Am I starving my toddler?

[anniefrangipani]

17mo DD, still breastfeeding, sleeps 7-7 with one or two wake ups. Naps 11-1pm, feeds to sleep, eats three meals a day plus one snack.

We started weaning at 6mo and did BLW exclusively. She has always shared our meals, will quite happily eat steak or pasta or gooseberries or whatever we're having. We've always tried not to make too much of a fuss of her eating, and just let food be it's own reward.

Occasionally she'll turn her nose up and refuse to eat anything at all. We don't make a fuss about that either.

She still happily shares our meals - tea last night was homemade burgers, brioche buns, mature cheddar, corn on the cob, sugar snap peas. She had about a quarter of a burger, a piece of bun, a few bits of cheese, half a corn cob, about five or six sugar snaps. She had a few bites of everything, but didn't finish any of it or I would have given her more.

Tonight's dinner is steak and cauliflower cheese. She'll have a couple of strips of steak, a couple of florets of cauliflower, a tablespoon of peas, a few carrot circles. She's unlikely to eat it all, though if she does there'll be more.

Breakfast rhis morning was porridge with dried cranberries and dried blueberries. She ate five teaspoons, which I would consider a lot for her. Plus she stole two raspberries from DP (offered her more, plus some ham, but she wasn't interested).

Am I starving her? I've never given her a whole packet of crisps. Or a whole ice cream. Or a whole slice of cake or a whole sandwich. It, frankly, wouldn't occur to me to. But every time I log on to Facebook, people with kids the same age are holding ice creams, and my mother has been complaining that I'm starving her since DD was 10w old (I have been ignoring her, obviously, but maybe she's not entirely wrong?)

AIBU by not offering enough food?

My son (nearly two) subsists on sausages, ham and pork pie. Expecting my social services visit any day soon.

* My son (nearly two) subsists on sausages, ham and pork pie*

I’m certainly no lentil waver but that really isn’t good, on a number of different levels - nutrition, digestion, energy amongst others

Stop buying pork pies for a start!

I think unless you’ve experienced a child with a restricted diet, for whatever reason @Changeembrace, you might want to resist pointing out the glaringly obvious.

* I think unless you’ve experienced a child with a restricted diet*

Ham, sausage rolls and pork pie

This is not a restricted diet. This is a diet almost devoid of nutrition but loaded with shite.

If course it’s a restricted diet , it is restricted to ham, sausage rolls and pork pie. It’s the very definition of a restricted diet.

My point is - referring to it as “restricted diet” seriously downplays how awful it is.

“Restricted” doesn’t mean “devoid”. Restricted could mean - no dairy or red meat perhaps.

@Socksey "'no child will willingly starve itself'"

Maybe not a very young child, but I was a 12 year old child when my anorexia started, and I was very good at hiding it from my loving parents. I would take my breakfast "to go", give away my lunch, claimed I was going to x, y and z's house or the library for a study group and I'd have dinner whilst I was out etc, and my extremely high grades meant that these excuses were plausible...

My sil and bil were like this - all stealth boasty about how their children were not allowed crap and existed on a diet of carrot sticks and lentils - guess what 2 overweight teenagers addicted to crap food!

I'm slightly confused by someone breast feeding a 17mo to sleep. When does the child learn to go to sleep by itself? It clearly can't be left with anyone unless the DM expresses.

@Pumpinator "One of their first foods was strips of steak, at they just sucked on them, a lot"

My twins are practically newborns, but I do like idea of blw, and I have a question about your comment.
My husband likes his steak bleu to rare, I prefer mine rare to medium rare. For the little ones does it have to be cooked "well done"?

I always gave/give mine steak cooked medium rare.

Just ignore. If she's turning down/not finishing what's offered then clearly she isn't starving.

Kids today are in general over fed and overweight.

My MIL thinks we're crazy Nazis the way we feed our DC. Compared to all of DCs cousins (who get unlimited sweets/crisps/biscuits) our DC look small. But very healthy height/weight centiles and always have been.

It's just the others are "solid". All in clothes a couple of years older.

I think we're so used to seeing overweight kids that sciety is pretty skewed on it. Infact there are various shops (ASDA, Sainsbury's, M&S, Next) that I can't buy kids clothes from as they're all way too big around the middle.

Can only share my own experiences, my 16 month old barely eats anything at all, sometimes he eats some porridge or a little bit of spaghetti bolonaise - honestly he doesn’t tend to eat anything at all most days (although will happily eat chocolate or a whole ice cream!) he does drink cows
Milk because I am at the end of my tether with it, health visitors are helping me with this but she can’t tound to weigh him the other day and he’s perfectly in his weight range and happy and healthy, so I guess I just want to reassure you that to me, your dd sounds like she’s eating loads! They don’t need as much as we often think as the stomachs are still so small, I envy you as it sounds amazing! Don’t think you should be worrying x

@Retroflex
We just used to do it medium for them. I wouldn't want to eat steak that was tough as an old boot, so figured they wouldn't either.

Good luck with it. Have fun and relax. Get a cheap shower curtain to put under their highchairs, you can then just wipe it and throw in the machine at the end of the day.

They can eat exactly the same as you, just leave out the salt when cooking and add to yours and DH's at the table.

Nothing out there they shouldn't have except make sure you par boil carrots to take the snap out. Same with raw apple. I used to cut apple in wedges and fry in butter with a little cinnamon they loved that.

It really is easy. If you're on FB then look up the BLW group. It's been 8! years since I did it, but the people were always really nice and will give you some ideas

:)

@crosstalk "I'm slightly confused by someone breast feeding a 17mo to sleep. When does the child learn to go to sleep by itself? It clearly can't be left with anyone unless the DM expresses."

They learn when they and the parents are ready. And maybe the parents don't want to leave them with someone else? Really no issue with that.

Oh as long as your house is warm, strip them down to nappies for dinner and have a good supply of washable clothes handy.

@Retroflex
Maybe not a very young child,butI was a 12 year old child when my anorexia started, and I was very good at hiding it from my loving parents. I would take my breakfast "to go", give away my lunch, claimed I was going to x, y and z's house or the library for a study group and I'd have dinner whilst I was out etc, and my extremely high grades meant that these excuses were plausible...

True.... but we're talking about a toddler here.... perhaps I should have said "no neurotypical child or older child dealing with emotional conflicts etc"
I hope you were able to get assistance and are making a good recovery... and importantly, that you are happy in yourself... I think we would all do well to give ourselves the love and respect that so often we confer on others....

@Pumpinator thanks! Medium steak it will be when the time comes! I never add salt to food when cooking only for myself, actually the only thing I willingly put salt on is porridge, but my husband prefers food cooked with salt, because apparently he needs to add less afterwards, but he adds salt regardless, so what difference does it make?
I saw a few pages back that a poster was putting peanut butter in her baby's porridge, but as there are a number of allergies in my family, I think I'll stick with the guidance my family were given about no nuts until they're at least 5 years old, even though I can eat peanuts myself and love them! So recipes like my sweet potato and peanut butter stew would be out...

*washable cloths

@Socksey I recovered well, but it's something which will always be there unfortunately. I don't get an appetite like most people, so if I'm busy, or focused intently on something, I just don't think about food at all, and of course if I'm ever feeling "out of control" with any aspect in my life, I control what I can, namely my nutritional intake...

I honestly have a much better relationship with food now, I love to cook, and I've used my experiences to educate teenagers and their families on the pitfalls, and what to do if they have an eating disorder. Contacting their doctor and admitting they have a problem is always the first step.

@Retroflex
We have no history of allergies at all, but one of mine went into anaphylaxis after a bite of a peanut butter sandwich at 2. Scariest moment of my life, and we now carry an epipen. After that I would advise anyone to be cautious tbh.

Oh 2 other things. First get proper cutlery, knife fork and spoon. Metal that can be properly used, not the plastic blunt good for nothing kind. Also try a diody cup. Mine used to love drinking soup out of them.

You just have to let them explore.
My two are very different. 1 went pescatarian at 10 month, refused to eat meat or drink/eat anything dairy. The other loves nothing more than pepper stuffed, anchovy wrapped olives or curry. That one is pure carnivore., eats meat like it's going out of fashion.
When my one stopped eating meat we said nothing and didn't make a big deal of it.
My neighbour said to puree meat and feed it that way. But would you east pureed meat? That's disgusting. Meat wasn't necessary for their diet anyway so we let them get on with it.

@Retroflex
That is really good to hear.... both that you are recovering and looking after yourself, and also the awareness work you're doing.
Good luck and an un-Mumsnetty hug

I'd worry about go bing her steak... that's a choking hazard at that age surely?

@LemonPrism It doesn't break off. They just gum and suck on it.

I always thought the puree/mush slowly adding solid lumps was more of a choking hazard tbh. Why not just let your kid learn to eat properly and bite/chew/swallow instead of swallowing first and having to learn to chew and bite at a later stage? It just made no sense to me.

Steak is no more of a choking hazard then any other solid food. I have never puréed anything for mine!