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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

14 months old suddenly becoming a fussy eater

7 replies

DialMforMummy · 05/12/2011 21:20

Hi,
DS, 14 months, has suddenly become fussy with food. He used to enjoy all sort of foods but I noticed that in the evening he often refuses to eat what is on offer apart from sweet things (yogurt or fruit puree) or bread sticks in the evening.
AFAIK he eats well at nursery and last week end, he ate well at lunch.
I realise it is just another phase -sigh- and try not to get wound up about it and was wondering of any of you has encountered such behaviour and how you handled it.
Thank you.

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whomovedmychocolate · 05/12/2011 21:22

Teeth. Teeth. Teeth. Teeth. Teeth. Teeth.

That is all. It will pass.

Also they do it to rile you sometimes.

Ignore it - just keep offering food and he will either eat it or not. Pay not a blind bit of attention to his favourites. He'll be fine! :)

Kiwiinkits · 06/12/2011 01:43

Yup, Whomoved is right. Just ignore it - don't treat his rejection of food as a bad thing or a naughty thing. Similarly don't treat eating food as a triumph. Stay as 'neutral' as you can: basically just walk away from the highchair and let him get on with eating/playing with the food. This way he will develop joy in eating and tasting new things. And trust that he will eat what he needs to eat. Keep offering simple things that he can eat with his own hands. Some of the 'food rejection' behaviour at this age is more about his desire to start controlling the world around him than about the food itself. So allow him the joy of controlling his own food intake.
By the way, my DD of 15 months is going through exactly the same 'phase'. This advice came from Penelope Leach's book and seems to be working really well for us. Previously we would sort of tell her off for throwing food on the floor. Now we just ignore it and take away her bowl when she starts giving signals she's had enough to eat. Yesterday we had lots of success with sticks of asparagus, which she dipped into a bowl of tomato sauce! Who knew that would work!?

capecath · 06/12/2011 15:07

Our 15-month-old DS is usually a machine when it comes to food and ploughs through anything and everything we give him at a cheetah's pace. I noticed recently though he has started to get fussier with his dinners (which I suppose is also when he gets the most variety of flavours). I have also realised though that when he has too much to eat during the day he is less keen to eat his dinner. You could try cutting out/down the afternoon snack if he has one which may mean he is more hungry at dinner time, if you're particularly wanting him to have his dinner? This seems to be working for us. I had read loads of advice not to fuss if he doesn't want his food, and so I didn't (even though I was panicking inside that he might wake up in the middle of the night hungry!), and sure enough he was absolutely fine.

tablefor3 · 07/12/2011 18:24

There's also meant to be a development thing where they sudden get fussy; supposedly to save themselves from eating all the poisonous berries stone-age man had to contend with.

Don't underestimate how much their appetite varies even day to day; so ravenous yesterday or at nursery, picky with parents at home on the weekend.

As others said, best to not make eating a battle ground for about 100 different reasons, not least your sanity!

wildflowersummermeadow · 07/12/2011 20:10

I just had this problem recently and received some wonderful advice on here. I added an update to my thread yesterday so if you scroll down a page or so, you will see the history.

My 14 month old suddenly stopped eating, and I was encouraged to try letting him feed himself. It was exactly the right advice - he just didn't want me to feed him with a spoon any more.

As soon as I let him eat more finger food and have his own spoon to fling stuff about, he started eating again. I think he had a sudden development in consciousness, you know the way they do, and he realised he wanted to be in control of proceedings.

Actually as soon as he is distracted throwing his food around I manage to spoon so much food into him now while he's not noticing he eats more than my 3 year old. So he's not really in control but he THINKS he is which is of course the point!

Everything everyone else has said is also spot on too, but I wanted to add my experiences because it worked an absolute treat for me.

RitaMorgan · 07/12/2011 20:15

My 16 month old is similar. I tend not to give him a mid-afternoon snack, just some milk, and if he doesn't eat any of his dinner then I don't offer sweet stuff as an alternative. If he doesn't want to eat then he just goes and has his bath and has a cup of milk after.

I haven't found that not eating dinner has any effect on night waking actually. I think at this age you can trust them to eat when they're hungry - sometimes they just aren't hungry for dinner.

Ceeceecarr · 01/11/2017 16:44

I'm so pleased I found this, my 15 month old has suddenly stopped wanting dinner and will only pick at two things - potato and broccoli!! She is constantly teething and also seems to FOREVER have a cold so I think a combination of it all is to blame for the change. I hope so anyway, but so glad I'm not the only one worrying my babies weight will plummet if she doesn't eat a whole meal lol 👍

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