Desperately Need Help.

[lilly_kitt]

Hi

Ty is almost a year old and just refuses food, he does prefer to feed himself which is fine.  But he eats next to nothing, i've tried cutting his milk right down but this didn't work.  HV said to with hold all milk until he eats, he didn't.  Took him to Dr to make sure he was ok and he said that HV was talking rubbish, he will eat when he's ready and to up the milk after he refuses food.  At the moment he has a bottle after we've tried brekkie (he will eat cheerios and shreddies with some banana or strawberries), then I try everything for lunch it all ends up on the floor, so he then has another bottle after this episode, tea is the same as lunch.  Today I managed to get some food down him by being an aeroplane from the other side of the room (hey it worked for abit).
He loves dipping breadsticks in cheese spread, but he cant live on this !!
Please help, am terrified of him getting anaemic.  The doctor says not to worry, but its so hard.  Am ashamed to say I even prised his lips open with the spoon to try and get him to taste it.

Sarah
x

[muddyfeet]

What I'm seeing here is your pediatrician is not worried, and is willing to have you substitute milk when he refuses food. So he's presumably getting enough calories to keep growing normally. Will he eat a multivitam to keep his minerals and vitamins balanced? If so, my advice is to relax and not make the food an issue between you and your LO.

I understand that as a mom you are DRIVEN to make sure he gets what's best for him, and ideally what would be best is if he ate a balanced diet, complete with brussels sprouts and spinach. But it's really, really common for toddlers his age to do exactly what he's doing. It doesn't last forever, and you're not alone.

Think about this...do you want food to be a control issue between you and your LO for the next several years? This is a really formative age for your LO becoming more independent and taking control of his own activities. Trying to force him to eat WHAT you want him to eat could make eating itself far more of an issue and for longer than you want to deal with. If you just roll with him right now on this, and give him more choices in other areas (I started letting my LO choose her socks, shoes, cheese or bananas, which pajamas, anything I could think of that wasn't supercritical), he may relax more about the food. What you're doing is shifting HIS control to other targets. Am I making sense?

 

[Canadian_Mom]

Hmmm...I just posted something kind of similar to this topic!  lol!!

Kind of in the same boat as you Sarah.  I know what he should eat (and in our case, has previously eaten!!).  And it gets so frustrating when they just won't eat it!  I know that lately there as been a few mealtimes that I have needed to take a break from because I just want to push the food into his mouth!  But at the same time constantly worrying about him becoming a picky eater.  Sigh...so many things to worry about now that we have become moms 

Muddyfeet - Good ideas!  I might start letting DS have a few more choices over some simple things!

[lilly_kitt]

Hi

Thanks for the replies, he's getting very independant now and threw a mini tantrum yesterday because i wouldn't let him walk around a shop on his own.  Maybe he's just growing into his personality.  I get very stressed about it, but try not to.  This morning he had cheerios, shreddies (dry) strawberries and banana with two small pieces of toast.  I just read the newspaper and let him carry on.  He's now just had a bottle of follow on milk (his first of the day) before going down for his nap.  He's not having any snacks today and will just have drinks between now and lunch, another bottle after lunch and then his bedtime one after tea.
He's not really interested in choosing his clothes or socks yet, but i understand what you mean.

sarah
x

[fireredjewel]

how frustrating is it!
my LO (13 months) has a very limited range too (although slightly bigger!); refuses tomato, red meat, fruit pieces (but still eats purees, and 'fruit bars' - the heinz ones - i like to think that it's because unless the fruit is perfectly ripe for 10 seconds or so it's inedible... bah), and a lot of new stuff.
i agree - just roll with it. that's what we're doing, and everyone's happy.
have you tried risottos? my LO loves them (sans tomato of course).
hope it works out!

[lilly_kitt]

Thanks

Risotto is a good idea we have that quite regularly (although will have to miss out the white wine), and he can eat that with his hands.
I'm willing to try everything as am scared of him getting ill from his poor diet.

Sarah
x

[lainy]

Dear Sarah

This is EXACTLY what we are going through! Our DD hardly eats anything at all! It is so hard to balance things and it is so stressful when one has a real fussy eater as we both seem to have! We have struggled with weight of our 19mth old girl since she was 4 months. She jumped from being in 75% down to 15%...and then again down to 1%...and thanks to milk she is now back to 15% in weight.

She is very spirited and very independent and stubborn. The food issues...i just don't know what to do. We were also told to refuse the milk for 3 whole days and that she will start to eat. It didn't happen!!! She likes to eat musli in the morning (my musli) or dry cornflakes. On a good day she will have something around 10-11am again, but it is something very small such as cornthins or rice cracker (for adults) with peanut butter on. I have tried leaving things around just in case she shows some interest - but no...nothing..not even a banana cake..not even banana..nothing..nothing at all...tried healthy stuff...tried unhealthy stuff...she has ZERO interest. If her hands get dirty - she is refusing to touch it EVER again!

We did 3 days of bottle refusal made her lose around 400grams which we can not afford. It is terrible. So this is what our GOOD FOOD day looks like at the moment:
-breakfast ard 8am: rice crispies w milk or dry cornflakes. I just put her in the chair and deal with the dishes. she is refusing to be feed so she is playing with it and sometimes she does eat for a bit. Then i come and join her with my musli and she will have 2-5tea spoons of that which i think is EXCELLENT
-i then give her vitamines (they are super sweet...but they contain everything and they also have vegetable in a sweetie form. i am not happy with them as they are too sweet, but my little one does take them and i know she has got everything in it).
-then she gets her water bottle with "juice" which is just water few drops of iron (cherry flavoured) (i am so worried about her being anemic so i am trying everything really).
-ard 11am i offer her rice cracker with peanut butter on. She sometimes has 1/4 of it...she sometimes has 3/4.
-before she goes to bed at midday i will give her small bottle (120ml) of FF milk with 1.2 spoons of brown rice cereal (supplemented with DHA etc) and we watch some cartoon while she drinks it.
-i am trying to refuse to give her any snacks in the afternoon in hope that she will get hungry but that never happens.
-she will drink her iron water and around 4.30 -5pm she will start getting really frustrated because she is hungry. I have tried all the tricks such as taking her out, changing the position of her chair, cooking all sorts (the eternal cooking...), ready made food etc etc and nothing works. The ONLY thing she will have is half cooked brown rice pasta by Bellamy and fries. I feel like a worse mother for giving her potatoe vedges, but it is the only thing she will eat!! I tried making my own nuggets...tried buying nuggets so she gets some kind of meat, but the answer is always NO, followed by high pitched scream, tears.
Before she goes to bed i will give her big bottle of formula (260ml) but she usually only has half of it.

Now this is description of a great day as i said.

Our bad day it is really bad.
No breakfast...instead i give her a small bottle ard 9am (after whole hour of trying different things) and then trying to give her some other fruit or cracker or something for the rest of the morning...and at noon i give her another small bottle (this time with brown rice cereal in so it is bit thicker). in afternoon, she will have iron water, fruit pouch of ella's kitchen (or equivalent) and then at 6.30 she will have her milk. Considering that by that time she has only had around 300 calories (and should be around 1200calories!!!) i give her a big bottle of formula (because it has all the additives, iron, vitamines) and i make it up with milk and add some rice cereal (so that is another 300 calories there).
 
I have tried forcing before, when she was around 13-14 months and when she couldn;t protest as much as now - but each and every time it has forced us to take several steps back! it always ended up in tears from both my and her side. I must admit that giving her the vitamines and iron supplemented water has made me chill out huge amount - at least i know she is getting things inside even though it is not in the manner i am happy with, but it is at least something!

I know they will be fine..well i don;t but i hope. When people say that kids wont starve themselves i always say: well...you haven't meet my child because she WILL lose 5% of her body weight in 3 days just because she is not bothered with food!! She doesn't even give it a chance!! But i know she will discover pizza one day like the rest of us have...and bolognaise...and stews...and roasted chicken and mash! I just don;t know when :-(

Please let me know how it is going for you and if you have come up with any ideas on how to deal with the food.

[fireredjewel]

Hi Lainy,
WOW tough!! Good work with the vitamins! I can totally empathise with the worry about aneamia, my DD will NOT touch red meat. so frustrating!
Have you tried sitting down to eat 'with' her? I always try to sit with my LO and chat to her/eat a little bit for at least one meal a day & she usually joins DH & I for dinner (while we eat & she finishes her dinner!). little ones at this age really look to us to 'model' behaviour to them and perhaps if she sees you eating, she might be inspired to eat as well. :-) Can also help to teach her how to behave at the table if she's particularly spirited!!
I've also heard that having the LOs 'involved' in preparing the food can really help excite & interest them in the food they are about to eat. A bit hard to manage - maybe choosing food from the fridge? helping mix in a bowl? making a funny face together on her plate with different veggies/fruits?
It is also pretty normal for toddlers to have many small meals throughout the day - so i would say offer her an afternoon snack (of something she wants to eat/chooses to eat) - and maybe more little snacks more often.
anyway best of luck with it- maybe some other mums can help you out too!!
x