17 month old fussy eater. any suggestions?

[vmcdonald28]

Hi,

My ds is really winding me up at the moment, with his eating!

Whenever I try anything new, he spits it out without even tasting it, and often wont even let me near his mouth with it in the first place.
He wont eat any form of fruit, except pureed, but even they are starting to be spat out at times.

He eats weetabix every day for breakfast, but will then have either bread and butter, or a veggie waffle, or fish fingers for his lunch, as i'm now too scared to try anything new. Then for dinner, he will usually have either tinned spaghetti or ravioli.

Snacks - pureed fruit, but he's even going off that too. He loves oatcakes, but theres only so many I will allow him to eat!

Anyone have any thoughts as to how I could try to give him something new, without him resisting before it's even gone near his mouth?
He does have a fairly balanced diet, but it surely cant be very good for him always eating the same things...?

Any thoughts welcome!

thanks!
Vicky

[MrsKirky]

They say we have to present some foods to our children upwards of 15 times for them to like it.  My DS started to refuse veggies at your DS's age.  I just keep offering him different types of food and sometimes he eats them, sometimes not.  Look at the "what did your toddler eat today" thread - there are some really good ideas in there!  DS also started to spit out anything that I put in his mouth, preferring to feed himself.

[andibig]

DD will not let me her feed her AT ALL. shes been like that since 13 months when she would let me spoon feed her yoghurt until she worked out how to do it with the spoon herself. if i offer dd a new food i tend to do it at the same time with a food i know she likes. sometimes she eats it sometimes not. then she suprises us all by eating a food that shes flatly refused for ages (baked beans!!)
so i agree with PP it takes several attempts b4 a LO will try a new food.

[ryan's mum]

We have had similar issues with Ryan since he was 15 months. Introducing new foods is a nightmare as like your DS he won't even try them .We have a refluxer so there are other issues thrown in the mix with us but the advice we have been given may work for you .
 Here's what we were told .It's all about them being in control and they like that , you have to try and turn it around so yes they still have control but so do you ! you are meant to put the food in front of them and say no more , don't emphasise on the feeding issue like " come on eat your lunch " "one more piece " that sort of thing , just leave it there , if he plays with  it , that's o.k .If he doesn't eat it you say " are you finished ? o.k i'll take it away then " then you let him see you put it in the bin .you don't offer anything else only a drink .The next meal do the same , if he doesn't eat you bin it .soon he will realise that he isn't getting choices and if he doesn't eat he gets hungry .
 Obviously you can't expect him to eat something he has never had straight away , so in the meals you offer put at least one food you know he will eat . If he has refused food all day then give cereal before bed . It does sound very harsh but it supposedly does work .We are working on this ourselves as Ryan is a junk monster.
  With Ryan we can't leave him without before bed as he has reflux and this will be worse on an empty tummy .You hear it all the time children won't starve themselves they will eat if they get hungry , with us if Ryan refused to eat a meal we got concerned and offered him replacements , anything just to get him to eat so he wasn't getting hungry .
  We are waiting to see a dietician as Ryan does have swallowing issues due to his reflux so it's a bit both here , he won't try new foods and he's scared of swallowing incase it hurts.
 also you could try putting the new food on his plate a few times , encourage him to play with it , put it to his mouth , chew it , swallow it .To get Ryan to taste something we encouraged him to kiss the food , then lick it , then try chewing  we haven't got to the swallow yet but at one point he wouldn't even touch it .I know your DS is a lot younger than Ryan but thought i would share the info i was given with you as i know how frustrating it is .Just try not to show him that it's a big deal he's not eating , they do pick up on it and they know they are in control .Believe me Ryan has very few foods he will eat , apart from junk/snacks he will eat about 10 foods

[~Angie~]

My DS sound alot like your LO. He hates anything new, especially new textures. For example, I have tried to get him to eat scrambled eggs since he was 1 year old. He has never touched them. About once every couple of weeks, I wold make some, put them on his plate, and watch him roll them around in his hand, but never eat them. I did what ryan's mum said, just threw them away and never made a big deal out of it. Today, after 1.5 years of offering eggs, DS looked at them on his plate and said "These are eggs. I think I'll eat some." He ate all of them and asked for more!!   

So, hang in there and keep offering the new foods. It made take a year or more  , but he'll eat them eventually. 

[vmcdonald28]

thanks everyone, so much, for your help.

In the past few days, he's started to eat mashed potato with sweetcorn through it, which is great! He seemed to be very hungry that day, for some reason, so I think that was a big help! He didnt care what it was - he was sitting with his mouth open, just waiting for it!

Thanks again. I'll persevere with some other things.

x