Why won't my 1 year old eat?

[picklebum2011]

Is this the right place to post? My dd is coming up 13 mths, she ate lovely before but now suddenly she has taken against being spoon fed, she's always been great with finger food but now that's all she'll eat, which isn't always practical, the ironic thing is she will be spoon fed a dessert!! I'm pulling my hair out here trying not to show frustration but wondering what else i can feed her that she can eat herself, i do give her chunky vegetables but like tonight when i want her to eat mashed potato and spaghetti with her sausages she doesn't want to know!! What can i do?

[TheHouseofMirth]

Is it the spoon or the food iyswim? Will she eat the foods you mentioned with her fingers? If so, I'd just let her do that and worry about the niceties of using cutlery later (though alsways provide her with some , infact DS2 was starting to use a fork at that age). If not, it's probably a texture thing.

It's great she wants to feed herself. There are a million things she can feed herself with - just look at baby led weaning.

[picklebum2011]

Thanks for replies, i keep trying her with her spoon but she doesn't want to feed herself really, the times she does i clap and smile loads and say well done, i did end up letting her feed herself with her hands again. My only worry is am i creating bad eating habbits or is she too young to know, she's still breast feeding which i'm not sure is helping. Need some advice on how to stop feeding her during the day, i'm wondering if she could be too full up with milk, i try and stop the day time feeds and we were down to just morning one before nap about half ten but this last two weeks she just wants to feed from me more could it be teething, should i just stop worrying and let her do her own thing? I do want to stop the daytime feeds but i don't want her to cry her heart out either!! Please help if you can i'm getting really down about all this particularly as she is still waking two three times at night.

[daimbardiva]

I had this when my ds was about 1, and was mystified for days until I realised that he wanted to feed himself...and that was that, problem solved! He;s 2 now, and is generally a good eater - still uses his hands sometimes, but that's OK as far as I'm concerned. There's plenty of time for developing table manners!

[Haberdashery]

Just let her use her hands. It will be messy but I expect you'd rather she ate something? DD always used her hands until she was about two but she's a very neat eater now (nearly five) and can manage a knife, fork and spoon with barely any more mess than an adult. As long as she learns those skills before she goes to school you really needn't worry, IMO. Forks are good to start off with, too - much easier than balancing stuff on a spoon.

Also, if you are doing mash for the rest of the family, you can always just take out a couple of bits of boiled potato for her and mash the rest if she doesn't want to pick up the mash.

[tifflins]

I was at my wits end when DS was 8 months, he was breast feeding 2/3 times per night, then morning, mid morning, sometimes lunchtime and then bedtime. Really good health visitor advised controlled crying to stop night time feeds (worked after ony 3 'bad' nights of DP settling DS), then I worked on gradually stopping daytime feeds in between meals, by giving a snack instead. DS was a bit grumpy for about a week but then was in a lovely routine; 3 good proper meals per day, no breastfeeds and going through the night. Cant advise on the whole finger food versus spoon feeding because am experiencing exactly the same problems now DS is 1 year old! Just dont know what finger foods to dish up anymore!

[DrewsGirl]

My DS is 11 months old and apart from breakfast he feeds himself everything else he eats. I try not to cook messy food as he eats the same meals as us but a few nights ago i did a chicken tonight thing and just sucked the sauce of the chicken before i gave it to him (i prefer to do this than have to clean chicken tonight out of my carpet) i chop everything to hand size pieces and he really enjoys sitting to the table at meal times and seeing he is eating the same as us. he does get a spoon sometimes but i find it just gets thrown or he puts it to far in his mouth and gags, so im not keen i prefer for him to eat with his fingers.

I have also found giving him 2 or 3 pieces on the plate helps, i dish him up a plate of food and give him an empty plate then put bits on there gradually, i find if i give him too much on his plate he wont eat anything, i think the choices confused him. This may help as it definatly got him eating more.

[dreamingbohemian]

I think a lot of people have the same problems around this age! I know I did.

We stopped giving foods that had to be spoon fed (although like yours my DS would still eat petit filous happily after dinner!) and just gave him a bowl of food he could eat himself, which he was happy to do (except for a few phases of throwing food on the floor, sigh)

I'm not happy to have too much mess so for example would give plain pasta instead of bolognese. DS eats everything we do just slightly altered, as others have mentioned you can pull out some chunks of potato before mashing or chicken before saucing. We found around this age that DS really liked juicy things so we gave him lots of fruit and veg.

It may seem a bit more work while you're adjusting but it's actually really nice to sit and eat your own meal while he gets on with his. Oh we also give DS a fork but he doesn't really use it properly yet, I reckon there's still loads of time for that.