Toddlers and fussy eating (merged)

geordiepaul2001

Hi all,

I am stressed beyond belief and could really do with someones guidance.

My oldest Daughter is 2 years and eight months old.
She was born 3 months premature and spent 100 days in a special care baby unit when born. As a result of this she is small for her size.
At present she is in 9 - 12 month clothes.

The trouble is, she will not eat!!
So far today, she woke up at 0800hrs and had 40ml of milk, which was loaded with a calorie supplement.
Since then I have tried her with chocolate cakes, biscuits, pasta, etc and she either refuses, or spits it back out.

When she was weighed the other day, she was 18lbs, her baby sister (4 months old) is 11lb 14oz and will soon be havier than her older sister.

The doctors have said that as she has never been ove the lowest centile in the yellow health book, they may have to put a nasal cannular in and feed her that way.

Everytime a dietician comes out, they say the same old stuff - try frying her food, try finger foods, try butter.
We have tried all this but they just keep telling us the same things.

I am worried now that the stress is going to come between me and my Wife as the situation is getting out of control.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation or can they offer any advice?

Paul

Counting_Pennies_2

I guess the problem is you are linked with not just food problems for an under weight child which I don't have experience of, but also the willfulness of a toddler which is something I think many a parent can sympathise with.

In terms of the willfulness, I would say to her that she can have whatever it is she is really keen on if she eats something first.

So beit the drink of milk, or a toy etc. Go for a good high fat item and say if you eat this you can have 'x' and put that item in front of her and see what happens. If she won't eat it, she doesn't get the item (so it might be best that it is a toy, rather than her milk to start with!)

See how that goes.

It might be something that a more specific specialist can help with in terms of her dietry needs, but in terms of the stress, if the efforts you go to don't work, then accept the nasal tube and don't see it as defeat. As you say she was a bit of a special case being born so early, and she is here with us well in other respects and is probably the apple of your eye despite the worries. So try not to beat yourselves up over this.

Good luck

Sazere

Hi, we have been in a very similar situation. My DD1 who is almost 4 is wearing 1 1/2- 2yr old clothes (and has only recently gone into this size). She has a liver condition and does not absorb fats/nutrients very well. She was tube fed for awhile in hospital when she was very young. But I did everything to avoid that when she got older. Have you tried the fruit juice drinks (Enlive) we had to switch to these from the Infatrini milk when my DD refused all milk. I used to freeze them into ice lolly moulds or make slushy drinks - anything different I could think of. We also used Maxijul (I think this is a energy/calorie supplement) but this you add to food so may not work in your case.

I know it can be hard but try not to get to hung up on the weight charts. DD was at her highest only on the 9th centile and that was when she was first born the rest of the time she has been underneath the 0 centile (not on the chart). Now we have DD2 who is healthy and she started on 2nd centile at birth and since then has always been below the 0 centile.

If the main issue is her refusing to eat then stick with keep trying new things. We went through a stage where I stopped preparing food for our DD as she refused everything. To be honest eating made her uncomfortable so she wouldnt eat. Instead me and DH eat separately and offered her food off our plates, this way she would have tiny amounts often. This worked for us until she felt ready to start eating larger amounts.

We are under the care of dieticians but they always say the same thing add butter, fry foods, as you mentioned above.

I can't think of anything else we tried at the moment but ask questions if you want to know anything more...

brummiebabe

Have no experience of a premature child, so realise my advice may not be totally helpful...but do have the experience of toddlers/babies who will/won't eat!!

My 2 Dss ate almost anything put in front of them - were high on growth/weight charts etc. This meant mealtimes were relaxed (as they ever can be with children anyway) and relatively stress free - no coercing, bargaining etc needed!

My DD (now 10 months) on the other hand is the total opposite!! Did not like to eat at all, weight was still on the chart, but not really putting on as much as she should etc.. Even though I'd be deemed an 'experienced mum' - I found the whole situation deeply distressing, felt like a failure & would get REALLY worked up come mealtimes!! This led to the whole mealtime thing seeming like a battle of wills, between her & me.

I forced myself (& it was NOT easy) to back off!! Put food out for her, left it there for her to feed herself - if she did, she got loads of praise, if not, I took it away after a reasonable length of time..no comments etc to DD, took her out of highchair and carried on with the day.

She has now begun to eat more - but will only really feed herself, won't generally accept food from me.

I appreciate that your situation is VERY different, due to the obvious health concerns...but as she's 2 1/2, could she maybe see that this situation causes you both distress, maybe disagreements, gets her a lot of attention etc? If possible (& it's not, by any means an easy thing to do) could you try backing off & leaving her to it a bit? If she realsies it's not (outwardly) affecting you, maybe she'll get bored with the battle & begin to eat?

I'm not saying this is the answer to the problem, as it's obviously a complicated situation, but maybe food (excuse the pun) for thought!

Have you any other children? Are her mealtimes when other people are eating aswell? My DD always eats better when her 2 brothers are there - is more distracted I think!

Best of luck :A

WestonDave

I can't talk from experience of under eating, but we have a boy the same age. I wonder if its all become a source of control whereby if she doesn't eat she can get you fussing around her - that in time may have also evolved into a confidence problem with food, things in her mouth etc.

Its hard to know how to get out of that as with her weight you've little room to maneouvre but if she's not eating anyway (spitting it out) you've got little to lose either. I'd therefore try putting down a portion of what you are eating (you may have to adjust your food plans!) and sitting down and eating yours with her, with no further comment about her eating (or not!) unless she eats it at which point make a big fuss and then go back to eating (not in silence just chatting as tho having someone sat there ignoring their food is perfectly normal).

The other suggestion I'd have is do what we sometimes do with DS1 on a Saturday. Get some pizza bases (or make some) and boil down some tinned tomatoes (add a few herbs and tom puree to taste) to make a healthy base topping, and have a load of varied things in bowls as toppings with a big bowl of grated cheese to finish. We then sit around on a big plastic sheet on the floor (we sometimes do it at the table) and DS1 gets to make pizzas for us all (he spreads the tom sauce around, puts toppings on (what he doesn't eat!) and then puts the cheese on. They then get cooked and served for us all to eat. The point of this is to handle and play with food without it being a big "Oh my god is she eating" time. Its not beyond a 2 year old to help with making an apple pie or crumble and even get involved in a basic cake making. Yes you'll have a mess and it'll take time but if it increases her interest in food then you may start to break down some of the negative response she has now. As a bonus she may actually want to try what she's cooked.

The one problem we have with DS1 is he won't eat fruit. He will however eat fruit in a pie/crumble/cake he's made, and he will beg bits of apple if I eat one in front of him ignoring him! (even if 2 minutes earlier he's refused one when offered).

No idea if that's much help but I hope something is useful - beyond that all the best mate! its hard to watch them learn tough lessons.

anonymousie

geordiepaul2001 wrote: »

Hi all,

I am stressed beyond belief and could really do with someones guidance.

My oldest Daughter is 2 years and eight months old.
She was born 3 months premature and spent 100 days in a special care baby unit when born. As a result of this she is small for her size.
At present she is in 9 - 12 month clothes.

The trouble is, she will not eat!!
So far today, she woke up at 0800hrs and had 40ml of milk, which was loaded with a calorie supplement.
Since then I have tried her with chocolate cakes, biscuits, pasta, etc and she either refuses, or spits it back out.

When she was weighed the other day, she was 18lbs, her baby sister (4 months old) is 11lb 14oz and will soon be havier than her older sister.

The doctors have said that as she has never been ove the lowest centile in the yellow health book, they may have to put a nasal cannular in and feed her that way.

Everytime a dietician comes out, they say the same old stuff - try frying her food, try finger foods, try butter.
We have tried all this but they just keep telling us the same things.

I am worried now that the stress is going to come between me and my Wife as the situation is getting out of control.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation or can they offer any advice?

Paul

No wise words, it is hellish sitation, but have you/health care professionals considered her fluid intake?
She must be drinking a reasonable amount to stay healthy - is this water, squash or what?(squash can have added calorie suppliments I think if needed). If she is filling her small tum with water/juice on a constant sip sip sip basis then she may never get any hunger pangs to trigger her to eat( especially if she is drinking sugared squash). It might be worth stopping flavoured liquids and give her the choice of water/milk and offer these after food rather than just before meal time (I'm not suggesting you retrict her fluids, just when theyare given and how "desireable" they are- she will drink water if she is thirsty!).

amy

i understand your worry i am a mum of 4 and mt twins went through this i also am a nursery nurse and meet many in similar situations... well the first question i would ask is how does the night go... is it a full sleep or still waking?? my twins woke once every night until 2 1/2 i was feeding them a bottle of milk simply to get them back to sleep.. in the day they wouldn't eat as they were full from the milk during the night.. then i started to worry as their weight gain was very slow they were referred to the paed at our local hosp and they run blood tests etc everything was fine one day i clicked like a light bulb the more they don't eat the more i offer them snacks occasionally they'd take a biscuit or cake then next meal time they wouldn't be hungry so then they only ate bits of snacks so during the night they were genuinely hungry and needed the milk we were stuck for a few nights we had to have a nightmare only giving them water which brought on tantrums and sleepless nights but after 3 or 4 nights they soon got it and by this time they were hungry during the day and began to eat thank god!!
i hope you'll come up with a simple explanation and don't panic too much the more attention they get the more they'll play along!!

geordiepaul2001

Hi all and many thanks for the replies.

To answer the question regarding the sleeping, she goes to bed at 2000hrs and normally wakes at about 0730hrs, she very very rarely wakes up.

Today she had.

60ml of milk for breakfast - with calorie supplement

a small strip of bread with margarine and 2 pieces of pasta for tea
Washed down with 20ml of juice with calorie supplement added

For dinner she had 3 quarters of a turkey drummer and anouther 20-30ml of milk with calorie supplement added

She is now sleeping at her grandparents to help us destress for the night

fsdss

hi

although i have not experienced these problems with my own children, i do have a wealth of experience of working with children of similar ilk.

Weight
centile charts are a guide to development in growth - it doesnt matter too much if your daughter is following the same (or thereabouts) line even if she started below the bottom line. i assume when she was born her weight was calculated minus her weeks premature? iyswim. i am assuming that this has been monitored on a regular basis by gp/hv team and paediatrician?
please dont compare her to her baby sisters weight as they are both different children with different circumstances

development
how is her development? is she talking yet (this could be a key to eating) 2-3 word sentences are about right for a 2 year old however do take in her 3 months minus at this stage if needed making her 21months. so a few simplistic words i.e car / mummy etc would suffice. if not i would ask for a referral to the speech therapist via dietician as this could help with her eating

eating
i would be tempted to knock the high calorie milk drink until after breakfast lunch etc. that way her tummy will not be full from it and she will be more likely to eat. get involved in making things such as pizza / sandwiches and let her try things. give her a job at the supermarket choosing the carrots etc. simple finger food picnics are a tempter.

behaviour
it could be a behavioural habit that she has developed (wanting her bottle and or milk to fill her tummy) the only way to deal with this is change her routine as stated above

health
there may be an under lining health problem with her eating such as inability to digest foods or intolerance. this might account for the canular insertion (which at this age she will most probably whip out anyway). without any further info (which i am not suggesting you should divulge) i am only speculating.

you as parents
i cant reiterate this enough - try to relax about this - the more you fret the more your dd will pick up on the signals. if you just offer the food and take it away when finished (even if not touched). she will get a relaxed atmosphere and will be more tempted to try foods, similarly of course if you all sit down with her preferably at the table eating your dinner making it a social occasion, that way she will get the message that its ok to eat


btw i have an 18yr old nephew a strapping 5'9, who was born 3 months prem (2lb 8 oz). and his mum fretted over his size!!!

Irisheyes648

Its stressfull isn't it...............what works for me is letting my little boy graze most of the day the only time he is expected to sit at the dinner table is for dinner in the evening. During the day I put food out for him (finger food) such as cubes of cheese, small sandwiches, raisins, cocktail sausages, fruit, malt cake, boiled egg, bread sticks, basically anything that he can eat on the go and its amazing that it all goes, yogurts in tubes are also very good because they can be eaten on the go. It's worth a try it worked for my little boy he is eating much more now:T I think its because he is in charge and eats when he wants to rather then forcing the issue at a dinner table and the whole nagging thing. Make sure everything you give is loaded with calories eg; bananas, advacado, butter, full fat cheese, cream in rice puddings, full fat yogurt etc so what little does go in is worth the effort. Good luck P.S if she likes milk try a smoothie crammed with banana, mango, full fat yogurt and ff milk loads of calories!!