16mo refusing food

[Hollysmummy0212]

My DD has recently decided that she no longer wants to eat her lunch or dinner. She eats breakfast fine (normally porridge) but when it comes to lunch or tea, she doesn't want either. She's never been a great eater, she was EBF, suffered very bad reflux (which was never properly diagnosed so we suffered with her screaming and generally being very unhappy for several months) and when we started weaning at 5.5 months, she was quite happy with her smooth purees and finger food but hated anything lumpy. Quite often she would have lunch but not bother with tea or vice versa. I lost count of the amount of meals I threw away and for weeks on end she would only eat chicken curry or lentils. She started nursery at 11 months old and we saw a dramatic improvement with her eating there - she would eat "normal" food, fork mashed to start with and now they just chop it into small bits for her. However with me she was still refusing to eat chopped up food, a roast dinner for example would be meat, roast potatoes, veg, gravy all chucked into the blender and whizzed up together. It wouldn't be really smooth, there were lumps and chunks in it but that was how she preferred to eat it with me and also her grandparents (who look after her for one day a week). She's never eaten a sandwich with me, she'll pick at the bread and throw out whatever the filling is.
About 10 days ago she had a 24 hour tummy bug and it took her a while to get her appetite back. However when I went to collect her from nursery on Friday they commented that she had only eaten half her lunch with a bit of persuasion, no pudding and no snack at tea time. When I got her home she devoured a slice of toast and a fruit pot. I had noticed on Thursday that she hadn't wanted either of lunch (roast beef) or tea (fish pie) I had done her but she had about 4 fruit pots during the day and some goodies snacks (at her mealtimes after she had refused her proper food). This weekend was much the same - we were with friends yesterday, had a picnic lunch and a bbq tea. DD wasn't interested in either but did have her fruit pot and some more goodies snacks and rice cakes. Today we've had the same problem, refused her lunch of chicken stew and her tea of fish fingers and cheesy rice balls but scoffed all of a home-made rice pudding.
She is teething I think (canines) so not sure if this is making it very hard for her to tolerate anything hard or that needs to be chewed against her gums (hence the rice cakes, goodies snacks and rice pudding as this is soft) but this morning at church she ate a whole custard cream so I'm not entirely convinced this is the reason! Has anyone else had any experience of this? I know she won't starve herself but it is frustrating. I used to rely on nursery being the one place where I knew she would eat well/without fussiness because of the peer pressure from the others but it looks like even that might be failing now! As an aside, she has also very suddenly developed a dislike of going into the garden, something she used to love and now screams and screams when I put her down on the grass to put the washing out. She won't even play with her sand/water table on the patio, even with encouragement!

My dd is one and has just recovered from a two week long tummy bug. She ate practically nothing for a fortnight and now it's like I've going back to weaning a baby. She won't eat anything lumpy, refuses anything homemade in favour of fruit pots and Ella pouches.
I think she is teething too.
You have my sympathy it's so frustrating. She does like soup tho so i am getting veggies in and fruit and yoghurt.

My 14.and a half month old eats well generally, but has her fads. For a while recently she would only eat bannanas and bread products in our house. She eats amazingly at nursery, though. And today yummed up a cheese sandwich in a cafe which she'd at best have picked at at home. She's had a few tummy bugs, during which she would only have breast milk and plain biscuits, once for over a week. She will often have a fruit pot when she refuses other stuff. What I'm trying to say, is that I think, as long as your dd seems fine, and is not shedding loads of weight, she will be fine. I lived on cheese, Apple and crisps, as a child, and am ok now.

Thanks Purplehonesty and neontetra. I did wonder if she was still suffering with her bug however given that last Monday and Wednesday at nursery she ate fine and we've not had any D&V (touch wood!) I'm not overly worried but it is very frustrating! Thankfully at the moment it's not impacting too much on her sleep, other than waking at about 6ish rather than the 7ish that I would like! I think what is also confusing is that when I spoke to the HV the other week, she said not to give snacks etc between meals if she was refusing meals. Well that's easier said than done when you've got a grumpy toddler who really doesn't want anything other than a fruit pot, some rice cakes or goodies crisps!

It can take a while for them to recover from d&v and if she's teething that going to be doubly hard.

I'd tackle the teething first. Give her some ibruprofen about 30 mins before her main meal and apply a teething gel, like dentinox, just before she eats. Have you tried letting her chew on a cold, clean, wet flannel too? She might also like a frozen banana or a lolly for pudding or a snack

Also how much and what type of milk is she having? This can have a big effect on appetite.

If she is refusing meals but eating snacks could you offer less snacks? Know this may be a battle but but she sounds like a bright girl sjo has worked out how to get her calories, just the way she likes them and get in into a tizz at the same time.

I'd stop the fruit pots and the other snacks she likes for a couple of days and offer her something savoury instead. Try cheese straws, hummus with carrot sticks, cream cheese with a baby breadstick, a strip of meat, or a couple of cubes of cheese.

Don't worry too much about the refused meals, se won't starve herself (and isn't). Most toddlers go through a fussy stage, its how you handle it that counts

She doesn't have much milk. Once I started to wean her, she pretty much started to drop her milk feeds herself. We stopped BF completely when she was 13 mo and up until now, she has had 5oz Aptamil toddler 3 times a week when she was at nursery. She's not very keen on cows milk so doesn't have much of that to drink other so I don't think it is the milk. Interesting point about the teething and giving her something to ease the pain of this before she has her main meal, I'll give that a go. Interestingly at nursery today they said she ate loads of breadsticks with hummus for snack, all of her lunch but no pudding and then all of her tea! Plus when she got home she had a slice of toast, two yogurts, two fruit pots and a mini banana muffin and they said that although she only had 1oz of her aptamil, she is starting to drink more milk with her snack. I'll give the cheese straws ago as well, haven't thought of that before!

Have you tried just relaxing completely and just offering what you have? Ie no blending/ mashing etc..

Try making it casual ie you eat and let her sit on your lap or just give her some bits off your plate and no fuss if she doesn't eat?

Tried that, she's quite often interested in either what I eat or DH eats and we both sit her on our laps and let her take food from our plate. Often, she picks a bit up, looks at it, says no and then throws it on the floor or back on the plate and then gets down. The only exception to this is rice or couscous, this she loves!

Once well I would be tempted to go hard core. None of those goodie snack things ( filling and sweet), and only offer x3 meals and a snack per day. Ie breakfast, lunch, 3pm snack, dinner.

Is she snacking a lot?

This is the thing, she's not snacking lots, at least I don't think so. A mid morning snack and then a mid afternoon snack. She did better toay, ate lunch and pudding but didn't want tea!

She may be eating enough for her age. Remember a portion is the size of the fist.

So a 16 months dinner should be approx 3 of their fists which is quite small, ie: one small piece brocoli, small piece fish, 1 new potato