Things were going pretty darn well on the eating front. DS loved his food, would happily eat most of the time. Rarely needed me to mix his fruit in with his main to get it to go down. We were having fantastic successes with lentils, butternut squash risottos, stews, rice and pasta dishes. Everything that he loved he now refuses UNLESS it's got fruit mixed in.
And then I started doing more and more finger food as part of the transition to getting him to feed himself. He is doing fantastically at that: clementines, grapes, bits of banana, kiwi and apple, cubes of cheese, chunks of homemade chicken nuggets, bread. And I've started offering him a spoon to feed himself - he's not interested in anything other than playing with it.
But now he won't eat much if I feed him either. He has a screaming fit (real tears
) and refuses to open his mouth. If food goes in, he spits it straight back out. After a while, if I manage to coax something into him (without resorting to mixing it with dessert), he looks like he's eating (gets praise) then suddenly it all comes out again. More than a mouthful.
So, he'll eat with his fingers but really struggle to get enough into him this way, especially veggies and dairy (other than cubes of cheese) and any carby heavy stuff like pasta, rice, spuds - he just won't touch it that way. He won't try to feed himself with a spoon. He won't take food from me on a spoon without a fight and even then, he eats very very little. So far, for 4 days now, the only way I can get him to eat his main meal and keep it down is to mix it in with his fruit / dessert. He watches me carefully to make sure that I don't sneak in just main meal on a spoon...grrrrrr. And I'm not really comfortable continuuing this for long.
Any ideas anyone?
What did I do wrong?!
I've been hoping it's just a phase and a way to exert some control of his own on his environment... but I thought feeding himself would be the real deal for him.
TIA
Charlotte (feeling like a right old misery pants
)
