DS is 19 months. Hasn’t got the hang of feeding himself with a spoon or fork yet. He’s recently taken to refusing to eat anything that has to be fed to him, and most things that don’t. I’m running out of ideas for what to feed him that he’ll actually eat.
He used to have a Weetabix with berries or half a banana for breakfast, won’t eat that anymore because we have to feed it to him so we’ve swapped the Weetabix for a piece of buttered fruit toast. So far so good (and great for DH because he’s the one who gives him breakfast). Mid morning/pre-nap snack is an Organix oat bar. Sometimes he’ll have a couple of rice cakes in the afternoon and he gets 6oz of stage 3 formula at bedtime (an extra oz if he’s not had much dinner which is pretty much every day lately) and water during the day. He’s 91st centile weight-wise for his age.
Recently I’ve tried-
Lunch- small finger sandwiches with ham/dairylea spread and cucumber/houmous. DS wouldn’t touch them, screamed his head off, I got stressed out, food wasted, DS hangry by dinner time.
Dinner- lamb koftas, potato croquettes, steamed broccoli florets. Nibbled a little bit, left the rest, food wasted, had an extra oz of formula at bedtime but still woke in the night for an extra bottle.
Lunch- a small 1-egg omelette with mushrooms, spinach and peppers, and Philly roll ups (a piece of Kingsmill 50/50 vitamin boost bread, flattened and spread with Philadelphia, rolled up and cut into slices). Ate the roll ups, mostly ignored the omelette (which he used to eat no problem). Food wasted. DS hangry by dinner time which made me stressed out.
Dinner- a M&S taste buds cheese and tomato pizza, added some extra mushrooms and peppers on top. Nibbled a little bit but left most of it, food wasted, woke in the middle of the night for an extra bottle feed.
Lunch - cherry tomatoes, avocado, cucumber, orange and yellow peppers chopped into little toddler sized pieces. Didn’t touch a single thing and screamed his head off. Food wasted (again), me very close to losing my shit. DS hangry by dinner time.
Dessert at lunchtime is a Collective yogurt sucky pouch which he usually finishes. Dessert at dinner (not every day) is a Sainsbury’s pancake which these days, again, he usually ignores.
The only things he eats at mealtimes without protest are chicken goujons, fish fingers (we get the omega-3 ones for what it’s worth), chips or sweet potato fries. That’s it. All the other stuff I used to give him I now can’t because he won’t let us feed him so anything so lunches like chunky soup and bread or cous cous or pasta salad are no longer an option. Dinners that I could batch cook and freeze are no longer an option. I don’t want to keep giving him beige crap for every meal but I can’t take being screamed at every time I try to give him something else, and I don’t want meal times to just become something stressful for us both. I also can’t afford to keep buying food that just gets thrown on the floor and in the bin. I’m sure that it’s just a phase that every toddler goes through but I’m beginning to lose my mind.