13 month old VERY fussy eater - help!

[clarkykitten]

Hi,

I am pulling my hair out at the fussy eating stage my 13 month old DD is currently going through. Over the past 6 weeks ago, she has just got fussier and fussier, but most especially evening meals. She seems to have gone completely off anything except for 'picky' foods (e.g. chunks of cheese, olives, raisins, chunks of banana) but things that she used to eat, she won't now, such as:

meat
veg of any sort, including potatoes
beans/lentils etc
any fruit that are not raspberries, blueberries or banana
rice
cous cous, noodles

Occasionally she will have pasta with tomato sauce, but if I try and sneak something extra in (e.g. a small chunk of pepper) it will be discarded and potentially the whole meal refused. She won't allow me to spoon feed her anything except yoghurt (she was BLWed).

I really don't want to go down the route of making separate foods for her, we are trying to encourage DS (3.6) with trying new foods and he is doing so well with this. But tonight, for example, she ate one bit of chicken, pulled a face then refused the rest of her food.

DH thinks we should leave her to go hungry (giving her her yoghurt/pudding as usual but nothing else). But this is backfiring in that she has been waking up at 5.15 starving hungry!

Any suggestions for this stage when you can't reason with them? Should I be giving different foods to what we eat?

BOLLOCKS. if the kid hasn't got a medical condition - the kid will eat

if the kid doesn't eat one meal - dont feed the kid til the next meal

all mums say that they dont and all mums are lying twatbags.

biscuits, yoghurt and banana count - dont feed the kid anything and the kid will eat. fussy eating is powerplay

ooh let me see - something good for me - or soemthing full of sugar

ok, if DD didn't have her tiny yoghurt after her one mouthful of chicken she would have eaten:

1 bowl of cereal (breakfast)
1 fish finger and half a banana (lunch)
1 cracker (snack)
1 bite of chicken (dinner)

for all of today.

You are saying we should have left her at that because she is manipulating me for the yoghurt?

An evening meal to me would include a yogurt/fruit, so I don't see how restricting that would help

For my DS, his yoghurt forms an important part of his dairy intake, I wouldn't remove it just because he didn't eat the savoury part of his meal.

It is hard with their evening meal to say 'let them go hungry' because it may, as you say, affect their sleep. And they are too young to make the connection, so reasoning with them is useless.

So I am in the 'present them with the food you're having and encourage them to try it' camp, but double up on yoghurt or some breadsticks afterwards to make sure they're full enough to sleep.

I'll try reasoning with him when he's older. Special food is not a route I want to be taking, as I am too lazy :)

...that said, my DS loves Annabel Karmel's vegetable sauce on pasta, which makes me feel better about him not eating other vegetables. I think he likes it because it's got a bit of sugar in so tastes quite sweet.

He gets that if we're having something particularly unhealthy and he likes it enough to not badger us for what we're having.

I think they are meant to go through a fuusy stage at about that age, it's a protection mechanism as they are getting more mobile. If we were "in the wild" they would have more access to poisonous plants etc, so nature makes them cut down the range of things they will eat. Can't remember where I read that, sorry, but my ds and my friend's dcs went through the same thing at about 13 months. I would say don't panic, just give her things she will eat and try to introduce new things, but don't worry if she doesn't eat them at the moment. My ds is a good eater now and not scared of trying new things at all.

Its a vague blur of fussiness clarky (hes only 2 years old - my memory is shot to pieces!) but crucially there are extreme fussy bits. And we had a child who could happily wolf down a whole pear one day and look it at like it was poison a week later.
We found finger foods really useful - if they like picking it up with their fingers, then think creative to what they could have. The baby led weaning book is good for inspiration.
And, don't show you're getting in a stew with them. Very easy to do, esp when you've laboured over preparing something extra enticing for the little darling(!) and they won't touch it, let alone put it anywhere near their mouth....

I remember your feeling of 'they must eat something' but a very calm friend pointed out to me that unless they are weeping and wailing (ie ill or teething) maybe they just don't fancy food. If shes always up for yoghurt, try a fruit pot or some homemade rice pudding for variety...
All things will pass.....

Nice one, thanks everyone, I feel much better hearing everyone's experiences! I don't remember my DS being so fussy at this age, that happened much later! Giraffe I roast veggies and then whiz them into my tomato sauce and she eats that, so I can use that as my fail safe recipe too.

DS did this, and stopped eating all veg and potatoes (as well as lots of main meal things) for about 4 or 5 months. I'd offer a nutritionally equivalent alternative to a meal, usually crackers & cream cheese or similar. I hid veg in things but told him they were there which made me feel I was consisten with my BLW principles.

I kept offering the same things we were eating, kept giving an alternative if necessary, and he started randomly eating veg again after a few months. Shortly after he started being a bit more adventurous in the other things he'd eat. At 18 months he still doesn't like potatoes (except chips ) but will at least try most veg and is a lot less fussy.

My dc1 and 2 are both very unfussy eaters (6y and 5y) and always have been except for when they were just over a year old for a month or so.