12 mo dumping food on the floor from highchair

[LizzieW]

THanks for the brilliant food ideas. Peas and sweetcorn have gone down especially well - he does not eat as much of it as I'd like as the effort takes him longer, but its all progress. I am going to buy a pack of frozen mixed veg and put a (cooked) handful on his tray at each meal. I will let you know if gets eaten or thrown!

I haven't yet tried the broccoli florets or carrot matchsticks as he only has a few front teeth and can't chew properly yet. But I did try grated raw carrot mixed with cream cheese in a sandwich cut into fingers, and that went down well.

I was concerned that now I am concentrating on finger foods his carbohydrate intake is almost exlcusively bread! He used to love mashed potato and other root veg and now its just bread, toast, breadsticks, savoury biscuits and the occassional rice cracker. However, thanks for the tip about slices of boiled potato - I've got some new potatoes in the cupboard & I will try this!

Other things that have gone down well this week (both of which I made for "grown-up dinner" but were also a hit with Oscar):
Salad of brown rice, chopped red bell pepper, sultanas and pineapple pieces with an olive oil and pineapple juice dressing.
Quiche Lorraine made from homemade pastry, eggs, cream, smoked mackarel, chopped apple and spring onion - cut inot bite sized chunks for Oscar.
Lots of mess! But that the way things are.

I've also tried spoonfeeding again to see if it was just a phase but the angry NOs and bowl-throwing started again.

Any more recepie successes for getting some veg into cheeky toddlers welcome!

[workingmum]

Boy does this sound familiar. We have just gotten advice from the child health centre and a paeditircian about DS (16 mos) not eating fruit, veg or meat. He will eat yoghurt, weetbix and vegemite sandwiches and not much else and also throws food from his high chair and mashes it into the tray. The advice we got was:
- give less milk during the day to make sure he's not filling up on it
- if he refuses the meal given to him, don't give him something else we know he likes as if he knows this is coming he will never try new foods (sometimes he eats fruit and daycare but never at home so the problem is clearly behavioural)
- don't worry about the mess, ignore any playing with the food etc - this is part of his learning experience and it's important not to turn mealtime into a battle
- if the mess bothers you, put an old shower curtain down on the floor under the high chair. This makes cleaning up much easierj.

Hope some of this helps. We have had a little success so far but still have a way to go.

Melanie.

[LizzieW]

Hi Melanie

Thanks for the tips. I've just bought something called a Splatmat for going under the high chair but I think a shower curtain might be better! Someone else has suggested its a good way to recycle newspapers. I know what you mean about it being behavioural. For example my son will allow his childminder to spoonfeed him but not Mummy or Daddy!  It has been hard to relax about it but you are dead right, it makes things less of a battleground and if I get on with something else or pour myself a glass of wine (BAD mother!) while he is having his tea I sometimes look round and find that despite a bit of fuss, and a lot of mess, he has eaten the lot.

I don't know if you have tried dried fruit with your little boy. I don't care for it much myself but Oscar tried some raisins and never looked back. He will now eat things like (well chopped) dried prunes, apricots, figs and papaya, better than fresh fruit. Maybe he thinks he's getting sweeties!

L x

[workingmum]

Thanks Liz. He does eat raisins but I haven't tried other dried fruit. I guess I've been determined that I will succeed with the fresh fruit, especially given that he will eat it at day care. We have had success with apple now so I think the persistence is finally paying off! Little victories do make it seem worthwhile, but it certainly takes a lot of patience!

Melanie.