refusing to eat from me, her mother.

[Voj]

I have 17 month old twins - a boy and a girl. Leo is a fabulous eater and will chomp his way through most food, being fed and feeding himself. Georgia on the other had is more fussy and is going through a phase of refusing to feed when I offer her food. As soon as our nanny takes over she calms down and happily eats. What is going on here? When I walk in the room she often starts crying. I understand that this could be her competing for attention but the refusing to feed is upsetting me. What should I do?

will she feed herself? do you have to interfere?

She can feed herself but at lunchtime they are pretty tired so I just feed them mashed up stuff pretty quickly before they get too tired to eat. I am just perplexed at to why she is refusing to eat from me, and not from anyone else.

Don't let her see you are upset or make an issue of it. If she will eat then she's healthy and thats the main thing. Don't let it be an issue and she'll forget that little method she has discovered for getting a reaction out of you.

It is a known fact that children playup for their parents hugely. My daughter(3)does it for my hubbie and moi, but when she's with other people, she is apparently all sweetness and light at meal times. As swallowthree said, don't make an issue of it, or you make it worse - as I have done. L used to be a dream eater, but at home now lives off cream cheese sarnies and homemade pizza's. My worry is we can't get veggies into her (hidden in pizza topping), so give her a good vitamin supplement ontop.

They are 17 months so don't worry about trying to feed her - she probably wantsto be independent and feed herself.

She''ll eat when hungry. They like playing up anxious parents. My ds eats every packed lunch I ever make for the childminder but sofar this holiday has eatenonly bread, some porridge, and apple juice.