22 month old refusing all food except toast. its been 3 weeks now and its driving me nuts!

[somethingsticky]

it started with an ear infection. she stopped eating all together when she was poorly. she has had her ABs and seems better but still wont eat like she used to. meal times have always been an issue. (weaning drove me to ADs as she refused food and lost lots of weight) so now I don't stress and if she doesn't eat she doesnt eat but how long can I let her eat nothing but toast??? she is already very underweight and her ribs are showing through her clothes!

spread exciting nutritious things on it?
egg, beans, tuna mayo - anything up to and including shepherds' pie

Does she drink alot of milk? If so she could be filling up on this, so try cutting the milk back, replacing it with water or juice and see how that goes.

anything smeared on the toast is removed or refused. she has about 6floz of milk in an evening so I don't think thats the problem either, she IS hungry but tantrums to the point of hysteria if it isn't toast on offer. sometimes I give it sometimes I don't. she will go to bed hungry willingly. she has had 3 spoonfuls of beans for lunch in exchange for 3 peices of toast. my god this is hard work!!

my ds did this when he had gor over illness he would only eat bread and butter or toast same at moment as just got over croupm he'll only eat toast or bread and butter he is 3

dont look anxious put toast out with very small dinner of something else and leave her to it dont stand over her telling her to eat it

just let her pick on her own and then walk in and praise if she has so much as touched it

it takes my ds few weeks to get appetite back to normal so as long as she is eating something domt fret to much as the more they feel pressured to eat it they wont

all you can do is keep offering lots of praise and walk off until eating habits improve

i find my ds will eat more if im not there watching over him or telling him to eat he feels more relaxed

good luck it is worrying but if she is eating then she will be ok add eggs to dip toast into

small bowl of beans with a spoon in etc

Ok. What do you think of increasing her milk for a while, this may help to fill her up and be not so hungry and cranky. Give her toast without any fuss on 2 meals and on the third meal try to put something on it, or on the side, like egg or beans.
If she is less cranky and knows you have "let up" on her, she may be more receptive to this.
I know what you're going through, DD went through a stage like this that lasted for weeks and weeks.

dd2 went through a phase like this. I got some little ramekin dishes and filled them with lots of different gooey stuff e.g. beans, houmous, mayo, tomatoes, (yes even shepherds pie) I found if she was left to her own devices to 'dunk' she did really well. Try not to get too anxious though.

How long has she actually been well for? I find that my dd's appetite (also very varied!) tends to increase very gradually but not as soon as she is better, more like a week after. Could you do eggy bread? that looks like toast and may deceive her! What about giving her less toast but with bits on the side (not on top so she can ignore if she wants to) like tuna, egg, or food that she used to like. Or do half a slice with peanut butter and half without. She may well ignore it at first but will hopefully pick at it after a day or so. then you'll know you're on the road to recovery.

PS My dd is 22 months and toast/bread is her favourite food by a mile as well.

oh also dont put big dinner on a plate make it very small its 2 table spoons per portion so 2 tbs mash , 2 meat 2 veg doesnt look much to us but is right amount for them

if she does eat it andwants more then can be given but over loading the plate can appear very daunting especially if you have stress at meal times anyway

as hard as it is you need to remain calm at meal times other wise they will assosiate it with stress and eating will not be a fun thing

allow lots of mess also and just let her get on with it you can introduce new things at lunch and then toast for dinner

but no bribes just leave it there walk off
good girl for eating leave room but put toast as well so has some familiarity but make it fun

put bit mash on yopur nose and laugh taste it and make a big deal of how nice it is with any sloppy food make it fun some children gain a phobia of becoming dirty if they see it sok they tend to lighten up and try it

sorry for typos im rubbish today so tired as ds not well either

She probably ate something at the time of her ear infection that she now associates with the pain and uncomfortableness of the infection.

I saw this on house of tiny tearaways once, a child would only eat one thing, Tanya Byron just dished up a meal every day, with the thing they liked on the plate and left them to it.

However, if you're too worried about her weight I'd try speaking to your gp or HV, but putting pressure, any kind of pressure, on a child of her age will just reinforce the issue.

If she is happy to drink her milk, can you increase it?

thanks for all the replies. calm at mealtimes is not something I'm good at so I have to leave her to eat on her own but I know she would eat better if I could relax more about it. she ate eggy bread for my mum yesterday (and a huge pot of apple!) so I know i'm part of the problem again. I'd only just got her eating with a spoon at 22 months! so its gutting to take such a big step backwards. i keep telling myself its only a glitch but 3 weeks of it has wound me down....

I'm a bit wary about increasing her milk as she will only take it from a bottle whilst lying flat and I think this is giving her the ear inFections!

could probably cope better if it was an isolated problem but she has developed issues with bedtime and strange phobias too and Im just finding her very difficult generally at the moment

Could you maybe read a book with her or something whilst she eats?
Just I think if she sees you at least 'acting' calm, she might ease up a little.

try not to worry about every thing if were anxious about certain things they do pick up on it

even if you do have to walk away breathe in deep go back

i would say definatly leave her alone when eating let her use fingers and just let her enjoy experimenting with food my ds 3 will use a fork but will use fingers still too

just alot of reassurance when dealing with things that she ,may be geting upset about and dont let on that your feeling overly anxious as i found my ds played me up something rotten as he could sense it

once ibecame calmer so did he and things ran a bit more smoothely

no one gets given a handbook when having baby do they on how to work them lol

trial and error but main thing is to keep calm as they do seem to misbehave more when you have no patience for them