ds's nappies are horrific, I think it's his diet but what can I do?

[Magneto]

Around the time ds turned one he stopped eating, it became a battle to get anything down him and as a result he stopped sleeping through and started needing milk in the middle of the night again. He's now 18 months and while his eating is slightly better he still has this night feed.

His poos seem to go in a cycle of being solid and relatively normal looking and then being foul and smelly and not solid (but not completely liquid) which I think is due to what he eats.

In total he has about 18-20oz of milk a day, one bottle before bed and one bottle anytime between midnight-7am depending on what time he wakes. Throughout the day he has water to drink, occasionally he has concentrated orange or apple juice or squash but not often.

For breakfast he always has one weetabix, plus then I offer him some fruit, toast, then some of whatever dh or I are eating for breakfast. Sometimes he will eat all of this, other times just nibble or not be interested at all. I offer him this much at breakfast because after midday he just stops being interested in food.

The list of the rest of the foods he will eat is this;
Pasta (with sauce or not doesn't matter, but he won't eat any of the meat or veg), rice, quiche, scrambled egg, sausages, sandwiches, either cheese/cheese spread/ham or chicken, crumpets, breadsticks/crackers, soft cheese like dairy lee triangles, yoghurt, rice pudding, any pureed fruit but only apples, grapes and bananas unpureed.

And aside from all types of cake or pudding this is all he will eat.

I always offer him some form of veg, cooked, raw, mashed etc etc but he won't even try it. He picks out the vegetables from the pasta, which I cut extremely small! He also won't go near a potato or cooked meat.

So I think I need to try and sort his diet out before I can take away the night feed again (please correct me if I am wrong!) but how do I do it if he won't even try other food?

Is he having white pasta, bread and rice? If so change that...as for the veg...I wish I knew...have you tried cucumber and grated carrots? My fussy 3 year old loves them! You might try letting him "help" get the food ready...give him some bits to put on a plate and even help to make a veggy pizza...tell him he's cooking. My friends son did this at Montessori nursery from very young and he loved it.

I think that is a pretty good mix of foods actually, yes would be better if he ate some veg but they don't have to eat every kind of food under the sun. Just keep giving him it and one day he might.

My ds never ate much for aaaaages and advice I got was keep giving him stuff you know he will eat plus whatever you normally have - doesn't matter if it is a weird combination of food, they are too young to care.

Most important thing is don't make it a battle. Keep the atmosphere calm and content, enjoy your own food and don't make a fuss that he must eat certain things.

I was still breastfeeding and was advised to cut down his milk to try and encourage him to eat more solids. Didn't work in our case but there is a school of thought that some of them just stick to what they know. I know on the sleep board some people suggest watering down bottles of milk so its less of an incentive to wake for it.

If he eats pasta and sauce make a sauce with veg and/or meat in it and puree it. He'll be eating veg without knowing :)

I agree with Eviepoo

Thanks for the replies.

I made dh do some experimenting with sauces today along that same line of thought

I will try changing the pasta and rice to wholegrain and see if that helps, we mostly eat brown bread anyway (unless I'm craving bacon butties!).

When it first started I'm afraid I did make a bit of a battle out of it but soon realised the error of my ways! I've pretty much left him to it since then and it has got a bit better.

I'm going to wait until I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks to sort the night feeds out so I don't end up even more tired in work, then I'll try giving water instead and resettling without a feed. Must remember to buy some ear plugs for that

Could be lactose intolerant?

How do I get him tested for that? Or what do I replace his milk with?

my son used to have massive poo blow-outs resulting in a complete change of clothes (and sometimes a hairwash!) up to 4 times a day. I was advised to put him on goat's milk formula (nannycare which you can get in Waitrose - don't know if it's more widely available) and that helped hugely. I did that at about 8 mo until he was about 18mo. He's now on normal milk (age 2.5) just because I was too mean to carry on paying for nannycare and is still a bit prone to horrid nappies if he's had too much milk.

that list of food he'll eat doesn't sound too bad to me. Cut down on his milk a bit. Puree the veg on a sauce and give him grated carrot and sweetcorn just to get him used to it, doesn't really matter if he eats it or not if he's getting purred veg. try him on avocado and hummous.

Cut out puddings excpet fruit and yoghurt

Your DS sounds almost the same as mine with his diet, but he does sleep through and usually his poos are fine. He has warm milk first thing in the morning and a bottle before bed (he's 15 months). He won't touch meat, in fact sometimes I think all he lives on is cheese, bread, pasta and eggs and it totally stresses me out that he's not getting enough vitamins and nutrients. It totally frustrates me because up until age 1 he ate almost anything when it was mashed up on mixed together and now he eyes everything up suspiciously! No help at all really, sorry :) !

Sounds like toddler diaorrhea (sp??!) to me. Mine have all had it and my DD aged 19 months currently had it. I started a thread on Children's Health about it the other day and someone posted this really helpful Link.

Apparently a low fat diet can make it worse. My DD is certainly a fussy eater and really only wants to eat fruit all day...I struggle to get anything particularly fatty into her which probably doesn't help.

Just a thought - would he eat vegetable pancakes? Pureed veg mixed with an egg and enough flour to make a batter, then fried in butter.

My guess would be it's the Weetabix and the brown bread that's causing the runny poos.

My DS is now 3, he's had Weetabix for breakfast almost every day since he was 1ish. The days he doesn't have Weetabix he has Ready Brek instead. It's only recently that I've realised that the couple of days after he's had Ready Brek that his poos are much more solid. Weetabix poos are the worst. Slimy, smelly and with crumbs in. Does that sound like your DS's?

Changing white foods to brown, such as pasta, bread and rice IME could make the runny poo problem worse. I give DS brown bread, pasta and rice from time to time, but I won't do it on a permanent basis until his digestive system is a bit more mature. The white stuff seems to make the poo a bit more bulky and solid IYSWIM.

I can't see anything wrong with what your DS eats, just needs a bit more fruit and veg. I suggest trying a different cereal, such as Ready Brek and white bread instead of brown for a few days and see if that makes a difference.

Could he be teething? When DD was teething with molars she would have a couple of days of runny poo and then back to normal. She would also be off her food and irritable. Lasted over 4 months.

I'm sure you've tried this but shepherd's pie is a great favourite. I cook up the mince and freeze portions. I tend to serve it with or without potatoes.

You can put veg in baked stuff too - wholemeal muffins made with grated carrot and apple are lovely (have just this minute munched one!) or courgette loaf is very nice.

BTW I believe it is good for kids to have some wholemeal stuff but not exclusively because under 5s don't need as much fibre as adults - it can fill them up too much (advice from NHS birth to five book).

Whenever ds has gone through a picker phase, I have gone to the supermarket with him and picked out something new to him - look at something like asparagus maybe, to dip in a boiled egg? Also taking the focus away from the dining table and having a picnic on the bedroom floor - you can put out things he will definitely eat alongside other stuff like cherry tomatoes and sometimes they will pick up unusual stuff - don't know why the change of scene helps but it does, sometimes!

I do agree with the others that say your ds is eating quite a good range of stuff, though.