DD is 16mo and has a good appetite normally, I'd say she's generally a good eater. Other times, like tonight, she tries one mouthful and spits it down her front (things that I KNOW she likes). And it's only at dinner time, never at breakfast and very rarely at lunch. As an example, I made a beef stew yesterday, she absolutely refused to have it for dinner, but couldn't get enough when I reheated some for today's lunch.
As a bit of background, this is what she usually eats:
7.30 - a toast soldier or two (out of half a slice cut into four soldiers)
9.00 - weetabix (usually one and a half) around 9am.
12.00 / 1.00 - Cheese / dried fruit / cold meat / sandwich / breadsticks / a banana (usually two or three out of those, not the lot!), or leftovers from the previous day.
5.30 or 6.00 - Dinner is either pasta-based, meat & veg with mash, stir fry with rice or noodles, or if I can't be arsed, burgers, chips & spaghetti hoops. (Thinking about it, the latter has NEVER been spat out.)
7.00 - Milk, about 180ml, 50/50 toddler milk and full fat cows milk.
She drinks a lot of juice through the day, it's sometimes dilute squash, sometimes fresh fruit juice, she won't entertain drinking water. She doesn't normally have snacks.
We always eat as a family at lunch and dinner, and I don't want to get into that thing of cooking different dinners for her and for us. I know that I need to try and just not react, not make a big deal of it. So far I've thought she is too young to go without dinner if she decides not to eat it, so have given her something else, but I suspect that she refusing dinner in the knowledge that she'll get a banana or a yoghurt or something.
At 16mo, is she too young for me to remove it and not offer an alternative?
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Behaviour/development
Is 16mo too young to go without if she refuses dinner?
45 replies
TiredofZombies · 30/11/2012 21:31
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