18month refusing to eat dinner!

[Noddy1990]

Evening!!

So I'm at my wits end. My beautiful 18month old daughter Eliza is refusing her dinner at the moment. She will put it in her mouth then spit it out?

She never use to be so fussy this is all of a sudden. I have no idea if it's teething tbh! I just want to know who else is going through this and if they have tips on getting to the other side!

Average food diary
Breakfast porridge with blueberries
Mid morning: milk
Lunch: half a slice of bread and filling (today's as maritime) and an Ella's kitchen flap jack bar
Afternoon snack: raisins and a Ella's kitchen pouch (today green one)

We've stopped allowing her snacks after 4pm.

Yeh dinner wasn't a success. 👎🏻

After 30mins of trying I gave her Greek you onits own and she was happy to eat that.

I don't get stressed with her nor tell he off at dinner time. I also let her play with food and feed herself all to no avail.

Any positive advice would be welcomed!!!

k x x X

She probably isn't that hungry. This might be weird but I sometimes give dinner as the first meal - as DD eats it easily when she is hungry in the morning - and because she is a baby she diesn't know people don't normally have dinner foods for breakfast. Then we have porridge at dinner time. She doesn't always eat much of the porridge as she tends to be more hungry in the morning.

What’s the reason for the afternoon snack? Whenever I read about children’s eating habits on MN, I am always struck to most people seem to offer two snacks a day. I don’t offer my DS any snacks, just 3 meals (he’s only slightly younger than your DC). It made me worried that I wasn’t offering him enough food so I asked the Dietician about it - she said that’s really no need for additional snacks. Could it be that she’s not hungry enough for dinner? Could you try cutting out the afternoon snack and see if that makes any difference?

I don’t think she’s hungry enough either. At this age children are brilliant as self regulating so try not to stress. Try offering the dinner type meal at lunchtime or even breakfast as Pure suggests.

Have you read Help! my Child Won’t Eat! too?

I had to stop giving my 18 month old snack for the same reason I don’t like feeding him unhealthy food but you can get veggie fingers which look very similar to chicken nuggets he thinks there a treat and will happily eat them also liked dipping things and to my surprise will eat hummous, hope these ideas help

Thank you for your feedback! Oh veggie nuggets I am definitely going to pick some of those up! We are the same only like giving her healthy options. We are strict in the fact we don't allow her choc, sweets, fruit juices etc and find we get negative comments from family members allot!! Saying she's missing out! Sooo frustrating! Also teething is tricky to notice at this age as her symptoms have changed from being a 6month old. Just when you think you are getting to grips with being a parent the child changes and it's like being back at square one again!! X x

My mum recently got my son some sweet potato smiley faces from Iceland too and he has them with the veggie fingers he thinks he’s having a great treat deffo would try with a picky eater