Hi there, I have a DD who has just turned 1 year old. This is her typical day of eating:
6.30am - cereal (2 tablespoons raffertys rice ceareal with heinz banana porridge mixed together) and water
7.30am - vegemite toast and water
9.00am - 180mL cows milk
10.30am - milk arrowroot biscuit or yoghurt and water
12.00noon - sandwich (vegemite) and some cheese and water
1.30pm - 180mL cows milk
3.00pm - fruit or rusk and water
5.30pm - mum's recipe mush (10-15months old mix) - pasta normally and water
7.00pm - 260mL cows milk
Most of the time she sleeps through the night.
What am I doing wrong? She never eats all of her cereal first thing but will eat the toast. She also loves her milk alot! She will eat lunch normally but dinner time is a struggle, she will eat half or 3/4 and then every mouthful after that she spits out. Opens her mouth but spits out immediately.
Is she snacking too much through the day? Is she perhaps fussy? Is she bored with her food? Should I be introducing more things perhaps?
Hoping someone can shed some light as to why she is not really interested in her food. It's been like this for a while.
TBH, I've never really offered DD snacks so I would just experiment and see if she eats more dinner if you cut down on the snacks.
The other thing is, that she might just prefer to have food that she can eat herself rather than to be spoon fed (I'm just presuming you spoon feed her dinner from your description).
But really, I don't think you have much to worry about. My DD tends to have two really good meals a day and the third one is a bit hit and miss and she's a bit older than your DD. Sometimes she has 2 Weetbix for breakfast, sometimes only one. Sometimes I struggle to get a small sandwich into her for lunch, other times she'll polish off a sandwich no problem and then eat a whole banana. Somtimes half a bowl of pasta for dinner, other times two bowls then grapes, apple. So it really varies.
Fiona, does your DD have milk? In a bottle? Should I be cutting that out and offering in sippy cup do you think? Yes it seems a bit for the day doesn't it? Do you just give your DD pasta in a bowl and she eats it herself? I don't mind the mess at all, DD can smear it everywhere if she wants! She tends to up-end bowls of things so I just have to put food on the high chair table IYKWIM???
Don't worry, you are not doing anything wrong! I have found with both my boys, especially DS1 who is not a huge eater, that they eat more during the day than at night. Which is actually healthier so I don't worry too much. The only thing I would suggest is to vary the lunches so that your DD is getting meat, vege etc during the day and it doesn't matter if she doesn't eat dinner. It is also good to encourage variety. One way to do this is to give your DD the left overs from the night before for her lunch the next day. Or you could cook up something special if you like - but that's more work! If there are no left overs, a sandwich is ok some days, and you can try omelettes, boiled eggs, vegie muffins, baked beans, soup - anything easy to make up quickly.
I actually found that DS2 was eating the same foods as us well before 12 months and it made life a lot easier not to have to make things specially. So if you want to, it would also be ok to cut out the baby cereals and "mush" as you call it. Your DD can eat weetbix or porridge, and cut up other foods.
QB, yes, both my boys fed themselves by that age. But then they went to day care too so they learnt a lot of it there and I didn't have to clean up the mess! I do think it's good for them to feed themselves though.
WRT bottles, it is recommended not to give bottles after 12 months.
Feed, get up, breakfast. Usually 1-2 weetabix or two servings of Organix baby raspberry breakfast (I loved that stuff!) followed by toast. Over the course of an hour.
Snack at about 10am of biscuit, fruit/veg (eg apple wedges or carrot sticks), water.
Feed and cooked lunch - usually pasta in tomato sauce, rice with vegetables, sometimes a sandwich. Or leftovers from last night if I made a lot and DS enjoyed it. Sausage roll. Snack bag thing (eg carrot and corn sticks). Fruit.
Snack at about 3-4pm, usually something like cheese and biscuits.
Cooked dinner at 6pm; whatever DH and I were eating. So could be anything! DS will try anything but if he really hates it (or it's a big junky) then I'll do something I've made before from the freezer - or a baby ready meal if I'm out of that.
Feed before bed.
DS didn't sleep through but didn't need anything during the night. He has a dairy allergy/intolerance which wasn't picked up until 20m and now he sleeps beautifully.
Thanks so much everyone, you are all good help! I just feel like perhaps she is having too much milk SO I will try and cut that back. But regards to milk in a sippy cup, won't she always expect milk in it instead of water if I start that process? She does eat yoghurt and cheese so maybe she won't need milk through the day anymore.
I will have a look at some recipes here anyway and vary her diet a bit. Sandwiches are boring so I will give her something more substantial for lunch and cut down on the snacks I think. I have some beef patties I made for her recently so I will cook some of those up for dinner tonight with some potato or something.
It is all trial and error isn't it! I will just see if she prefers to feed herself now.
Manta, I haven't given her eggs yet or peanut butter for that matter (in case of allergy) - I am scared to! How silly is that! I might try her on the eggs, they are so yummy!
By this age my DD was much the same, but started to eat less. I decided to cut out the milk bottles (bottles at all actually) and gave her her milk in a sippee cup with her snacks. She would eat yoghurt and cheese and two small cups of milk in a sippee cup, so enough calcium for the day, but not so much milk. They don't need so much milk by this age. If your DD goes to sleep with her bottle, I would make that big bottle the only one she has and then give her cheese and yoghurt for calcium. And water the rest of the day. She will probably eat more then. And I agree with Mantaray, that she no longer needs mush. She shoul be able to handle chunky normal family foods now. It makes your life so much easier that you don't need to make her a separate meal and she can get a bigger variety of foods/tastes/nutrients.
food and milk, 1 year old, advice anyone?
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