Fussy eater at 12 months

[anna*]

ooh yum. Sausage and lentils are a great combo. I think she might have been a wee bit older but maybe around 15 months Audrey loved a thick soup and being allowed to drink it from an open 'big girl' cup. Also dipping in breadsticks. I mention that because I bet the sausage and lentil casserole would blend into a delicious thick soup if you have any leftovers. If you ever roast a whole chicken you can make stock which is SOOOOO good for you (and Eva! ) and delicious and perfect for making all kinds of soups.

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Protein ideas:
- offer for breakfast rather than lunch or dinner, this worked a treat with mine and means that whatever you have for your lunch/dinner LO only needs eat the veg and carbs which you and DH (or CM etc) can have whatever meat/fish you want with the meal.  Mine will eat a 1 egg omelet if I put a little tom ketchup in the egg before whisking, you could use a half teaspoon of tom purée instead of ketchup which would actually be healthier. The added flavour might talk her into eating the egg. Or eggy bread (do you know how to make it?) or a sausage.
- humus (is made of chickpeas)
- kidney bean dip (home made)
- snack food, just canned (in water no sugar or salt) beans drained and rinsed and eaten cold, try different varieties as the taste and texture is slightly different of each one
- if you make stew or curry add a can of beans, they take on the flavour of the stock and veg and meat but LO doesn't have to have the meat if not keen, curry is great with lentils added
- pate. try a shop bought pate if she likes it you can make home made to reduce the amount of salt etc, it is really easy to make (cheap too, frozen chicken livers are really inexpensive and a great source of iron and protein)
- taramasalata (cods roe) but watch the serving size as there is salt in it
- quiche - just disguised egg
- canned tuna or mackerel in oil, drained, mixed through pasta or in a sandwich with mayo
- will she have fish fingers?  I've weaned mine from fish fingers to home made fish fingers and onto real fish over time
- falafel (loads of recipes on line, reduce the chilli powder if you aren't sure how hot it will be the first time you make them)
- butter bean mash, instead of mashed potato with any meal you would serve mash with (mine won't eat this as he hates mash but it's worth a try)

I make lentil and bean burgers but I just make it up and it's never the same twice!
If i have left over veg I usually mash it up and add to beans (canned in water drained rinsed) or lentils, usually whizzing maybe half the mix and lightly mashign the rest with a fork so there is some quite wet to kind of hind it together and some chunkier so there is some substance to the mix.  Add some flavour like herbs or spices.  And you *can* just leave it like that and drop spoon of mixture into a hot non-stick pan with some oil.  But you can also add an egg to bind and flour if it is too wet.  My mixtures are rarely thick enough to roll into balls and form into patties like a burger but even the thinner mixture once cooked is just like a little mini burger.  I sometimes fried them and sometimes used a mini muffin tray to oven bake them.

here's a recipe example because I actually wrote this one down
1 can blak eyed beans, drained rinsed
1 egg
3 tbl sp self raising flour
1 tbl sp tom puree
1 dash worcestershire sauce
pinch white pepper

whizz all. shallow fry in hot oil.
cool fully then interweave with greaseproof paper before freezing, this way you can life them out individually instead of them sticking together.  You can cook them less if you want then after defrosting re-heat in a hot pan and brown a little more.  But you don't have to, it's fine to serve them just defrosted.

and here are mini lentil loaves
2" cube cheese grated
1 medium courgette deseeded
1 can lentils drained rinsed
1 spring onion chopped
3 mushrooms
2 tsp ketchup or bbq sauce
1 egg
1 piece bread
half teaspoon marmite

OVEN 200 deg C
WHIZZ courgette mushrooms spring onion bread
ADD to lentils cheese egg ketchup and marmite
MIX well
GREASE mini muffin tray (or whatever tray you have really as you can slice it up later)
PACK mixture into tray (24 mini muffin size)
Bake 20 min

I honestly used to be pleased if I could get DS to eat protein a few times per week, then aimed for one small portion per day, pate on crackers or toast, an egg for breakfast, beans on toast.  It has got better with age and persevering with offering things.  Even now he is learning to take new protein, this week he ate bacon for the first time ever.

hth

and it sounds like a GREAT eating day!

Big bowl of pasta

Not just 'bowl' of pasta, 'big bowl of pasta'    That's fab!

[Eva's Mummy]

Thanks for all the advice, i actually forgot she does eat pate she loves it and i bet she would love butter bean mash. I take it i can make the burgers and mini lentil loaves and freeze them? How would i re-heat them?

Fish generally goes no where near her mouth but i have a wee tin of mackeral in tomato sauce so i'll mix that in some pasta and see how it goes 

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cool fully then interweave with greaseproof paper before freezing, this way you can life them out individually instead of them sticking together.  You can cook them less if you want then after defrosting re-heat in a hot pan and brown a little more.  But you don't have to, it's fine to serve them just defrosted.

as above
the burgers can be re-heated in a frying pan. The mini loaves would need to go in the oven unless you made them thin (ie don't fill the mini muffin tray. or cook in a flat tray to say just 1cm thick, then slice into square burgers, they'd be thin enough to reheat in a frying pan.  I never reheated, my DS is happy with cold food and reheating just means I'd have to wait for them to cool again.  I don't microwave (just personal pref, I don't like them) so can't advise on that.

There's a pate recipe here, reply #26
Recipes for babies and toddlers aged nine months plus
but there are lots of recipes on-line, just don't add salt or alcohol.

[Eva's Mummy]

Thanks honey, well i'm starting to feel a bit better. So far today she has had a a full weetabix and a full slice of toast with cream cheese for breakfast. Lunch not so much but she has eaten a small amount of quiche and a small amout of potato salad and she has never had either. Not alot of food but i am happy she tried and ate some 

Think i'll maybe make pasta again for dinner tonight as i know she will eat a decent amout of that. Do you think that is a good way to go, offer her something new for 1 meal and offer something i know she will eat for the other. Or just keep offering differnt things at all meals?

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I always offer what I know DS likes.  If we are having something new or something i know he doesn't yet like I make sure there is plenty of what he does like and the new thing is a small portion or only part of the meal.  if he tries a bite then great if not then I leave it. Just occasionally now (but 18 months older than your DD) I tell him I'd like him to try one bite of something, and usually he will, it has to be remembered that even asking them to try a bite we still cannot force them to eat and there's not point making a stress over it.  Yesterday for instance we had rice, he asked for some becuase he wants his plate to be the same as everyone else's but I know full well he doesn't like rice, I gave him about 6 grains on his plate but didn't ask him to eat it. He did eventually try it and spat it out - I am not into spitting AT ALL and if it had been another food I would have said something but being rice I pretended I hadn't noticed just because it's great he tried it!

You'll find out if she will take the same/similar meal two days running, lots of LOs like the regularity of having few different meals (but which still offer an over all variety of nutrients), mine basically refused left overs so I couldn’t give him the same meal two days running unless I radically changed how it looked.  For instance he wouldn't have the same pasta meal 2 days running even if he thoroughly enjoyed it, however he would take just basic steamed veg the second day.

Mine used to eat little individual fritatas cooked in the oven.  Like a quiche but without the pastry.  Whisk egg add grated cheese and a few bits of pre-cooked (left overs) veg or finely chopped spring onion and tomato, or even some little bits of ham.  For small individual size pour into a ramekin (one egg will fit nicely) and pop in the oven until it's risen.  Allow to cool then turn out of the ramekin.  it's a lot of oven heating for one little meal but if you are cooking something else you could pop a couple in at the same time.  The first time I made these I did him one egg and a two egg portion for myself...he ate all his and started on mine!  After that he wasn't quite so hungry for it but he still ate an egg worth which for a toddler is a good portion.

It sounds like GREAT progress!  Mine couldn't possibly have eaten that amount for breakfast at 1yo.

[Eva's Mummy]

Its good to know we are on the right track. I'm hoping that i can find at least 7 different meals she will like that i can use on a rotation basis then like you said offer a small amoun tof something new with it all the time. Tonight we are trying mince and boiled potatoes so we'll see.

She never usually eats that amount fo breakfast but she only had a small amount of dinner so that could be why. She also woke up at 2:30 this morning instead of 5:30 signing for milk. So i gave her some and she drank the whole bottle in a few mins. I find that if she eats dinner she wakes at 5:30 if she doesn't eat much she wakes between 1:30 - 3 

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She shouldn't be waking with hunger at this age, maybe thirst?  Is she getting enough water during the day?  I know you recently cut some milk in teh day and she is taking more solids so do make sure she has has much water as needed. If she is finding a sippy cup difficult (keep offering) maybe offer a bottle of water too, just to make sure it isn't the cup putting her off taking the fluids on.

mince - mine will not touch the stuff, doesn't like the texture but loads do like it
boiled potato - mine will only eat if they have a dressing, either simple butter melted over or some mint sauce, gravy, mayo, just something.  If she will take them as they are great, if not may try adding a dressing and offer again.

[Eva's Mummy]

dier was a disaster after only eating a small lunch i thought dinner would be good. Well we all sat at the table i had 2 plates for her so i could put a little at a time on. Well anything i gave her got dropped on the floor. She pointed at our food as if she wanted it then pushed it away if we tried. She wouldt even eat sweet potato fries she9 just cried and screamed through the whole thing.

she drinks water throughout the day in her sippy she just wont take milk from it.

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It's quite normal for them to have one huge meal (that breakfast was big) and not so much for the other meals, also quite normal for LOs to eat a big breakfast and almost nothing at dinner.  If she continues in this way it would not be unusual, you might want to look at a variety of foods at breakfast so she gets some veg and protein rather than limiting to cereal/carbs.  If you have her 'clean' food kept from dinner (the plate she didn't touch) there's no harm offering it at breakfast the next day just to see if it is accepted mroe readily. Try not to worry about tonight's dinner, you are still making great progress.

[Eva's Mummy]

Well we have a new tooth popped through so that might explain the screaming at dinner.

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Don't you just love teething

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How's it going now?

[Eva's Mummy]

Terrible honey, She will only eat yoghurt, fruit and toast. She cries when i try to give her anything else. She does have another 2 teeth starting to some through, but surley they cant cause this many problems?

I keep offering differnent things and sitting with her for meals but she wont even try anything, she just cries (propery crying with tears).

I really feel lost 

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Teething really can be that bad
Even LOs who have a great eating habit will go off just about everything when they are teething.  That said though, I think if you are concerned about the long term difficulty maybe it's time to ask for a referal to a specialist? OT for food aversions or paediatric dietician perhaps?  Have you spoken with your GP or HV about it?

In terms of what to try though.  If she's taking toast have you tried:
- different spreads on the toast, perhaps offer on piece without spread the other with spread: pate, cream cheese, humus, chutney, pureed veggies.  If all of these are a no, maybe try yoghurt spread onto the toast, let her see you spread it so she knows it's a food she likes, this could get her used to the idea of other spreads being ok.
- different types of bread for toast to just get her used to different taste, texture and accepting new foods: crumpet, english muffin, toast barm/roll, chapati, naan, pitta cut into strips, garlic bread, flat bread.  I know to you and me it's all lumped into the carbs category but to a LO these are all different foods and just expanding her idea of 'toast' could lead to more experimentation with other foods.

I'm sorry to hear you feel lost. xx