Please help food for 15 month old-DOESNT LIKE ANYTHING ANYMORE!!

[VeronaH]

Hi Ladies, i really need some suggestions as i am running out, my 15 month old has decided he doesnt like anything much anymore except maybe crackers/bread and oranges!!

he does eat his breakfast which is good but lunch and dinner or turning into diasters and i am worried he is going to bed worried. at lunch i try and give him little sandwichs or breadsticks and cheese dip or even one of those ready made little pots of food, for dinner the only thing he still likes to eat seems to be my bolognase but i want to try and get more variety in his diet.

would really appreicate any suggestions/receipes.

thanks a million.

Relax and write a food diary over a week, even colour code carbs/protein etc. Your child may be teething, may be excited about any food related attention.....

Do not make meal time a battleground....this will bite you in the arse.

Bol is good, blitz in some other veg. What about shepherd's pie?

My dcs have always loved all fish, texture is great. Does your child like to steal food from your plate? Perhaps serve his food on your plate and let hiom steal it.

Is he over tired/too hungry/not hungry enough at meal times.

One more thing, let your child eat what he likes to keep up his appetite, you can worry about the rest later., But if their appetite dwindles that's when it gets tough.

Isn't it normal, though? Babies eat lots up til about 1year mark and then as they need less food they slow down.

That was certainly the case with DD. At 11 months she could eat a chicken leg, couple tablespoons of mash and few stalks of brocolli. At 13 or 14 months she would eat a few bites at the most. Now at 2.5 she eats everything again. I wouldn't worry.

thanks so much for the feedback, just feel like i am being a bad mother as he is not getting all is fruit and veg everyday. i will do the food diary idea and yes he does seem to want what i have but most times i make us the same thing.

hopefully he will grow out of it. thanks again for the feedback

If you want to pack more nutritious stuff into his diet, try avocado or hummus, perhaps? Fruits and cheese that you put on a plate in front of him for his snack (putting it on a low coffe table or even floor where he's playing?). As long as main meals are eaten at the table, a little snack away from it won't be disastrous for his future table-manners.

Mine did that at 16 months - was a fabulous eater, even chowed down Thai green curry with relish, then suddenly would only eat yoghurt, humus, bread, mashed potatoes, pizza, tuna cheese and potato bake and about 4 kinds of fruit. I worried so much I asked the GP. I have no idea if she invented it to comfort me or not, but she said it happens to almost all kids at that age and is believed to be evolutionarily useful. The theory, according to her, is that babies in traditional hunter/gatherer societies were at risk of eating poisoning fruits/roots/leaves when they became independently mobile, so kids who were very conservative about what they ate at that stage were less likely to die. And evolution hasn't caught up with supermarkets yet. She also said kids that age, and you need to assess what they eat over a week, not a day, to ensure they get enough as they're very erratic - some days they eat a lot, others almost nothing, but that's fine if they are healthy.

All I know is almost all babies I encounter do that in their midteen months, and they all seem to grow out of it. Mine did.

We have a bread machine, by the way - I use that Omega 3 oil called "Good Oil" and fling in lots of sesame seeds to the mix, even when making pizza dough. It comforted me when he was being so picky. They're not that expensive, especially when you think how much pizzas are to buy, as well as decent bread. And they're embarassingly easy to use.