Mealtime Misery

[Liz1967]

Hi all

I am having a nightmare at the moment with Joshua and his eating

I posted a while ago that he was still on very sloppy food as he couldn't/wouldn't chew.

Well happily he will manage lumps BUT we are getting worried that he isn't actually eating hardly anything these days.

A while ago it became clear he wanted to have a go at feeding himself, so I did what I have done with the others, gave him a little bowl and a spoon to have a go while I had the main part of the meal and shovelled it in while he attempted to feed himself.

For the last 2 weeks though he has point blank refused any help whatsoever, but when you give him his plate of food he doesn't even try it, he throws it all off his highchair tray or just tips it out on the floor. The only food he will let you spoon into him is his breakfast Farleys and yoghurts. So not only is he not eating, the dog is getting fatter by the hour and I am fed up of constantly cleaning the floor, table, etc. Seriously though its a worry

His daily intake of food is 2 farleys rusks for breakfast, no lunch - whatever I give him is just thrown to the floor, and ditto for the tea. I have tried offering so many different things, if you give him something straight off your plate he just discards it without even trying it.

I am at my wits end, he isn't a big baby by any means, very tall and quite thin so can't afford to lose any weight. I have deliberately kept an eye on the amount of juice being consumed and milk to ensure he isn't full of that but it makes not a jot of difference. I am not offering any snacks at present either, not that he really had them before, as I just think at some point he must be hungry and want to eat. Every other damn thing ends up in his mouth, so why not food????!!!!

Any ideas?????

Love
Liz
xx

[karen66]

This probably isn't what is "recommended" but we had a terrible time putting weight on Scarlett. She has a very slight of build and when she was younger she was not even on the "charts" for her weight.

When she was around 1 or 2 years he had no interest in sitting at a meal, so I setup a child's table and served her food from there. She would take "hits" off of her meal while playing sometimes over the course of an hour!

At least she consumed food that she would otherwise have forgone in order to not be sitting. That does nothing to help the mess aspect of things, and the dog may complicate my suggestion a bit

Her aerobic eating didn't really wreck her as she gradually learned to sit and eat, and now at age 3 1/2 she will sit through a meal and eat as well as her peers.

Karen

[Elaine38]

Hi Liz,

Poor you - I never had a problem with Josh eating (my challenge is that he could eat too much!)

Just wonder if he's teething, that seems to have an impact. I would like to say don't worry, but thats easy to say, I do recall that SD ate very little, she was tiny, some days it would feel like she ate nothing but she managed to grow and of course had loads of energy. She's now great with food and has grown to be above average height.

Not sure you can do much more than you are, trying new things, offer food reguraly, eat together so he can see you all eating, space out the milk so that he isn't filling up on milk before a meal.

It might be helpful to see the HV sometimes getting reassurance is all you can do, however I'm sure it will get better.

[Ruth Walker]

Could you try mashing other things into his farleys and yoghurt, like mashed banana? Or mashing bread into his milk and spoon feeding him that? That way he would get a bit more variety but mixed with the taste of the things he is ok eating. Sam loved eating any bit of dirt he could get his hands on off the carpet, so I found that raisins were the thing that cracked feeding himself by hand for him, as they looked so like the little bits of dirt he wasn't allowed to have off the floor, he couldn't resist putting them in his mouth when he saw them on his tray! He never really cottoned on to the spoon thing until 18 months old, but once he got eating raisins by hand, he would eat anything that way. Hope you find a solution soon.
xxx

[Mouse]

Morning Liz

Sorry to hear you have having feeding problems with your little man.

Robert went through this for a while and what my mum suggested did in fact work after a short time, she told me to put a little child's table down and then get a plate and fill it up with various things (broken up rusk, broken up rich tea biscuits, pieces of soft fruit, soft cooked vegetable pieces, cottage cheese, cooked fish fingers cut up into very small pieces, bits of bread and butter cut up, little tiny pieces of cheese.....you name it, we tried it!) and just leave it for him to discover with no pressure on him.

After a time I found that Robert would reach up to the table and just help himself buffet style, he ended up eating a lot more this way than me sitting him in the high chair where he was under the spotlight, so to speak.

Good luck, I hope it works
Mouse xx

[Liz1967]

Thanks for your replies, I did try setting him a little table in the lounge with some bits and pieces on it and whilst it was in the dog free zone of the house it wasn't in a Daniel free zone, he promptly gobbled most of it up, and smeared what was left over the sofa

Joshua is such a monkey, he is having his farleys at breakfast (with other bits added in ) but won't touch anything else for the rest of the day I hope he will grow out of this soon, he always used to be such a big eater!

Love
Liz
xx