To be totally exasperated because my son won't eat anything savoury?

[joannita]

My son is 13 months old and until he turned one he was eating fine. I'd give him a savoury dish then a pudding, like yoghurt, custard or rice pudding. Now he is refusing most of the savoury food I cook and fills up on fruit, yoghurt bread with cream cheese etc. I try not to give him loads of sweet stuff and expand what he will eat, so he will eat sweetcorn or a bit of brocolli but the problem is that the food he will eat changes from one day to the next. eg he'll have mashed sweet potato one day and then two days later completely refuse it, same with pasta and sauce, chopped up ham etc. I don't want him to get into bad habits so he only accepts sweet tasting food, but I'm also starting to feel like a complete mug, because I'll prepare him stuff and he will clamp his mouth shut and refuse to even try it.

It's not easy to find the time to cook because my husband doesn't get home till 6.30 or 7, sometimes later and I find it impossible to cook whilst caring for my son because he's so inquisitive and gets bored sitting in his highchair, but if I let him roam around he is pulling everything out of the cupboards and getting into scrapes and I can't get anything done. My husband works 6 days a week and Sundays are our only family day so I don't want to spend all day cooking and we often have other stuff to do anyway. I basically end up cooking after my son has gone to bed (he also doesn't have reliable naps and has only just started sleeping through the night, getting up anytime between 5.00 and 7.00am)and it's an effort which has no reward because he just won't eat stuff. My friends' babies shove handfulls of homemade lasagne in their mouths and my son just shakes his head at it. I know you shouldn't compare your kids to other peoples but why is mine the one who keeps me awake every night for a year, then starts sleeping but stops eating? According to the health visitor I can either carry on as I am or stop letting him have the yoghurt/rice pudding etc. If I don't let him have the sweet stuff I know he'll start waking in the night again. She says just give him water but that means hours of screaming and I can't face it because I've fought for a year to get him to sleep through.

I'm fed up and don't know what to do. Should I just give in to him or is that creating a rod for my own back later on? It seems to me like I've just got a choice of different rods!

[clevercloggs]

give him the food

if he leaves it, take it away and nothing else till next time

a child wont starve themselves intentionally

[slightlymad72]

Can he help you cook? I mean you both sit at the table and chop the veg up, mushrooms and a blunt knife even a spoon are really good for the kids to attack. Kids tend to be less picky if they have helped cook the meal and they tend to eat the food as they are helping, so if he doesn't eat it when its served you know that he has had something healthy before hand.

At that age they are picky, I found if they refuse to eat something, bribery works very well, 'if you have a spoon full of each item then you can have your yoghurt', then increase the amount they must have before they get the yummy stuff.

[kreecherlivesupstairs]

Cleverclogs, that's all very well, my DD did intentionally refuse to eat for two days.
Guess which one of us gave in first?

[Nagoo]

choice of different rods is about it .

He's very young still. I'd go for the rice pudding and sleep route I think. Mine eats, but my sister's dd doesn't. She just puts the food in front of her and gives her a yogurt after whether she's eaten her dinner or not. There's no battles about it, and her dd is trying more things and coming round to eating more.

With my Ds I will not give him pudding if he does not try each part of his dinner, and eat a reasonable (as deemed by me ) part of it. But he is older (this regime from when he was about 2). I can't remember what he was like before, but he's pretty good about things so i don't remember it being an issue. From what i've learned on here, you have a fussy eater or you don't. It's not about rods for backs, just what works to get some nutrition into your child!

There's lots of threads about fussy eaters and strategies.

[ItsAllaBitDeathlyQuiet]

Just completely baby proof the house. How do you do ANYTHING if you can't manage to cook a meal with him?

[compo]

Yes you need to find ways of leaving him onhis own in a safe place so you can cook
have him in the kitchen but baby proof it so he can play while you cook
keep offering him savoury but if he eats mashed banana and yoghurt for lunch don't beat yourself up about it, he's still very little

[joannita]

Ha ha I don't do much! I focus on him or do things I can stop easily to intervene when he gets hold of something he can't have. It's hard to babyproof a rented house and he is very inventive, pouring orange juice in the phone cradle, that kind of thing!

[Casserole]

Could you fit a playpen in for a short while Joannita? So he could play safely while you cooked stuff? It does sound like he's running the show a bit, as they all like to try and do For your own sake I'd try and make at least one area where you can leave him and get on with stuff, even just for a few minutes at first.

With regards the actual food, I wouldn't overly stress as he is still very little. I'd keep offering savoury stuff at each meal for now. Actually what I might have tried was to only offer savoury at lunchtime, but then both at dinnertime. So at least you can fill him up more before bed. We resorted on occasion to a tiny bit of fromage frais on the end of a spoonful of mash or whatever to get some food in and fill them up!

Will he eat finger foods?

[BlueFergie]

give him the food

if he leaves it, take it away and nothing else till next time

a child wont starve themselves intentionally

Someone told me to do this with my DS. After 2 weeks he had gone from 10kg to 8kg. He was starving himself. I went back to every type of bribery/ persuasion/ distraction.

In my opinion just letting them decide what to eat is rubbish.

[joannita]

Depends what the finger foods are and some days he'll eat them some days not. This goes for sandwiches, chopped up ham, fish fingers. He will eat fruit but not much veg apart from sweetcorn.

I have a playpen and I haven't used it for months because he would scream so much when I put him in it. He screams anyway when I leave the room, even just for a second. I find the screaming very wearing, so I tend to try to find a compromise. Like I'll put him in his highchair and give him some grated chesse, but that only works for a couple of minutes.

He's always been very stubborn. I tried to starve him into going from breast to bottle, because he would never take a bottle, but it didn't work and I ended up with swollen breasts and a furiously screaming baby. Then at 7 months he tried a bottle because it was a novelty and he took to it. I reckon this is just the way he is and he will probably eat normally when he feels like it and not before.

[mutznutz]

I agree with clevercloggs

If savoury food was all you had, then that's what he'd have to eat. He wont starve to death but will eventually eat what your give him because you and not he knows what's best to help him grow and stay healthy.

I don't remember reading about fussy babies starving themselves years ago when people had ration books...so I doubt it's likely to happen now.

It will take effort and a bit of sneaky blending/mixing but ultimately worth it imo.

[FreudianSlippery]

He's still young, so try (difficult I know) not to worry - making an issue out of it will create more problems.

Just keep offering, leave him to it, and don't take it personally if it's rejected.

Lots of sweeter veggies like carrot, sweet potato (made into chips!) etc could be a good start.

[juuule]

fruit,
yoghurt
bread with cream cheese
custard
rice pudding

and on ocassion:

mashed sweet potato
pasta and sauce,
chopped up ham

Doesn't sound too bad to me.
Stick with what he likes and just introduce other things as and when you are making them for yourself.

And I'd definitely not deliberately upset his diet to the point of him waking in the night.

[juuule]

Mashed swede is quite sweet. Mine didn't mind that mixed with creamed potatoes.

Bananas

Weetabix or Ready Brek

seemed to go down well, too.

[Onetoomanycornettos]

Refusing food is the first bit of control a baby has over their life. Step back from the power struggle, keep presenting the savoury stuff you know he likes first (ham and fish fingers sounds fine to me) and keep going, refusing veg at this stage is normal (if irritating as they have often eaten it earlier). My second was fussy and I did on occasions let her eat most of her calories as sweet things, I tended to look at it over a week rather than over a day (so if one day was just cucumber, ham and biscuits in milk, I wouldn't get stressed).

This all sounds normal to me, and remember milk is sweet so it takes time to start loving broccoli, esp if you get loads of attention for refusing it.

[coldtits]

Ohhh you need to make butternut squash chips!

[coldtits]

And how about a second course of something else savoury? As he may just be telling you that he's bored of this food now, and would like something else, not necessarily something sweet.

Cheese and crackers is nice as a savoury second. Calorific too.

[jenniferturkington]

I agree with others who have said keep offering the main course. If he eats it great, if not don't make an issue of it. I personally would still offer the pud, but in our house it is basically fruit or yoghurt during a normal week.

I always give a mix of finger food, and stuff that they can eat off a spoon themselves (actually mine both found forks easier to begin with) such as spag bol, fish pie etc. YY to butternut squash chips- we do sweet potato usually.

Remember he might actually not like some foods- my two have totally different tastes, one is a total carnivore, the other a carb devotee.

[joannita]

Ok juuule, onetoomanycornettos and coldtits, you are making sense. Thanks for the advice! Don't think I'm capable of going down the starving into submission route anyway. Will try the butternut squash chips. i think he does get bored of food but he's also mistrustful of new types of food which makes things tricky.

[joannita]

Just remembered I did try butternut squash chips and he wouldn't even taste them. Oh well might be time to try again.

[crazygracieuk]

Imagine your son's clenched fist. That's the size of his stomach. It only takes a few teaspoons to fill it. What I'm trying to say is that they don't need to eat a lot in order to feel satisfied.

What worked for me was to let the kids graze. I offered 3 meals and 3 snacks a day so that even if they only ate a few mouthfuls, over the day the total quantity eaten would be "acceptable"

[KnittedBreast]

stop giving him sweet stuff. if hes hungry enough hel eat.

mashed swede, mashed pots, parsnips are all good

[Boobalina]

Baby proof you house.

Sort out his sleep routine

keep offering a variety of foods, and make sure he gets enough protein!

Annabel Karmel (dreadful woman) does have a few sweet tasting savoury recipes - salmon cooked in orange juice with Sweet potato etc.

Be strong or you might end up on a TV programme with a child who will only eat yoghurt and White bread! He's 13 months - be strong, have a aggro few weeks and he'll come round.

[joannita]

Oh Boobalina,

I have sorted out his sleep routine. This is as sorted as it gets.

I cannot babyproof my house. Even a shelf of books is dangerous as he'll pull all the books out climb on the pile, slide off and bang his head for example. I don't have enough out of reach places to put things.

[Boobalina]

Can you store dangerous, heavy things in the loft? Kids do climb on things, kids do bang their heads etc... it happens. We've all baby proofed our homes at some stage? As long as he cant choke on things, pull the TV or similarly heavy things on him self, access electrics or fall down stairs, he should be fine?

I know I sound harsh - I dont mean too. Its being realistic.

My DD wont eat fruit whole or chopped up - but will eat fruit juice and fruit yohurts.... she is 4. I persist in the fruit thing and I'll get there eventually!