To ask for advice on my 13 month olds diet?

[Starryspacetrip]

She doesn’t seem to eat very well at all and it’s worrying me now she’s no longer really taking formula.

She eats porridge for breakfast, and sometimes a yoghurt.

At lunch time I made her a ham and cheese toastie, she ate a few bits of ham and refused the rest. Then she had a fruit pouch. She ate some of DHs pizza.

Then for dinner a bit of spaghetti.

Can anyone give me any pointers? She doesn’t seem to have a very varied diet.

I would feed her whatever you're eating. Special meals aren't necessary and it can help to develop their palate. Push as much fruit and veg as you can. Scrambled eggs are good, too.

We can’t really as our diets aren’t suitable.

We can’t really as our diets aren’t suitable.

Why not?

Maybe change your diets too then? Lead by example.

I'd stop any sweet yoghurts or fruit pouches for a few weeks.

Lots of veg. And try to eat the foods yourself that you want her to eat

You need to get more vegetables and fruit into her diet. Blend extra vegetables (spinach, courgette, broccoli etc) into the tomato sauce for the spaghetti. Add peas and sweet corn to spaghetti as well.
Add fresh fruit to porridge and natural yoghurt. Try eggs for breakfasts and can add veg like kale or mushrooms to omelettes.

You need to eat the food you want her to eat with her. If you don't have good diets neither will she.

The best way is to offer plenty of variety, model eating alongside them - making sure you’re eating a healthy variety too, and take the pressure off so be busy focusing on your own meal without trying to force/ persuade/ pressure them to eat themselves.

You can boost/ add nutrition to meals so add berries, grated apple or grated veg (carrot and courgette work well) to porridge, with nut butter or ground almonds or milled seeds etc.

Mix breakfast up, sometimes give weetabox or another fortified cereal for an iron boost, sometimes give scrambled eggs and avocado or eggy bread with spinach. Another day pancakes - you can make the baby ones with a mashed banana, two eggs and 3 spoons of porridge oats - they look rank but my dd laps them up with yoghurt and berries.

Add things like grated cheese or full fat yoghurt or extra veg or milled seeds or nutritional yeast or eggs or mashed beans/ lentils to stuff like pasta, mashed potato, muffins etc. Use a mix of different grains eg pasta, bread, rice, couscous etc.

Stock up on frozen veg and throw a bit of that on the plate for every meal you can - even if they refuse at first.

My dd goes through phases where she will only eat fruit, yoghurt and pasta but I just keep offering all the other stuff and eventually she picks it up again.

Stuff that goes down really well here are - broccoli/ cauliflower cheese, really thick homemade veggie soups with bread dipped in, hummus and pita, cheese and spinach eggy bread, mashed sweet potato with butter beans and grated cheese mashed in, any savoury muffins like courgette and chickpea ones from the what mummy makes cookery books - they’re honestly very easy to make. Also omelettes with extra veg in and some peas on the side.

My dd is still very hit and miss with meat (I don’t eat it so maybe I haven’t exposed her to it enough) and she won’t eat a sandwich at all. Other mums I know have had a lot of success making pinwheels (sheet of ready made puff pastry, spread whatever on eg tomato purée, cheese, finely chopped or grated veg, roll up slice and bake) but mine won’t touch them - might be worth a try for you too?

I make extra of anything we are having that is freezable and freeze in portions and if I ever get chance to make muffins or whatever I do that then freeze a load, so there’s always something in the freezer we can grab for her if for whatever reason what we’re having isn’t suitable (today I felt really sick and overstuffed after Christmas so just had cereal but got some cauliflower cheese and mash out of the freezer for dd for example).

Children all around the world eat the same food as their parents. When I was a child I ate the same food as my parents. No idea why the trend now is to feed our children over processed over sweetened stuff that is likely to lead to health problems and shorter life expectancy.

If you want her to have a varied diet then offer varied food focusing on fruit, vegetables and whole grains. Stay away from anything packaged. Give her chicken breast not nuggets. It’s just as quick and easy to cook. Same with fish
Lightly steamed vege sticks she can eat herself.
Just because she refuses something once doesn’t mean she will never eat it. Keep offering it and if she doesn’t eat it, remove it without comment.

@Starryspacetrip

We can’t really as our diets aren’t suitable.

Do you mean because you eat badly?

If so, it's not surprising that she's not eating well. She's of an age where seeing what you do will heavily influence her.

@Starryspacetrip

We can’t really as our diets aren’t suitable.

This is a chance to improve your own diet and life. She’s not going to want to eat a plate of vegetables if she sees her parents eating pizza all the time. You need to try and lead by example. I used to be a very fussy eater but now I eat a varied diet because I didn’t want dc to be like me.

You could have a go at making your own pizzas maybe? You can do a really easy pizza dough just with self raising flour and Greek yoghurt - this recipe has salt and baking powder too but I’m sure I’ve done it literally just flour and yoghurt www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/quick_cheats_pizza_88026

(The same recipe also makes nice flatbreads too which you can roll out and then cook in a dry frying or griddle pan and serve with hummus or some kind of dip).

Then top with tomato purée, cheese, extra veg, ham or tuna or whatever.

If you wanted to make a sauce with extra veg blended in that would be great too.

If you have Instagram there are some good accounts for ideas - I follow ones called SR nutrition, Rebecca Wilson Food (was what mummy makes) scrummytummies and little veggie eats.

Thanks AliasGrape. That’s helpful. I find she has a poor appetite so if I give fruit as a snack she won’t eat lunch.

Why is your diet unsuitable?!

Oh DH likes ready prepared pizza and lots of meat, way too salty. She does eat some of it but I want it to stop so looking for advice.

Ask your DH to change his diet and eat more vegetables for a start...

I would recommend Ella's Kitchen weaning program. It's great for introducing healthy options and her recipes were a hit with mine. You can order a free chart: www.ellaskitchen.co.uk/join-ellas-friends?gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=CjwKCAiAiKuOBhBQEiwAId_sK21krMXwPvCuIlSAp7zlCQ3QMvfCd5XJXszmYt-Zk-KaoyZW2MCTTRoCsdAQAvD_BwE

I was also told to not look at what they eat each day but what they eat over the course of a week and ensure there is a good variety. Some days mine would seem to live off air - other days they would eat loads and seem to be catching up.

@Starryspacetrip

Thanks AliasGrape. That’s helpful. I find she has a poor appetite so if I give fruit as a snack she won’t eat lunch.

Remember it really varies over time and can depend on teething or if they've got a cold or are overtired or any other million things. My 17 month old.is currently eating us out of house and home but a few weeks back it was yoghurt or nothing and not much of that.

I find things like rice cakes, mini breadsticks, cucumber sticks etc make good snacks too. Your dd may prefer little and often or may be better waiting for mealtimes, they're all different.

Do you give the mtivitamin drops too? The nhs healthy start ones are the cheapest and you can buy them in super drug or round here we can buy them from the health visitor too.

That won’t happen, @GreenFingersWouldBeHandy. He is a very fussy eater.

Thanks @BlackKittyKat, does it matter I didn’t do this from the start? I wanted to do baby led weaning but it hasn’t really worked out.

At 13 months your baby should be eating meat too - roast chicken, minced beef etc. Very easy to do. And fish.

I don’t @AliasGrape but will do so. Thank you. I do worry as today she has barely eaten anything. I used to tell myself it didn’t matter as most nutrition came from milk but now I can’t fall back on that.

She does eat meat but don’t think that should be all she eats, I mean, it should be mixed with rice, pasta, lots of veg? She just hardly seems to get hungry.

He is a very fussy eater

Your dh needs to suck it up and be a better example to his children by eating a healthy varied diet.

You used to be able to get the Ella’s Kitchen cookbook for free if you joined Boots Parenting Club.

I'd look at what she eats over a few days to a week rather than any one individual day.

As others have said, you can get extra fruit and beg into her by blending vegetables together into sauces for pasta. You can make thick fruit and/or vegetable purees too and spread them on toast then cut it into fingers or give it in a pot alongside breadsticks for her to eat it herself. Fruit can be added to porridge, you can even grate a small chunk of courgette into it - sounds weird but you don't taste it once it's cooked and it makes it taste really creamy. Banana pancakes are easy to make - banana mashed up with an egg then cooked a few seconds each side in a frying pan. Sweetcorn and carrot fritters were popular with one of my DC - sweetcorn, grated carrot, grated potato, and some egg to bind it them shaped into patties or nuggets and cooked in the frying pan.

Your dh needs to suck it up and be a better example to his children by eating a healthy varied diet.

Depends why he's s fussy eater, sometimes it's not as simple as "suck it up".