well tonight for dinner i reheated what he refused for lunch and he refused it again, he was waaaaaay OT after not going to sleep for his second nap till an hour later than normal and then only sleeping 40mins so i put him in his highchair and he jsut cried (he was like this the whole evening) he refused the meat and vegies so i brought the highchair into the lounge, put on the wiggles DVD and he ate the lot! I have never done this before and probably wont do it again, it was just a special circumstance cos he was so tired and upset all evening, but i was surprised he ate his meal, i then gave him mango yoghurt for dessert (i had already brought that out at the beginning)
It is totally normal for LOs to not want to eat if they are too tired! In these cases we always sacfrificed a "proper" meal for milk and early bed....perhaps a bit of fruit or snacky something while cuddling on my lap but never in the highchair as it was just too much for him to handle!
at the moment his feeds are like this:
6.30/7am wake up and 30mins later he has a bottle 9oz
1.5 hours later breakfast of 5Tbsp oats with soy milk, sometimes gluten free pancakes and toast
nap at 10/10.30 for an hour
snack of baby rice cake and small amount of cheeriosn usually around 11.30
12.30 lunch of meat and vege or some fruity meal. yoghurt instead usually 5Tbsp (I do offer fruit peices here of banana or apple but he just throws them over the side)
2pm Bottle 9oz
nap 2
if its early i will give him a handful of cheerios and a baby apple rice cake for a snack
5/5.30 dinner meat and vege, chicken,avocado, pasta, rice, potato, carrots, silverbeet, peas (doesnt like peas much) etc, that kind of stuff
bedtime 7.30/8pm bottle 9oz
he literally sucks his bottles dry, i cant fit anymore into his bottle though so i cant give him more!
And at this age, I wouldn't be pushing for any more milk, he is definitely getting his needed amount and if you give TOO much then he won't have an appetite for solids. As milk gives the nutrition he does still need to have some experience of eating solids, developing tastebuds, textures, and so on!
Looking at your routine I would not say that he is lacking in food amounts! 5Tbsp of oats for breakfast to me sounds like a LOT, I used to give DS 3Tbsp (measured dry, before cooked with milk) and it was a large bowl for a child his age! Plus with the calories that the soy milk provides and that is a good heavy meal. So if he eats half of that serving, I would say that is great! If you are trying to increase his fruit intake, mixing some in with the oats is a great place to get it in - mushy mango swirled in went over very well in our house!
Oh - and I also think same for the yogurt as the oatmeal...5Tbsp is a large-ish serving for a 9 month old, he could be full from that and just not want any more food, kwim?
whenever i give him new foods i do the sign for eat and he then puts it to his mouth, but more than usual before he even gets it into his mouth he screws up his face and drops it over the side, so he hasnt even tasted it yet and hes decided he doesnt like it. he especially does this with fruit. I even mashed up a banana last week, he took the first bite, screwed up his face and refused the rest of it. yet he eats it in his oats and has even once when he was 6 months old sucked on a banana and seemed to really like it, im so confused! 
Normal!!!
And normal for various reasons....and it could be any or all of these! But, think about if you never ever had any idea what was coming up for a meal. You were hungry, you were escorted to the dinner table dreaming of steak and potatoes and instead there was a roast chicken dinner in front of you. Hmmph...roast chicken may be nice and all, but not what you had in mind. Maybe give it a sniff, a taste, but naaahh, I'll wait until the next meal and see if I get my steak! Not much you can really do about it at this age, because he can't tell you what he wants, and because you don't want to go rooting through the fridge offering him every food in the world until you hit the bingo...so in that sense, it's sort of something you BOTH have to plod through with -- you offering a variety of foods, him learning that he should give them a taste and so on. It's all just part of the game for both of you!
The throwing food over the side is also learning, as frustrating as it is. My DS still does it...his two favourites are to pick up sweet corn, one kernel at a time and plonk it on the floor, watching as it falls; and sweeping his hand across a tray full of peas and seeing them fly around the kitchen. One book I have describes this as a "budding scientist" -- he's learning that when he throws things, they don't go to the ceiling, they go to the floor - cool, let's try that again and see if the same thing happens! And he's also learning that mommy makes an angry face when he does that...cool, let's try that again and see if this time she finds it funny.
So, I try not to react, I also try not to pick it up in front of him or it becomes another scientific experiment -cool, I throw it and mommy picks it up, just like when we are playing blocks in the living room. KWIM?
Tastebuds and texture preferences also change....often hourly it seems. DS has despised carrots from the time he was 6 months old. Doesn't even like the squeeze of them in his fingers! I still offered them maybe once per week..just one wee baby carrot on his tray, many a day the sight of it was enough to put him so off of his meal that he would not even eat what he was loving a moment earlier. Then one day last week I opened a tin of mixed carrots and peas, fished the peas out for him, but he screamed his head off pointing to the carrots trying to get at them. Ate ALL of them. Cried for more.
Since then, carrots it is. Bananas were another hit or miss...could love it and eat it all, next day it was more fun to use it as a hair product. I just always said "ok, you don't have to eat it, mommy will!" Ate it in front of him to show him that it was good. and went on calmly.
With the dropping it before tasting, maybe he remembers the colour....didn't like that green thing she gave me yesterday, not eating green things again! Keep offering, in a lighthearted mood, he'll eventually get past it!
I will definately do what you suggested mashi, just offer the one type (or bring out two foods at the one time) and offer no more, i just don't also want him to be waking up early from naps being hungry as well
i worried about this with naps at that age, and now that we are moving to one nap right over lunch time I worry with that as well! I try then to make sure what he is getting is nice and filling and not something to cause indigestion. Protein is good for filling tummies and making you feel full for longer...and that bottle of 9oz of milk before his nap is a good one to sustain him for at least a 2 hour nap!! And, the oats at bkfst another good one.
9-10 months really was a trying phase for us, foods wise. I may sound like I am suggesting this is all sooooooo easy, but I am the one who threw an entire bowl of pasta with tomato sauce across the kitchen because DS wouldn't even open his mouth to taste it, despite the fact that he had never tried it to know he didn't like it
Then spent an hour consoling an upset toddler and three weeks scrubbing my walls clean.
But I do know that EVERY phase we went through with solids was SO much easier when I took the above advice of my own and followed it. Calm, easygoing, not worrying about how much he eats, offering healthy nutritional foods in appropriate amounts and remembering that it is an innate human trait to control how much food we eat, and to only eat what is needed to fill us up.
Hope some of this has helped??? Let me know how you get on
