14 Month Old Feeding Solids and Milk Issue

[Spectra]

Hi, my dd is 14 months old and schedule looks like this:

 8:00am  - Oatmeal with 2oz prunes

 9:30am  - 8oz Milk

12:00pm  - If I feed her from the baby food jars for toddlers, and if it is anything in pasta sauce or anything fruity, she will eat the whole jar (which is 7.5oz I think??). If I try to feed her regular 'adult food' (cut up ham, cheese, veggies of any sort and fruit too, and toast, grilled cheese, spaghetti, etc) she will probably pick at it and eat maybe 1/8 of a cup. She will eat lots of yogurt though.

 1:00pm  - Nap to 3:00pm

 3:00pm  - 8oz Milk

 5:30pm  - Supper (Repeat of Lunch issues)

 7:30pm  - 8oz Milk

 8:30pm  - Bed


My main question is if too much milk is interfering with her hunger for solid foods... But if that is the case why will she eat the jars of baby food with no problems and not the finger type foods.  I'm tired of buying all the baby food in jars and wish she would just eat what we eat but she doesn't seem to want it even if I know she should be starving.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Cohensmom]

HI there,

Just recently I've noticed that my son wouldn't be as hungry if he drank his milk first and then his solids, so I had to change it up a bit since he was drinking way more milk that I thought he should be.

This is typical of what he eats in a day.  I only serve milk with his breakfast, lunch and dinner and only water or diluted juice for snacks.

7:30, Breakfast - egg and a waffle or toast, 4-6oz of milk.

9:30 - snack - fruit, yogurt, water or juice

12:00 - lunch - bowl of pasta or grilled cheese or something similar, 2/3 cup of veggies, fruit and 4-6oz of milk

3pm, snack, crackers and cheese, water

5pm, supper, food similar to lunch, and about 4oz of milk.

My son really enjoys feeding himself, so as long as I put it on his tray, he usually eats it.  If I try to feed him a new food by spoon, he usually doesn't eat it.  If you notice your dd isn't taking as much solids, try to limit the amount she's getting.  I've also started to not warm his milk up anymore and this has helped decrease his milk intake too. 

I hope that helps.

[taygensmom]

I think you Lo is drinking too much milk, and this can interfere with her solid intake. I would suggest cutting down on the bottles. I would also try consolidating your milk into meal/snack times so that milk is presented part way through/at the end of each meal instead of separately and a minimum of 3 hrs is between each "meal". You will have to experiment a little to see whether it is better to present water during meals and milk directly after or milk part way through the meal (depedning on if she fills up on the milk and meal intake then decreases).

As far as the finger foods I would cut back on the jarred foods and just keep presenting the finger foods. You know that she eats small amounts of them, so it stands to reason that if she is hungry and large amounts of jarred foods/milk are not an option she will probably start increasing her amount of finger foods! HTH

[annieb73]

I did read that milk with meals interferes with iron absorption so we try to avoid it at mealtimes.  We do milk on Weetbix (150ml) then 100ml for morning and afternoon tea.  She has 100ml yoghurt for desert after dinner and cheese in the day.  I think 8oz bottles is too much at 14 months, 4oz would be better.