I was just reading through all of these posts and I wanted to tell you, Goldie, that I thought you were an amazing mother and I am so happy that you are doing all you can to figure out what is going on. It really made me angry that the doctor's weren't listening to you.
Not sure if it would help you, but.....since your lo was interested in the ice cream and also likes teasing you with food and also tried "testing" some foods off of your plate....it does seem as though she is interested in eating but is perhaps nervous or had some type of bad experience (maybe with the textures like you guys were saying). Anyway here's some of my thoughts.
1-my dd eats the jarred baby food and really enjoys them. the pureed stage 1 and stage 2 foods seem to be really pureed in texture and easy to eat. they even have ones that are iron fortified baby cereals mixed with pureed fruits already together in the jar. She might like them.
2-i thought this was going to sound somewhat gross, but if she had kept refusing the milk, i might have considered adding a tiny bit of sugar to it to sweeten it up ....
?
3-if she liked ice cream, it might take a lot of trial and error, but she should find other things she likes!!! i work with children who have disabilities and one of the boys in my classroom likes a very limited amount of foods and eats the same things ALL the time, another child i work with will ONLY eat pizza (i think that's a case of bad parenting), and MANY of the children do NOT like their foods mixed together at all because of different textures and flavors. try different combinations and temperatures and see if it could be a sensory issue?? (not to sound scary, but a lot of children that i know who have a diagnosis of Autism or Pervasive Developmental Disorders have aversions to food for a variety of reasons and the teachers and other specialists that work with them tend to have to continue working on trying different foods as they get older. i am in NO way trying to say your lo might have a disability, but what i am saying is that no matter what, i have never heard of any of those children starving themselves. they have all found things that they will eat and the parents have found ways to try to sneak in supplements of vitamins etc. if need be....so the future looks bright!)
4-try having someone else with a child in the same age range who enjoys eating come over sometimes and all have a sit down meal session together. maybe socially she would be inclined to start eating if another baby is eating and happy about it. *shrug* hey, anything is possible right?
5-lastly, you are absolutely right to be upset with your dd's doctors. there is no reason that they can't take a little more time to try to listen to you ... and i mean REALLY LISTEN for once and try to do something that would actually help you.
You are doing great. I hope I didn't say anything that would cause you any more worry. I just want you to know that I believe it will get better.
Best of luck!!!!!
