Feeding a fussy toddler - over it!!!!

I'm so over feeding my toddler. he wont even try things anymore. If he decides he doesn't like the smell or look of it, or for whatever reason, he just has a tantrum in his high chair and wont open his mouth. I try reasoning with him - just have one mouthful and then you can get down - but nothing.:wall:

I try everything. Leaving it on the coffee table for him to pick at as he plays etc etc. I don't feel he can live on his 2 favourite foods - baked beans and a jar of pumpkin pilaf. I make him hamburgers and fill them with vegies - spag bol, chicken risotto. All things he used to eat, and now it is pot luck. One day he will the next he wont. I can offer him 4 choices of a night and finally he will eat, but I can't do that every meal. he has even gone off fruit a bit which he used to love.

He is well, sleeping through, not on any bottles. Eats breakfast well- 2 weetbix or a bowl of oats, but it is downhill from there. He never tells/shows me he is hungry so I try and feed him at the same time of day like they say. We started to wonder whether he was eating too much breakfast, therefore not hungry for lunch......
What do I do, just leave him with no dinner or just a yoghurt, they say they wont starve, however I have an 18mth old on the 10% for weight and I have been told to up his food by 20% but at the moment he has downed it by about 50%.

Sorry this has turned into a ramble and I really just needed to vent.

I hope this is a short phase and he starts to try things at least again.

today he ate
Breakfast - 2 weetbix
Morning tea - some oatmeal pancake 6 small bitesize pieces
Lunch - bowl of baked beans
Dinner - small sachet of rafferties spinach, brocoli and apple mix
Water
I consider today a bad day

Im no expert, but I think that 2 weetbix, baked beans and then some nibbles of the other bits is not too bad.
My ds was never a big eater until he turned 6!! But he was healthy and just on the smaller than average size.

I understand what your concerns, but try take it easy. He may be picking up on your anxiety (little ones are very perceptive to whats going on for us). If he used to eat things then hopefully its just a stage (for whatever reason).
You could keep some foods simpler? Less stress on you not having to prepare it all. My ds who did not eat much also hated his foods being mixed together (tends to still thoough getting better). We would have to serve him everything separate, so for example we couldnt give him stir fry rice, it would have to be plain rice, with corn in a pile on the side, egg on the side, mushroom on the side - that type of thing. Sometimes to make it more fun for him we would put things in little bowls at the dinner table and let him pick at that stuff. You might have already tried that I guess?

Well done btw on making him such nutricious food! He obviously has a very loving mummy.

He's eaten more than my toddler ;) My little man rarely eats breakfast - usually brunch. Then it depends on the day. Today (so far) was x1 scrambled egg, some ham and some tomato (?? 1/4) at around 10am. Lunch was x1 chicken nugget and a few chips (we were out) at around 4pm after a 2.5 hour sleep. We are still waiting for dinner to happen for him :rolleyes:

I tend to look at the week overall rather than the day. Some days he eats lots (like Thursday) and others not so much. He eats plenty of fruit and vegetables (preferentially) and chicken is his current favourite in the meats.

Someone has to be in the lower centiles on the graph so if he is reaching all of his milestones, is active and age appropriate I wouldn't worry about the 10% UNLESS he is losing weight and changing centiles. DS was always a weed and sitting on the 10-25% ranges.

What your DS has eaten today is relatively low GI and likely to keep him fuller for longer too!!

Hugs to you. I know exactly what its like. I cook so much for my DD (20 months) and she is sooooo fussy sometimes. I never thought I would have a fussy kid, we eat everything...

I am just about to throw her in the bath so can't type heaps, but a very simple trick we did was to let her eat with a fork... a real one, like us. She thought it was so much fun, she ate loads with it (slowly, and messily, but she did eat!) We save the fork for "special occasions", so the novelty doesn't wear off... Its not going to always work, but on days where you're at wits end, its worth a try.

I'll be watching this thread for other tips, we are also below the 10th %....

Good luck x

Stillhoping that doesnt sound too bad to me, your son is eating around the same amounts as my 19 mth DD.

For example, today she has had: toast for brekky, yoghurt & cheese at lunch, only just a couplr of crackers for arvo tea & lots of water. Dinner will be pasta and various veges and fruit afterwards.
I think as long as he is happy & healthy all will be ok. At two you can use multi vitamin supplements if you need to.

Also as for fussy eating, yep we are so in the same boat lol. :)

& just like to add, we found introducing her own fork also made things easier. Now I just give her a bowl of dinner & she eats it herself & looks very proud of herself.

Ok, so maybe he does eat enough. A few weeks back he was eating heaps and we thought it might be a growth spurt, but now he has gone the total opposite and even refusing to try things which he used to do. It is hard as i cook on the weekend for him then freeze it, so if he doesnt' eat it, I don't usually have a back up plan apart from a wholemeal english muffin or toast.

We have tried a baby fork, so might try the big fork - will let you know how we go.

It is the usual mothers guilt - I feel if he doesn't eat his meat and vegie dish for the day that I have failed him.

He loves peas, and I used to add peas to everything and then pick them out and put them on his tray to eat himself while I added a spoonful in between - of course that doesn't work anymore.

Hun, i am thinking that is good. God if i could get my son to eat what yours has id be wrapped.

Our son has failure to thrive as he wouldnt/wont eat, so right now, the only way he is putting on weight, is because he drink's one bottle of "fortini" a day... a drink that is full of calorie's etc etc (prescribe by his paed team)

Today he has had

1 weetbix (altho he ddnt finish it so mayb 3/4)
1 mouthful of baked beans (refused to eat anymore)
1 bite of a toasted cheesey (refused to at anymore, gave to his sister)

Thats it..

DRIVES ME NUTS. I AM OVER IT. (sorry dont want to hijack your thread)

I just know what it is like.

All he will have is chocy milk and his fortini.

He wont even eat Macca's. My paed told me fry all his food, buy him maccas every day... this was back in december as he refused to eat and had not put on weight in many months. As he refused to eat any of the foods, they put him on fortini in feb.. he weighed 7.9kgs now.. he is just about 10kg. Will find out for sure at his paed team appt next month.

Huge weight gain for him.... and huge seeing as he doesnt BLOODY EAT!!!!!!!!!!

Ah i could go on, but this isnt my thread to vent lmao

I just want ya to know, i know how you feel 100%.... my DS is the same, if not worse.

ETA: he wasnt even ON the growth chart last time we saw his Pead. So i am hoping he will be now.....

That sounds terrible. It shows us that there is always someone worse off than ourselves. I so hope it gets better for you Papillon. I don't think I would cope with DS eating nothing. Hijack away, I hope someone on here can help you too. Do they know why he doesn't want to eat anything?

I am going to TRY and relax a bit more now and just be happy that he is eating something.

Glad that in away i could help lol.. making you chill a little more.

Um no... except that, when we first started seeing the Pead he is seeing, she was asking all the question's she needed to ask, so she could try and work out 'why' he was so small. (DS was 17mths and not even 7.5kg's)

At the end she asked about his poo's. I made mention at how big they are (as they were as big as what your's or mine would be) and smelly, more so than poo should be. Anyway, she tested his stool's for this gastrointestinal bug called "giardia". He came back positive.

Now, this would of taken 85% of nutrition out of his food, also would of made him feel nausea's, and pain daily. Being he was so little we had no idea. He was a very clingy young toddler but we put it down to just being a boy, we didnt even know something was wrong :(

He got treated for this, and very much changed as a child. Not as clingy, more happy etc BUT, sadly, they believe it has given him a very negative connection to food. Seeing he was like this for so long, we may never be able to counter act it :(

They dont know where he got the giadia from. It is known to be in sydney's water, but we have never been to sydney. It is normally contracted from tank or dirty water.... now we wernt on tank water, and we hadnt been camping (one way that you get giardia). So it is a mystery.

But, yeah..... look he is well in himself, not a sickly kid, his development is not threatened by it, he just look's smaller than other's his age and WONT EAT!

We are supposed to stay so positive, and just be patient with him and his food, but it is so hard as i waste so much food, and ....well... it is just down right FRUSTRATING!

Especially because our DD has always been a fantastic eater... loves all fruit, all vegies, will try anything... makes it so hard!!!

sighs

I just have to keep going, and work through it. I just always feel like i am some how failing him, not supplying something he likes or whatever.... and i am so happy he is putting on weight, but it is only because he has that drink once a day, and that alone makes me feel like i am failing him :(

Ahhh anyways....

the joy's hey, the joys!

ETA: although they told us to expect this, they also said it should be rectified by now... so they are a little worried. And seeing as he has gotten worse since his last appt in march, when we see them in a couple of week's i am praying we dont have to have another in-hospital thingy. We had to go into hospital so they could 'observe' him in feb, and we both hated it..... :(

i just wanted to offer my two cents....

i have recently gone through a phase of offering my two year old a yoghurt and a banana if she rejects the meal i have cooked for her for dinner.... after a few nights i realised how ridiculous it was, she would turn her nose up at the plate in front of her, and i would take it away and give her a yoghurt because i didn't want her to go hungry.... so in essence, i was teaching her that if she doesn't want to eat her dinner she can have a yummy yoghurt instead..... (i'm in no way saying this is what you are doing i'm just illustrating what I was doing)

anyways now after some serious thinking, i put the plate down in front of her and if she chooses to eat, great, and if she doesn't, well thats it until she has her milk at bed.... obviously there are going to be foods they simply do not like, but for foods they have in the past eaten and seemingly liked, and for most of the time, i believe if they are hungry they will eat, and if they don't want to eat their dinner, then they don't get to fill up on yoghurt and biscuits afterwards (like i was doing) or another meal (or several!)....

i also would sometimes cook up a few different meals trying to tempt her to eat, and at the end of the day i was making it a bigger deal than what it was.... my mum did the same thing i was doing for me and my brothers when we were kids and as a result my brothers only eat a very tiny shockingly small variety of foods (you would die if you heard) however i am a lot better....

anyways, long winded story may not be very relevant, but there it was anyway.... i haven't had to actually send her to bed with no dinner as yet, as i always give her something that she DOES eat on the plate (she eats carrots and brocolli so i serve them up with just about every meal)...

anyways good luck with your picky eater my MCHN says it is VERY common so hang in there and try not to make a big deal about it and let her know it distresses you, as it can end up being a big power struggle...

My DS is going through a VERY fussy patch...all he'll eat is plain pasta and either sausage or nuggets for dinner...he wont' try anything else... He has cereal for brekky and vegemite or cheese sandwiches for lunch. I've been told not to worry because it's just a phase. Hopefully all our kids will get through it soon... ;)