Getting your child to eat.

[rose08]

Hi everyone, I have a beautiful 11month old daughter who still refuses to eat 3 meals a day. She is still breastfed and I try and try to get her to eat but I cant. Somedays are really good and she will eat three decent meals and other days I will be lucky to get a couple of spoons in her.

Does anyone else have/had this problem and if so what did you do? Or how long was it before your child would eat?

I think her problem is that she is too tired but i feed her when she wakes up so that she isnt??

Thanks

[Kyles Mom]

Hello rose08

Join the club!!!!! I am struggling with Kyle to get him to eat atleast for a week every month, and yeah around that age, he maintained a same weight for three months from 8 month to 11month! but now its worse cos hes losing weight.
He lost 1kg in a month and around here its hard to get good pediatricians easily!

What I learnt through this struggle though is, first and most important rule is NEVER make feeding time a time baby dreads cos of our forcing food or us getting depressed infront due to their refusal of food.

and also when baby is refusing food offer small amounts and offer it like every 2 or 3 hours. Once on track, keep a set schedule, like breakfast at 7:30, snack at 9:30 lunch at 11:30 another snack at 3:00 and then dinner at 6:00 or something. but try to feed everyday day at same times and this helps cos the stomach adjust and gets hungry

and more over offer varieties... tastes textures and the food itself!

its the worst thing for me when Kyle refuses food! hardest to tackle!

[rose08]

I always try and make mealtimes fun and even let her play with her food herself so that she can eat. I dont worry about mess she makes or anything and yet she just turns her head or starts waving her arms around even though she hasnt had any. I try with all sorts of food, i try it warm, cool, with breastmilk and still she wont eat...
It just frustrates me. I have a routine for her feeds. I used to lie in bed with her in mornings being too tired to get up and she wouldnt eat when i finally got up. so i presumed she was too tired, then i started getting up in the morning whenever she woke up and wouldnt go back to sleep. she started eating then and so i fed her lunch after her morning nap and tea after her arfternoon nap. With fruit snacks in between. This was a couple of weeks ago and it was working well. nothing has changed and yet now she wont eat anything.

My daughter isnt sick as ive had her checked up and she is happy and active but shes stopped sleeping too.

It is annoying when other parents tell me that i am neglecting her as they have children who will eat everything.

[Kappasweet]

I have this problem too.  My baby has no problem taking food from my husband or his teacher at daycare either.  It's like he believes taking food from me means he won't get to nurse.  If I'm at home with him alone all day, I have to make something like pizza to get him to eat anything before Daddy get's home.  The only other food he will eat on his own is pizza I could make him a bowl of mush (oatmeal, grits, etc.) or some foul vegetable and he would eat it from Daddy.  The only thing he really refuses from Daddy is fruit (he won't eat sweet stuff, except orange juice).  I have no advice other than to get others involved if you really want your baby to eat more.

[noorhidayah]

hello there,

just sharing my experience a lil'bit getting my daughter to eat at around that age. she is not a fussy eater and it saves me a lot when come to food. what can i tell about this is that, when it is time to eat, let the kid experiment with the food itself. in my case, I gave her to feel and play with the food and at the same time, I fed her with it....yes, this thing will make the house a bit messy  ..like rose08 said.

secondly, maybe you can make different kind of food i.e pasta, rice, chips. since our main food is rice, and the rice i usually cook is white, sometimes I change the colour of the rice by putting some colouring and guess what...the baby loves it very much!! but don't use so much colouring since it is not good for the baby.

i know it is hard to keep the baby to stick to 3 meals a day, but what u can do is that keep giving food to the baby. if you really want to stick with the meal times, make sure u tell the baby about this and see if they like it. it just that sometimes, maybe the time was not very suitable since it is the time when the baby feel tired or want to play. by this, we should change it acccording to the baby itself.

hope it helps...

[hypatia]

Hi Rose
Did you start cutting down on breastfeeding time? i know that formula fed babies usually drink a lot less at around 1 year.
Do you breastfeed her before or after her meals?
Have you tried letting her feed herself?

[piyu]

i agree with Kyles Mom... setting a fixed time table helps a lot along with variety of foods...
my son is still very fuzzy about eating... what I always do is give him something to play with, it could be anything that distracts his mind & keeps him busy for a while...
     when he was around 1 year old I used to play some nice DVD'S  of some rhymes.. he used to love the music & the characters-this would help me to feed him...
     now he hates sitting at one place & eat so I don't force him.. I give him something to play which he finds new & interesting...

    kids of that age find it easy to feed because they are used to it.. you have to become little firm with your child that its meal time & that's what you'll get...

[Jillpea]

My little man goes through stages of being fussy and then happy to eat whatever I put infront of him. When he is being fussy I do things like adding fruit to pancakes (he loves pancakes). I often make bubble and squeak too which is like a hashbrown but with pureed cucumber, avocado, brocolli, carrots (whatever you have really) within, then you shallow fry it in a pan. He thinks its just funny tasting potato and eats it most of the time.

Other times I give him a packet of saltanas as even when he's sick he loves eating them, and while to wrestles with the packet I'm able to shovel in a much food as he'll take. Sometime only a few mouthfuls but I'll take what I can get.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

[hypatia]

Years ago I read a French book called 'Croire en son enfant' (Believing in your child) and the mother used 'art lessons' to reward her daughter who was a fussy eater. She would gather some nice paintings, show them quickly Doman style, and then the daughter was allowed to look at them in details and discuss what was being painted. Apparently she was asking for those lessons every day and looking forward to the meal!

[rose08]

Hi Rose
Did you start cutting down on breastfeeding time? i know that formula fed babies usually drink a lot less at around 1 year.
Do you breastfeed her before or after her meals?
Have you tried letting her feed herself?

I dont breastfeed my daughter until after meals and she doesnt really want it that much any more as she has just entered toddlerdom and is too busy exploring her world, and enjoying this new game of walking.

Thank you everyone who posted great responses

I have finally gotten her to eat.

In the morning I will give her a weetbix spread with butter and vegemite, kinda like toast with a difference. She loves the crunchiness and it gives me a chance to cook up some rolled oats with sultanas for me which she loves to share. (Usually she only eats half the weetbix but it is a start)

For lunch she gets to make a huge mess, I give her a variety salad foods, which she loves, to pick at (meaning: throwing anything that doesnt appeal on the floor ) while I get my own lunch which once again I share with her.

Tea time she gets a modified version of our family meal, which she now eats happily.

I think that her problem was that she was teething (8 teeth at once) and hadnt had a break from teething since before she was 5 months old. (She is 12 months old with 16 teeth)

Anyway, once again thanks for everyone's kind advice and I hope that anyone else with the same problem has found an answer through this post.

Cheers

[SasquatchDad]

My wife nursed our daughter exclusively until she was a year old.  (We used an alternative vaccination schedule and we read that exclusive breast feeding for the first year and then breast feeding in addition to solids in the second is very important for ensuring babies receive the proper immunities.)  She was (and is) developing well (always between the 75 and 95 percentile) so we have taken a fairly laid back approach to eating.  We present her with healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, cheese and eggs and let her decide what and how much to eat.  For example, sometimes we will give her broccoli at lunch(she will eat both raw or steamed) but our daughter may not decide to eat it until after she wakes up for her nap.  We are not strict with her about it, we don't force the issue.  We have been strict with ourselves though.  We don't eat things that we don't want her to have and we model for her how much we enjoy eating good foods.  So that did mean that we gave up sodas and said adios to over-processed junk foods.  Ouch-- that has been hard.  And occassionaly after a hard day at work I sneak a litte diet coke into the house.  But as she grows older even that will have to stop or she is going to catch on! 
Point-- if your baby is developing appropriately I would not worry.  Just keep introducing new healthy foods.  And let them see you enjoying the good food!  Also we do not offer her any, what I call, fluff foods-- foods that do not offer any real nutritional value.  That way when she does eat it is just the good stuff.  Some days she will eat broccoli non-stop, another day only kiwi will do, it just depends.  And doing it this way she will even eat straight up lettuce and spinnach raw! 
Our cousin did the same with his children (now 4 and 10) and they can not get enough vegetables! 

[SasquatchDad]

My wife just reminded me-- she read on Dr. Sears that one good idea is to place healthy finger foods (vegetables, fruit, crackers, yogurt to dip in) and set it on the coffee table or any other convenient place where your child can get to it and let them pick at it throughout the day. 

[nhockaday]

My wife just reminded me-- she read on Dr. Sears that one good idea is to place healthy finger foods (vegetables, fruit, crackers, yogurt to dip in) and set it on the coffee table or any other convenient place where your child can get to it and let them pick at it throughout the day. 

That would be great if it weren't for the dog. 

[SasquatchDad]

That is a problem, is your baby okay being in the highchair?  Our daughter really wants freedom and does not like to eat strapped in!!!  If you are feeding her in the highchair maybe she feels like their is too much else going on and she is missing out while eating? I don't want every dog-lover to get upset with me BUT can you send your dog out for a little while so she can have eating time without "help" from the dog ?!  I travel alot so my wife spends a good chunk of time at her folks house... they have two dogs and they keep the dogs out of the living area while our daughter eats if the dogs get too interested in sharing! 

[nhockaday]

I have no problem with my son eating. I just wanted to chime in our your comment. I couldn't resist.

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