures, smells or mess that goes well beyond preference.
• Mealtimes that are escalating in distress rather than settling over weeks.

Referral to a paediatric dietitian or a feeding specialist is a routine step rather than a last resort, and does not mean anything has gone wrong. What is worth avoiding is a year of increasingly tense meals before anyone asks.

Questions parents ask

Sources

• NHS — Your baby's first solid foods
• NHS — Fussy eaters

This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions — it is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.

Keep reading

• How Much Should a Baby Eat? Portions by Age
• How to Make Vegetables Less of a Food Fight
• When Can Babies Eat Finger Foods?

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