Our son is a crappy eater. He is 16 months old and has never explored wet food with his hands. He wont touch wet food himself and has no interest in using a spoon or fork. Up until about a month ago he let us spoon feed him his tea but that has now stopped and the only meal he will let us feed him is his breakfast and a yoghurt now and then. He will feed himself bread, toast, baby biscuits, baby crisps, peas, broccoli, strawberrys and grapes.
This is an example of a days food.
Breakfast: a bowl of porridge with a banana mashed in and a tablespoon of chia seeds. Spoon fed to him.
Snack: Natural Greak yoghurt (spoon fed) and a couple of strawberries or grapes which he feeds himself.
Lunch: Usually just a slice of plain buttered wholemeal toast. He wont have anything on it. Sometimes just a piece of bread and butter. He wont eat more than that.
Snack: Some more strawberries or grapes and some baby biscotti.
Tea: 2 fish fingers and peas. Somtimes followed by a spoon fed fruit pot, if he lets us feed him it.
Then he has a 6-8oz bottle of formula before bed. Amount depends on how much tea he's eaten.
Does this sound like a good amount of food for a 16 month old? He weighs just under 20lb and is on the 9th percentile, I think. He is very thin, you can see his rips and shoulder blades and spine. We have just today started giving him drinks of cows milk with his snacks to up his calories since he wont eat more.
Most other things we try to give him for tea he wont even touch never mind put near his mouth. Would it be unreasonable to give him fish fingers and peas on his plate for tea every night but also put tasters of whatever we're having for tea on his plate too? We tried this the other day and it seemed a lot less of a stressful meal time for all of us. He ate the fish fingers and peas and picked up some of the potato (which he wouldn't usually). He put the potato in his mouth and spat it out but even that was a step forward.