My baby refuses food - what should I do?

The principle all three of our sources share is responsive feeding: offer, do not force, allow touching and self-feeding, and reintroduce refused foods patiently.

On how many attempts it takes, ESPGHAN gives a figure - 8 to 10 exposures - and it is worth being precise that this number is ESPGHAN’s own. We could not find it in the Ministero FAQ or the WHO 2023 text, both of which state the persistence principle without attaching a count. So treat 8 to 10 as an indication of scale rather than a threshold. The useful takeaway is that two or three refusals tell you nothing yet.

What tends to help

• Offer the refused food again another day, without comment, alongside something already accepted.
• Let your baby touch it, squash it, and put it down again. That is part of eating at this age, not a failure of it.
• Keep your own reaction flat. Attention turns a refusal into an event worth repeating.

What does not help

Forcing, bargaining, or replacing the meal with a preferred food the moment it is pushed away. The last one teaches the fastest.

When it is not just refusal

Persistent refusal with poor weight gain, distress at every meal, or real difficulty swallowing is a different thing, and it belongs with your paediatrician rather than on a recipe page.