Worried about 18mo DS eating & BFing

[BunnyFastard]

Today DS has eaten:

• Two mouthfuls of pasta with pesto and tomatoes
• A bite of an organix gingerbread man
• One mini breadstick from a Dairylea dunker, none of the cheese (wouldn't normally buy these but my dad got it for him)
• Two BFs this morning

He has been offered:

• Weetabix with fruit & yogurt
• Aforementioned pasta at various intervals
• Fruit
• Rice cakes

He keeps wanting to BF but I am refusing to try and make him hungry enough to eat. He normally likes yogurt, pasta is his favourite, fruit he normally can't get enough of. He's gone off all food recently. He's not teething or ill.

Is this a toddler rite of passage or should I be concerned?

He doesn't drink much, prefers to BF, and also still BFs at night. Bit worried about this now. Possibly a separate issue to the eating but in the past he has BFed the same amount and still eaten loads of food.

Any advice anyone?

To add, he now HATES being put into his highchair. Makes for stressful attempts at getting him to eat so I've just been sitting on the floor while he plays with his toys and offering him meals/snacks/drinks. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

I'm doing this all wrong aren't I. :(

I would say keep breast feeding while he is off his food as otherwise he's gonna be getting nothing. Kids get fussy around this age their taste buds develop and they go off food they previously devoured. Stressing him out by putting him in high chair will probably just make it worse I would probably just take a step back and just let hon choose what and when he eats. Have a plate of apple on the coffee table at his level chopped up that if he wants to he can share with you. Sit him on you lap as u have your breakfast and he might pinch a bit of toast or something. Think most important thing u can do is take the stress out let him go at his own pace and get some interest back. Then you can start offering meals at meal times again when he's stopped messing about so much :)

Thanks for the advice, I do keep bowls of fruit/dry snacks around but these tend to get thrown on the floor and mushed up which is frustrating!

I was thinking that giving in to his desire to BF is teaching him that refusing food is ok because mummy will always top him up with milk, because I genuinely feel that his refusal to eat is down to him testing boundaries/making decisions etc - am I off the mark here? I want to keep BFing and have always fed on demand but I'm worried it's affecting his diet. He's always been a patchy eater, and I'm wondering if this is my fault because I've always BFed him so readily when he wanted it. :(

It is a tough one, on one hand maybe he is filling up but on the other it is the only thing he is getting and stopping will serve to only upset him and leave him hungry if he continues to refuse food. Have you tried taking him out for walks and fresh air and lots of activity to help get him hungry? Is there a friend / dp/ relative who can take him to the park and treat him to a little meal out , see if taking mummy milk out equation makes a difference?

same here OP. DS is still BF and feeds a lot at night, barely eats even though we offer him different things. Even in the nursery he goes through phases and often won't eat at all. I am worried it's my fault for continuing to breastfeed but can't bear to deny him - to be honest I don't think it would work anyway as he is away from me all day 5 days a week and still doesn't eat.

you are not alone.

No, the breastmilk will be giving him the extra he isn't getting from food, so it's actually important to keep feeding. It's okay for him to do this, it isn't a power thing, it's just a phase that lots of children go through.

My DS barely ate anything from about 1 until 22 months I tried everything, including cutting down on breastfeeding but this just made him more upset and more likely to refuse food. In the end he just sat down one day to dinner, ate everything and asked for more! Since then he hasn't stopped eating. I'm still breastfeeding him (although he only has it at bedtime now) and he's 3.8. He's very bright so the lack of food hasn't affected any milestones and he's now somewhere around the 75th centile for weight - I have no idea how that happened!

A book which I was recommended as being very reassuring and helpful in this situation was Carlos Gonzales' My Child Won't Eat. It was out of print unfortunately when I was stressing about it, but you can get it from amazon now or your local La Leche League group might have it in their library. If you have a group nearby, BTW, I really recommend them as the leaders at mine were really helpful especially when I had health visitors stressing at me. They also have a good information sheet which covers this issue.

This is the book

Same as Bertie, I tried to cut it down and he lost a bit of weight and was miserable. Went back to feeding when he wanted, although at 2yo I do limit it if I cba out of the house. He is now adding more foods he used to refuse and I'm getting him weighed every two months, he is putting on more now although still skinny.

They are not little computers you can just programme by hitting the right buttons. Sometimes they won't eat or won't go to sleep. Its personality I think, some are more obliging, others not!

I put his plate on an old towel down on the floor if I think he is going to squash raspberries into the cream carpet.

That book is great.

Don't have anyone round here, nearest family are 2 1/2 hours away, I'm a SAHM so there isn't the option for DH to feed him much. DS gets out every day and is active. Hoping it's just a phase, about to give in and BF him as I feel guilty he must be hungry!

Ooh, x-posted with Dueling, Bertie and Clever.

I feel better that I'm not alone, it is very hard to deal with and I feel very guilty, never knowing if I have made the wrong decision to feed him so long/at his cues at this age!

Bertie, thanks for the book rec, I will have a look in our BF library (am a BF peer supporter and too embarrassed to ask anyone I volunteer with ).

Wooden floors here so not too fussed about the mess (and the dog clears it up!), it's just frustrating that he doesn't eat!

Just keep doing what your doing :) he will eat and breastmilk is providing plenty in the mean time. If you start making it a big deal and forcing the issue and upsetting him then mealtimes will become a battle. If he's happy then I wouldn't worry too much right now toddlers get picky and survive on next to nothing for months :)

The thing is that the BF doesn't actually fill them up at that age anyway. DS used to wake in the night, feed, feed, feed then after about an hour or two sit up and sign "food" or say whatever his word was for breakfast at the time. It was like he half woke up and thought "Hungry - oh - milk will work" (we co-slept) and decided to have some, but the milk kept making him fall back asleep/he was too half asleep to notice that the milk wasn't filling him up and so he kept at it.

Also another time I remember I was refusing him milk because it was too close to dinner time and I didn't want him to feel full up. He got distressed and refused to eat his dinner. Ended up giving him a big feed, immediately afterwards he sat down to his dinner happily and ate most of it, more than he usually would have eaten.

Have you tried offering him finger foods whilst you are out and about with him in the buggy (if you use one!). Sometimes little ones I look after will just munch away without thought to what they are doing. At least that way you will know he's had something.

I have 3 yr old and 18 month old. Eating is something my children have always been good at, however we do have quite strict rules around eating.

I would not make him sit in his highchair - if he wants to be a big boy he can sit in a big not chair or on your knee. DH and I are very firm about the fact that mealtimes are sacred - there are only two things they are allowed to do and that is eat and chat. No toys allowed until they have at least tried their food.

If they don't eat a meal we take it away and throw it in the bin. Also if they don't eat they are not allowed any snacks until the next meal (although sometimes we do allow apple juice).

I think with food you have to start as you mean to go on. If this doesn't work then I am not sure what the solution - this is just what DH and I do and it works.

Definitely disagree that he is 'testing boundaries'. He wants food, drink, comfort and cuddles from you, why deny him that?

And seconded, it's an excellent book, the Carlos Gonzalez one. In summary: your job is to offer them healthy food choice, their job is to choose what and how much to eat of it. And your son is choosing breastmilk at the moment.

Breastfed all 3 dc's till they were at least 2. The minute they stopped breastfeeding, they all doubled what they ate at mealtimes. I couldn't believe how little they ate at 18 months but they are all healthy and fine. If there are no illnesses or anything, I wouldn't worry as even a little breastmilk seems to go a remarkably long way. Also, I think that it's quite common at 18 m's for them to be too busy exploring to want to eat and then they top up on bmilk. I found that aggravating and weaned daytime feeds (apart from naptime) at about this point. Breastfeeding toddlers successfully is all about doing it on your terms IMO.

Also, my DS was like Bertibotts's and I remembering offering him solids occasionally at night in sheer desperation to get him to sleep. Dd's were often thirsty and a bottle of water by the bed sorted a lot of night waking. By the time I had dd3 I refused to engage with the whole latch on latch off toddler thing at night - I would just refuse and keep offering water and cuddles till they dropped off. After a couple of nights they would stop waking.

Bertie - we co-sleep too and it is just like that with us, thank you for reassuring me.

Blackbird - yes, come to think of ithe ate a packet of prawn spiral things (I know, healthy ) from Boots the other day because I was panicking we were late home to give him lunch, he also ate a bit of a Philadelphia and ham sandwich in the buggy, will definitely try taking healthy snacks out and about to do this more - thanks!

Nooby - we only have stools as our dining chairs are in MIL's garage after a cross-country move, he can't do stools but perhaps I'll try and freecycle some chairs so he has the option, although he was sitting in a 'big chair' at my dad's at the weekend and still refused so who knows!

Iammoving - I am glad that you say it isn't testing boundaries, it's easy to forget that he is so tiny and immature sometimes as he's constantly doing new things/saying new words and growing up so fast, I will keep on with the BF on demand and try to take the food issue more at his pace using some of the advice above. :)

We have exactly the same things with the no bf = no eating but having a bf just before dinner and then eating. Not what you expect!

noobydoo I don't want to sound dismissive of your advice but how do you know you don't just have good eaters anyway? You can't go back and have different rules and see if they still eat, so its always an unknown about whether its you or them, iyswim. With my son he really was eating hardly any food for a long time and the professionals said offer snacks, offer food while playing, offer things you know they will eat if they won't eat what is served etc. I started off doing all the sitting at the table, no distractions, eating together, this is dinner and thats it and it did not work in our case (see above about losing weight).

Maria, I'm torn as to whether I want to night-wean or wean from daytime feeds, as the night feeding affects his sleep if I refuse (will wake properly and scream til BF) and the daytime feeds seem to affect his diet! I was hoping it would just all level out naturally but perhaps I'll go with trying to limit the night feeds by sending DH to sleep in with him with sippy cup so the milk option isn't there. We did try it last night actually but he screamed so much I ended up having him the rest of the night and I'm not into CC, CIO etc. Perhaps we need to be stricter. Breakfast is probably his worst meal so I'm sure he must be full from feeding in the night. Thanks for your comments.

It will level out naturally eventually. I also started bringing simple snacks, bread and butter sandwich type thing, to bed in case DS was hungry in the night - I got slated for this on MN at the time but it was a phase, and he's been sleeping through consistently now for over a year.

I did find that I got into a habit of latching desperately onto any opportunity that he initiated an interest in food so he did a lot of grazing/snacking and when he was about 2 I got stricter on it and decided food was only for set meal/snack times (which were never more than 2 hours apart) and it did seem to help, but then I don't know that the grazing was that problematic in the first place.

Some people just don't like eating when they've just woken up - DCs are the same! DS never used to eat upon waking and would have to be up for an hour or so before asking for/accepting food. Also if he has a set bedtime make sure dinner isn't too late. 2 hours before bedtime at least seems to work for us, otherwise he's too tired to eat properly and then is more likely to be hungry at night. You can try a snack before bed too. Neither me or DP feel much like eating first thing in the morning so I quite understand the breakfast issue.

I can't contemplate not being interested in eating first thing - I have to eat breakfast straight away or my blood sugar goes nuts, although DH isn't big on breakfast. I realised DS just wasn't eating it first thing so now I do tend to leave it an hour or so but often he still just doesn't want it.

You sound, Bertie, as though you have taken a very relaxed approach to it and I am generally quite laid back with most things but it's gone on so long I started to panic. I don't see much of a problem with grazing as long as the snacks are varied and healthy, so perhaps this isn't the issue I'm making it out to be, especially at his age. We're not heavily into routines as a family anyway so I don't think forcing the issue will benefit anyone. Thanks again for the reassurance.

We are in a similar phase to what you describe I havnt read all of the posts so sorry in advance if i repeat. Teething has been the cause of our phase dd is 17 months and just had 8 teeth in as many weeks, lost her appitite for anything except breast at somepoints we were down to 3 feeds and rarely any night feeds, but it all came back night feeds and constsntly lifting my top up for milk etc. Even at one point the highchair put her in and she would have a huge meltdown. It may not be the cause for you but even with snacks she can sometimes eat half have some water ask for a bf then eat the rest.