Toddlers and fussy eating (merged)

foreverskint

Have just picked up on this thread and thought I would add a bit for what it's worth.

Glad to see you've calmed down and things are working better for you Lillibet!

My DD now 3 was a joy to feed until she hit a year too and we tried all the usual tricks. It turned out that she had far more exotic tastes than we expected in a 1 year old! We realised that she needed more excitement in her food and introduced curries, ( albeit mild ) and chillis etc. She really is independant too and wanted to feed herself.

She has not touched milk in anyform other than yogurt for over a year, and would not eat veg. But I always offer milk with cereal, and put veg on her plate. The a couple of weeks ago, she decided that, yes cereal with milk is far nicer, and actually those green things on my plate are not too bad:j

So even if one day, they won't eat something, keep offering, and eventually they may well eat it.

I eldest two daughters existed for ever on a diet of plain chicken, pasta and the odd yogurt, but now at 14 and 12 they happily eat most things, the eldest should read everything lol. and they cost me a fortune to feed.


So persevere, somedays will have you tearing your hair out, but in the end you will get there/

rainbowrisin

Hurrah! Well done Lillibet!:j :j :j

You are such a brill mum to your littlie. Hope you've been able to squeeze in a bit of a celebration - a nice bubbly bath or 1/2 hr with a glass of cab sav and a good book.

Am so pleased to read things went more smoothly.:j :j

chivers1977

Hi Lilibet,

Some ideas for you from the annabel karmel books which I recommend even if it is only from the library:

Savoury bread and butter pudding with cheese and marmite. basically make cheese and marmite sandwich using 2 oz cheese. beat 1 egg and 4oz milk and pour on. cook in oven at 180/350/gas 4 for 25-30. let it go cold and cut into soldiers.

Pizzas: you can either make a base, use a muffin or use mash as base. you could hide loads of veg in whizzed up sauce, cheese on top.

sandwiches of all sorts

chicken and mushroom burgers. in foodprocessor, whizz chicken thigh, onion, mushrooms, breadcrumbs coat in floor and shallow fry or grill.

make fishcakes/ fishfingers yourself.

big tubes of pasta that he can hold and sauce can stick in the hole.

I could go on and on. The books are great. Glad that you have had some progress. BTW I was reading practical parenting mag and there was a "Spud" at the Baby Show, that wasn't your little man was it?????

Lillibet_2

chivers1977 wrote:

BTW I was reading practical parenting mag and there was a "Spud" at the Baby Show, that wasn't your little man was it?????

Alas, no! But I will try & update my avator today with a more recent pic, the current one was when he was 4 months old!

Thanks for the suggestions, off to sainsburys again this morning:rolleyes:

Rainbowrisin, you've got me blushing!!!!!!

Cheers all;)

rainbowrisin

Lillibet wrote:

Alas, no! But I will try & update my avator today with a more recent pic, the current one was when he was 4 months old!

Thanks for the suggestions, off to sainsburys again this morning:rolleyes:

Rainbowrisin, you've got me blushing!!!!!!

Cheers all;)

Tchah! Shame on you for blushing:p
You are a good mum and deserve some well earned praise.
Mummies need praise as much as littlies IMHO.

LearningToSave.

ahhhhh glad to hear things are going better for you lillibet!
that book i recommended is fab for that stage when its finger food only....its all finger food but proper 'meals' as finger food kinda thing.

gk172

Its definatley something in little boys, having had 3 girls and never had this problem. I too was worried when little man (13 months) stopped letting me feed him i tried everything then he started not letting me feed him again at breakfast, like you we had teeth popping up all over the place my only consolation was he like fromage frais and the strip cheese and his bottles but was taking between 30-40 ounces a day which i cut down to just a bottle at breakfast and then one after dinner and one before bed and tried the flavoured water which my h.v suggested and it worked, now its just 2 bottles and juice or water during the day. As my mil says a bottle of milk is as good as a meal:rolleyes: and it could be down to the cup that you are trying the water/juice out of i bought just about every one but little man settled on the sportster by avent and he started drinking juice fine so i knew he wouldnt dehydrate.

For breakfast we tried porridge but that got tossed, fruit that got squished, jam butties but they too got squished and dried cereal but that got tossed but had found that if we give banana and just half it he eats it;) rather than slice it and bigger bits of toast that he can rip a mouthfull off rather than wee slices also toasted pitta breads and sometimes even a waffle.

Around 11ish if he hasnt had banana for breakfast he gets fruit- apple no skin, banana, orange segments and melon and take pretty much the 20 min rule once i see the squishing i clear it up, then i have my lunch hes got to have a bit of what im having but only after i have eaten some of it first.

Dinner i do tend to think of whats the least mess he loves macaroni cheese so i drain most of the cheese sauce off first and give him the pasta maybe 6 bits at a time and can now tell when not to give more as they will end up on the floor, also hes now enjoying the chicken nuggets, alpha bites, fish fingers but only with a plastic fork(ikea) in his hand and hes well chuffed when he manages to spear something and eat it :j and he shovels the rest with his hands.

Then just before bed a couple of fromage frais and again its distracting him before he eats them and just now he gets the silver foil lid to play with for the first one and then i have to allow him to skiddle in the first empty pot for him to eat the second pot.

Oh and greggs sausage rolls are great if were out, he shocked me on monday waffle and 1/2 slice of toast for breakfast and then we were at gregs i bought 3 sausage rolls one each and one spare as offer was better to buy 3 anyway he got his first half then wanted more so he got the second half, scoffed that and looked for more so i gave another half out the spare one and he scoffed that too it was only an inch of the 4 half that he threw away so i didnt really expect him to eat much dinner but served him half a baked potato as it would have been extra anyway with cheese squares and he scoffed that too which i really didnt expect him to do.

So all kids have good eating days and then somedays that they like to get up worried about. And he was about 13 months when he started being fussy about what was going in his chops and hes 18 months now so it can last.

angelatgraceland

I went through all of this with my first and was certain she was going ot starve. My second was not a lot better but my my third I had learned to stop worrying and relax. They dont starve-make sure there are lots of drinks of milk or water especially now. Rice cales are great but not the flavoured ones. Oatcakes also-(like biscuits)these are filling. Mine liked mashed banana and yoghurt also or pieces of banana. Babies and toddlers dont know the difference between meals and snacks-it what you feed them that counts and not whether its a proper meal.Everyone has made good suggestions. Don't be afraid to experiment with food. Th best thing I found was to give just atiny amount and to walk away so that it was no big deal. Its very much an attention thing I found and that was the hardest thing for me to learn to cope with. Give hime something and you have the same. Maybe you actually start eating yours first-let him think it is yours and maybe say "would you like one"? This worked for me-good luck.

abbecer

My son is 18 months old tomorrow and still has about five 9 ounce bottles a day. He can feed himself but it depends on his mood. One day he will like a food then not the next day. Someday's he eats a lot, some days hardly anything. It is difficult because he is severely intolerant to dairy, lactose, wheat, gluten and soya. However i don't make a fuss at mealtimes as i know this is only giving him the attention he craves. If he is not cooperating i don't make a fuss and if he does well i make one big almighty fuss. I do worry that he doesn't get enough nutrients with his diet been so limited. However dietician and paedatrician seem happy with his development so i'm reassured.

All i can recommend is to let him lead the way and don't stress to much.

My friend had similar problems with her son and she used to force feed him. Now he is one of the fussiest eaters you can imagine. I made no issues with my eldest and he will eat almost anything. His favourites been olives and whelks!!! Even i won't touch whelks.

I would suggest that while your OH is away you go for picnics. It will make eating fun and you won't have mess all over your floor. Also if you are out and about you will feel better rather than been stressed in the house.

Rebecca x :rotfl:

Jo_R_2

Lillibet, glad to see yr feeling more relaxed about things. I haven't read every reply yet but we recently tried to put more variation into DD#1's diet (she's 2.5yrs.) I am vegan but really have a fairly limited scope when it comes to what I eat (not a good example LOL!) so we were feeding her the same foods in rotation pretty much.

In an attempt to get her to even try something different, we introduced 'Saturday lunchtime buffet'. This is where we basically make up a spread like a buffet or picnic, with different kinds of bread/rolls/cobs etc, an assortment of sandwich fillings (hummus, veggie slices, grated cheese), finger-food veggies (carrots grated and chopped, cherry tomatoes, bits of lettuce, sweetcorn, slices of cucumber), various accompaniments like tomato relish, ketchup, slasa and so on, and also offer breadsticks, potato wedges, and some other stuff. We all sit at the table together and let her pick what she wants. She loves making her own sandwiches but doesn't always eat them, usualy she'll have a nibble, but we've recently started cutting the sandwiches out in cookie cutter shapes (hearts, gingerbread men, stars etc) which she loves, especially eating the arms and legs off the gingerbread-shaped men! Also in this weather she likes sometimes to take her plate outside and sit and eat out there. I've long taken the don't fuss approach, I don't worry about how much she eats and don't stress about it (easier said than done at first !!!) and I do find that family meals are good ways of her seeing what we eat and copying us.

Another thing she loves doing is "dip dips" where we make meals where she can dip stuff, so again wedges and ketchup, she also likes dipping pitta breads and naan breads, a particular fave is lentil dhal and naans which she loves dipping.

Snacks are also very important, I know it's not akin to what we as adults are 'taught', but children, especially so young, only have very small tummies so it's important that they get regular refuelling rather than having big meals. Plus snacks are a great way to edge in some extra nutrition, DD#1 loves HM oat and raisin cookies, where I sneak in chopped apricots for iron, which she won't usually eat by themselves.

Hope that's of some use to you!