To be concerned about picky eating?

[Tired890]

LO is 17 months. With no exaggeration: Only eats Weetabix, crackers, rice cakes, baked beans, one brand of yoghurt (not the healthiest kind unfortunately but I still give it a couple of times per week for some calcium!), cake, baked porridge (basically cake but I sneak some carrot in), and only a few fruits. Zero veg.

We cook and offer lots of variety at dinner time, do “family style” meals 50% of the time, no pressure. He eats what he eats. Sometimes means only fruit for dinner. But I worry so much about his health. Gets ill a lot. He’s dropped one percentile (25th) for weight but professionals only worry when it drops two or more. The food he’ll accept gets less and less every week.

When should I worry?

Is it a texture thing? Will he eat anything like pasta or spag Bol? Two of mine have issues with the texture of veg so I hide a multitude of vegetables in my tomato pasta sauce by blending them. I add it to a cheesy pasta bake, spaghetti bolognaise or lasagna. If he likes yogurt I would try it with chopped fruit mixed in. Just keep trying different things and if he likes what he likes, at least he’s eating something. If you can get a multi vitamin into that can only help

@FatherJoseFernandez pasta used to be a favourite but hasn’t eaten it in months now. Doesn’t even like touching cooked pasta so I think it is a texture thing. Have tried using cooked pasta for playing (anway from the table) but didn’t love it. Other than baked beans, he eats nothing with a sauce so can’t hide veggies. Doesn’t like smoothie either. Only yoghurt he’ll eat is in a pouch (with more sugar than I’d like!) so can’t mix things in. Plus he’s smart and clocks on fast 😆

The main thing is to keep offering without showing that it's bothering you. If you find something he likes then build on that by offering similar foods. And definitely get a good multivitamin in him daily such as WellKid to cover any deficits, make sure he's still having some whole milk too for the calcium and the calories.

My younget son didn't really like any food, still doesn't, so I know how frustrating it can be. If he'll eat rice cakes or toast then these make an excellent vehicle for other foods, for example using vegetable puree as a spread on toast. Make sure every meal has a good he'll definitely eat so that there is never 'nothing' for him.

My brother was (is?) a fussy eater and there’s one thing he says and that’s the more you try to force kids to eat things the worse it makes it. He’s always been sporty and healthy and as he got older you can see his palette is far more diverse, presumably as he did it on his own terms.

re the fruit and veg…I have a friend that’s DD has quite literally never eaten a piece of fruit in her life and she’s 10! She seems perfectly fine.

What about vegetables in wedge form? My son hated all textures but would suck the insides out of a sweet potato wedge (and leave the skin). Worked for butternut squash, carrots and parsnips too.

Are you giving a lot of milk?

If so, cut it back.

@Tired890 Thats varied when compared to my dd at that age. Yoghurt and a bit of banana if we were lucky. Milk all
the way. I’d had many suggestions from our Health visitor who was mystified and dd was talked about at a HV conference. Nothing - nothing - helped.

So: she went to nursery. We got to 18 months and I could not stand meal times any longer. Just awful. She refused to eat and I threw food away day after day. Nursery sat her at a table with other dc. Monitored what she ate. After a month, huge improvement. At Christmas she asked for more!! More. I could not believe it. This was 20 months.

My feeling is change of routine and wanting to be like others began to make a difference. Never looked back and eats anything now and did as a child. So I needed help and had to do something!

I don't think you need to worry. At 17m they get ill all the time. HCPs have said they only worry if he drops two centiles and he hasn't.

It's really normal for children to go through periods of pickiness and later start being open to trying new things. He's eating some fruit, carbs, dairy, could poss manage more protein although all of mine weren't keen on protein except in sausage form at that age! Sitting down to meat and three veg type meals came a lot later, prob 5-6 to eat reliably. The porridge and beans will be good for fibre if you are struggling with veg.

Keep offering other food but as others said relax about it. Either he'll start to explore some more foods in the near future or it will take a while for him to get more confident. Very few adults or even early teen children eat a diet this restrictive so have faith over time he will branch out. Even if he does he might go through further picky phases. But if he's eating enough not to lose weight and he's eating from different food groups he will be ok.

There is A RFID but 17m is too soon to worry about that and his diet is not so restrictive it's likely to cause malnutrition. Plus even if he had ARFID the approach of being very chill and offering but not nagging around other foods would still be right. Literally all three of my children went through weird picky phases, would only eat certain yogurts, or plain pasta etc. Now late teens, early twenties all of them eat everything, they got there at different times but they all got there

Most kids I know ate a very restricted diet as toddlers. Many babies will eat whatever you give them, then they turn into toddlers and suddenly they change and only eat 10 foods, then slowly from about age 3 they widen their menu.

I've read that it's linked to evolution; toddlers wandering off and sampling poisoned berries isn't going to keep the species going, so when they become mobile they become cautious in their eating habits.

Just stay calm and keep trying to introduce more foods like peanut butter or avocado which are high nutrition in small amounts. Spread a little on their rice cracker and give it to them first, but no pressure to eat it.

Try not to worry too much. It's just a phase they need to get through. If you have real concerns, speak to your doctor of course.

For dinner tonight, it was pasta Bolognese but I included some fruit as a “safe food” but only thE fruit was eaten again. He cried to get out of his high chair and immediately asked for milk and said “yes” when I asked if still hungry. I said no milk and showed him his dinner again. He chose to go hungry. I hate sending him to bed hungry 😭

Go to bed later and offer supper? I would have been delighted if my dd ate what yours does.

My DD2 didn’t get picky, she never ate in the first place. So 1 year plus of not eating. It’s unbelievably difficult and upsetting when a baby won’t eat. My DD1 enjoyed her food so dealing with DD2 was confusing and hard. You just keep trying. He’s obviously not really hungry but DD2 was the strongest willed child ever. She would not take a bottle either.

@TizerorFizz What did you do to help your DD that didn’t eat all? How is it now?

@TizerorFizz also when did your DD start nursery? My boy started nursery at 13 months and his eating has only got worse since. He hardly eats at nursery too. He’ll eat the puddings and rice cakes at snack but that’s it.

Their eating does drop off quite a bit from 12/13 months and it can be worrying, but if you look at how much weight they should put on, it increases more slowly after 12 months.
My advice, with older children is to just keep offering healthy and good food but just don’t make a big deal of it if they don’t want it. Don’t give loads of milk as it fills them up and for mine, I cut right back on snacks as I found these tended to be less healthy, and mine tended to eat more if they ate 3-4 times a day rather than 4-6.
But mine were both fussy and then slowly improved and now my most fussy child eats anything - spicy curry, seafood, pate, a totally normal diet (he is 13!). I used to worry as he survived on leaves and air so it seemed but I just didn’t stress (outwardly!) and he was fine.
The mums who have loads of milk though found it much harder as the child just never felt properly hungry and didn’t try things as they knew they could just have milk.

Have you taken him to the GP and dentist to be checked for ear infections and any issues with his mouth? Both of these can play havoc with little kids wanting to chew or swallow

Eldest (now adult) would try anything as long as it came off my plate. If I put it on their plate it was refused, but if they could take it from or 'asked' for it from my plate then it ended up in their mouth! Worth trying?

@Tired890 I couldn’t wean her. She ate next to nothing. I tried just about every food known to man between 6-18 months! Cut up, sliced and diced. Cooked and raw. Vegetables, fruit, cheese, eggs, fish, meat, rice, pasta - just about anything! My mum cooked up lovely baby food which I froze. HV advised distraction. Toys as she ate. Make her laugh! She didn’t open her mouth! She ended up being discussed at the HV conference. No one could help. Getting her to nursery was such a relief from the frustration and upset I felt every day.

It’s interesting you talk about nursery as it totally helped dd. What does he eat at nursery? I got the weekly menu and it was pretty much what I offered. It seemed that the setting and wonderful nursery staff that did the trick.

It could be your DS is in a phase that he will grow out of. I don’t really know why dd decided food was good. Too young to explain but at 20 months when she said “more” to Christmas lunch it was the best present! Certainly she had a much stronger desire to eat a variety of food by 20 months. She’s now in her 20s and did Leith’s cookery cert at school. She’s interested in food. She always ate school meals with no issues but I remember the not eating like it was yesterday.

Maybe just sneak in an additional food to his favourites? As I never felt I cracked it, I’m not the best at giving advice but I truly understand your angst.