Power struggles or something else? Baby won't eat - anything at all!

[bonbonpixie]

DD is almost 16 months. She is hitting all developmental milestones but she will barely eat.
She is my first and I really am beside myself with worry. Mealtimes are increasingly stressful for everybody. I really feel that we need some professional advice either from a dietician or paediatrician but HV is insisting that its just her age and not something to worry about....
So anyone's opinion would be very welcome!

Details are:
Currently all she will eat in her highchair is fruit, typically a handful of grapes, blueberries, strawberries etc. she will more or less accept any fruit. Except banana - this she just squishes up.

She won't accept more than two baby spoons of anything wet - casseroles, minced meats with sauce, soups. If fact generally when placed in front of her these just go straight on the floor without even being tasted.

Until a few weeks ago she would accept plain pasta shells and plain cooked vegetables, roasted chicken, hot smoked salmon and white fish. Now all of these are thrown off without being tasted.

Breakfast is the worst meal of the day, as she will not eat any cereal, dry or with milk. Pancakes, muffins, toast of any kind is thrown. Until recently she would accept maybe half a yogurt and now that too is being refused.

We offer her a incredibly wide variety of food. But she is rejecting almost all of it.

She won't accept cows milk as a drink. We have tried all other varieties. Essentially all she wants is to be breastfed- all day and all night. I've tried doing it her way and there is no change in her non eating, I've tried saying no and refusing to let her bf and equally this has no effect.

She was never very excited by food whilst weaning, but did eat a little and until march was maintaining weight on the 50 centile now after 6 months of extreme fussiness she is on the 9th for weight. Her length doesn't seem to have budged in months either. Before she was between 75-91th and now she is hoovering above the 25th. Both DH and I are tall.

I have tried playing with her at mealtimes, distraction etc. This will generally work for one spoonful only. I've tried feeding her all the floor - and leaving little plates all over the place, she nibbles and then throws the contents over the floor- don't think I can scrub avocado out of the carpets again!

We try to eat as a family, when DH is here (he works away frequently) but DD seems to get furious when we eat and ignore her?! Maybe ignore is the wrong term... She is easily distracted from what is her meal when we are eating too and wants what we have. This isn't a problem as generally we are all eating the same meal - and when offered food from our plates she instantly throws it.

Every single meal ends in her screams and twisting round in her highchair. If removed she then screams and cries at our feet.

I really hoped to stop bf soon as feeding through the night is really crippling me with tiredness and also I guess filling her up with bf too much.

She is at nursery two full days per week- soon to be three full days. They describe her as a fitful eater, sometimes will eat, sometimes not. Rarely they tell me she has eaten well.

Today my HV told me that i should just ignore her completely at mealtimes. Although I understand the theory I can't simply stand by and see my beautiful little girl waste away.

Please please does anyone have any advice?

The wait for any referral here I imagine is quite lengthy, we have private health cover so I am considering asking our GP for a private referral to a children's dietician or private paediatrician if such a thing exists here. Or perhaps this would be an overreaction?

Any advice at all would be welcome!!
Thank you

I don't think a referral to a paediatrician would be an over-reaction. You cold at least then be reassured that there is no developmental reason behind the eating issues.

In the meantime you need to stop offering her food, particularly trying to feed her with a spoon. She needs to choose to take the food.

Sit her at the table with the food in sight but out of reach. Offer her what she asks for whether from your plate or a serving dish then don't respond at all to what she does with it.

Put a clean tablecloth or mat under her high chair. If she throws something on the floor leave it until she asks for more then pick it up and offer it back to her. If she refuses it just smile and carry on with your own meal. If she takes it and throws it on the floor again make her wait for a moment before you pick it up.

The trick is to err slightly on the side of denying her access to the food to throw, thereby making it more attractive. It is really counter-intuitive but it is what you need to do.

Never distract her in order to get her to eat. She needs to be choosing what goes in her mouth consciously.

Although I understand the theory I can't simply stand by and see my beautiful little girl waste away.

You need to get over this ^

By encouraging her to eat you are making her eat less. If you don't want her fall further behind you need to stop all encouragement and pressure to eat.

It is totally counter-productive. The reason she eats at all at nursery is that the staff are busy looking after other children and don't have emotional investment in her eating. Therefore there is little attention and pressure at meal times. You need to do the same thing at home.

Both mine went from b being good eaters to increasingly picky from 18 months on. I believe it's a normal developmental stage for them to become more cautious from that age on. My advice...

1 get a copy of My Child Won't Eat by Carlos Gonzales and read it. It will reassure you a lot.
2 keep bf her as much as you can. It's a compete food for humans of any age and makes up all the shortfalls in her solid diet.
3 accept that it is not your job to make her eat. Just as with bf, you can only offer appropriate food,b it's up to her to eat it or not.trust her not to starve herself.

Dd2 was like that. which was a bit of a shock after dd1 who ate anything.

She refused solids until about 8/9 months by just plain refusing to open her mouth, or if you got it in, spitting it out before swallowing.
At 18 months the only food she ate consistantly well was sweetcorn.
So if she'd been 2-3 days with hardly eating anything I would give her a pile of sweetcorn.
The first meal she ate most of was a McD Happy meal. I remember crying with happiness that she'd eaten 2 chicken nuggets and half a portion of fries. Proved she could eat if she wanted to.
She also refused anything with some texture. So she'd eat total solids like toast, or she'd eat slop-the 4 month jars from the shop. She wouldn't take even home blended stuff as we couldn't get it fine enough. At 18 months her typical meals went:
Breakfast: 1 dry mini wheetabix. Drink of water
Lunch: 1/4 piece of toast (crusts left), yoghurt
Dinner: 1/2 4 month jar of meal, pile of sweetcorn.
She had breastmilk twice a day too at that time, and usually once at night.

Fast forward to age 9yo. She eats anything and everything in quantity. Very rarely won't try something and usually likes it. She has a very good balanced diet, and is very sensible in what/when she snacks.

Dd1 now is the one who doesn't eat anything.

This book is good. One thing it challenges is normal portion sizes. Perhaps your expectations for the quantity she can eat at one sitting are too high?

I was going to second the advice above and say that you need to take your attention away from your daughter during mealtimes. My daughter eats like a bird most of the time and I had to learn to trust her appetite for food in the same way as I trust her thirst for drinks.
I try to make sure we only have healthy food on offer (no yoghurts for pudding/rewards etc, dinner is dinner) Although she is thin she has continued to follow her growth curve so perhaps you have different issues at play.

I'd say at your DD's age, breastmilk and fruit sounds an ok diet for the short term so I would be glad you can use breastfeeding to take the pressure off mealtimes for a bit, rather than resent it. Let her discover food at her own speed when she doesn't feel under pressure.

If you are spoonfeeding her, I would stop. Its normal and good for her to need to explore the food herself and then eat it when she is ready. If you can't get avocado off the carpets then don't offer avocado, at this age most things will be thrown. You say you normally eat the same things and eat together so she will learn how to behave from your example at a time which is appropriate for her.

I find this age really difficult as she is old enough to want control of what is done to her but not old enough to be able to reason with. I found a combination of letting them have some control and distraction (although more for buggy refusals etc than food).

If she isn't breakfast person, that's up to her. If she is feeding all night I think you are setting yourself up for an argument if you try to make her eat when she isn't hungry in the morning. My 2.10yo DD has a very light breakfast (eg a quarter of a piece of bread) and a mid morning snack.

From the people I know, its perfectly normal for their appetite to massively decrease after they turn 1. When a group of us were going through this someone found out that their development and growth has suddenly slowed down so they don't need to eat as much. However I think a referral is a good idea based on her not gaining weight and height.

Btw, I don't mean keep bf at night at all costs. If you are ready to night wean then address that as a separate issue. Jay Gordon had s good article on night weaning for older children, look it up. Night weaning doesn't have to mean total weaning.

Good luck

This is my son, its so tiring!

I have tried everything imaginable he just doesn't like eating

I have tried everything imaginable he just doesn't like eating hmm

My DD2 feels the same. I've had to fight the urge to persuade her to eat and ignore HV and Peadiatrician getting twitchy about centiles.

I've also had to read the riot act toDH, my mother and school about trying to make her eat.

By the skin of my teeth I've managed to prevent major eating issues.

She's now 10 and still asks to get down from the table after two mouthfuls at times. She's knows that's it until the next meal and is OK with that. She simply doesn't enjoy the process very much.

My ds 2.2 is a bit like this, although I am lucky that the limited meals he likes are healthy. He loves casserole and stew and cottage pie so I do at least know he's getting a good meal a day. He also likes cheesy tomato soup so has that most days for lunch.
It's still very stressful though, especially if we are out or away and I can't use the slow cooker to do him his casserole! There's very little else he will eat and absolutely won't even try. He was never really interested in food at any point and if there's something more interesting going on, he won't eat at all, hungry or not.
He also never finishes a meal or snack and seems to only have a small appetite despite the fact he's on the 98th centile for height and weight. He wouldn't even eat a whole bar of choc or packet of crisps if I let him!! Up until a month ago I was still bf him alot in the day and my mum reckoned this was what was limiting his appetite. I'm also eager to concieve again so have weaned across the day and now he only has morning and evening feed. It hasn't affected his appetite one jot. He possibly drinks more than he did before but def doesn't eat more. So I'm not sure weaning us the answer and it does give a fussy eater more nutrients that they wouldn't otherwise get.
I've chilled out about the whole thing in the last few weka though and just accepted he hasn't got a big appetite. Things have been better since I changed my attitude and I have noticed he's tried a few new things.
If I was you, I'd keep going with a bit of breast milk and just ride it out. She might just naturally be a small eater.
Good luck op!