Please can I have your experiences, good and bad, of feeding your 12-month-olds? I tried to contact the health visitors today, again, and still didn't manage to get through so I'm turning to mum's net.
TLDR:: my 12-month-old has never eaten more than a few bites of food in one go even though I try all the latest advice and I'm finding it very stressful.
I'm utterly heartbroken after listening to what another mum's baby is able to eat today, so I've tried for the last time to contact the health visitors before we're fully booked with holidays and weddings etc. for a month.
My little girl is 11.75 months old. 12 months at the end of July. And I've never been able to get her to eat a full baby sized portion of food.
I've read a lot of feeding books, follow a lot of professionals on Instagram, chat to other mums at play group etc and I'm now convinced that baby is not eating properly.
The usual pattern for feeding her is that she will be moderately hungry after a milk feed(minimum 1 hour, maximum 2.5 hours before solids) But she won't eat very much. She will taste everything! She's a really good taster. But the most I have ever been able to get her eat in one go is three baby-sized mouthfuls.
If she does take food into her mouth she will pocket it away in her cheeks and then eventually it all just spills out when she goes to take a sip of water. She's not really swallowing anything.
I'm finding it very distressing because for months now I have been offering her the Ella's kitchen recommended sized portions of food for her age. We are wasting so much food. It's incredibly heartbreaking because I get to the end of a batch of food I've made home and she's eaten maybe maximum a tablespoon of it over several sittings.
She's prescription formula fed. I make up 30oz a day and she had 5 feeds/24hrs but probably only drinks 24oz. She doesn't take much milk in one go.
I have tried:
- giving her a plate of food. Is a disaster because she gets overwhelmed and throws it everywhere. She would rather squeal, throw a hands in the air, smash the plate around, than actually putting any of it in her mouth.
- Allowing her to eat off my plate without restriction. This enables her to eat a couple of pieces but she usually just taste it and then lets it roll down her apron.
- biting off a baby size piece of food and letting her take it out of my mouth, or offering it to her from my mouth. She finds this funny and will taste it, but usually it develops into a game of her feeding me and she won't put the food in her mouth. She will insist in just putting it back in mine.
- not having the plate directly in front of her but it is in view, and then offering her a baby fork with a single bite size piece on. After a few bites she gets a bit worked up and starts throwing the snatching it so violently the food drops off. Once the food has touched her plate, she becomes very distracted by it and it becomes a toy rather than something for her to eat.
- purees. She turns her nose up at a spoonful of puree. She freaks out if it gets on her tray. She will panic and smush it around and wipe her hands on the side of the high chair or on her clothes or on me! She's never really eaten puree - homemade, porridge, or Ella's kitchen. I can't even get a mouth full of that into her. Because we can't save the packets of puree for very long. I will let her finish off a packet by playing with it because it's just going to go in the bin anyway. But as soon as it starts to come out the top of the tube she just spits it out and gets unimpressed with it.
We DON'T:
- get cross with her. Food is fun! If necessary, we sing or put music on. If we have guests, they join in too! It takes a heck of a lot of energy. Because I am finding it quite depressing.
- feed her on her own. We eat together 95% of the time as a pair or as a family. We show her how to eat with the cutlery, we make fun noises, etc.
- We don't tidy up during the meal; hand wiping, tray wiping, picking the food out of her apron. Food is messy. We understand that!
She LOVES chewing things. Anything hard. I literally can't stop her chewing her toys to the point that she doesn't really "play", they're just covered in bite marks.
I know she's meant to sit still in her high chair. (The chair fits her very well, and her feet are supported). But I had really good success the other day just letting her gyrate around the kitchen whilst eating a piece of toast. I actually managed to get most of a piece of toast into her because she was bum shuffling all over the table, spinning around in circles, listening to the radio, and grabbing it me to stand up. Over the course of half an hour she actually ate most of a piece of toast, but it was a bit scary because she kept coughing!
We CANT feed her dairy, because she is suspected cow's milk intolerance (not deathly allergic). We are trying the milk ladder so we microdose her with a little bit of butter, hard cheese, splash of milk in something that she's going to taste. I'm not sure whether it's upsetting her tummy or not, or whether it's something else that she's eating e.g. gluten, fruit fructose, etc etc.
Generally she seems to be doing okay. She's held herself up well from about 5 months old. She's been trying to walk since 8 months. She's never showing any interest in crawling, and I think that's because she had terrible reflux until we got her onto the prescription formula, so we didn't really do tummy time and I think she still finds being on her front stressful.
She's a good weight. Usually 50th percentile for weight and 75th for height.
She's got 4 teeth.
She's very sociable. We do lots of baby groups etc and she comes into the office with me when I try and do a bit of work. So I don't think she's bored or under stimulated.
She's not at Nursery yet. But I am fearful for when she does join because I'm not sure how much food she will eat. It hasn't been very good for my nephew who also struggles with food. He's now three and still does not eat properly at Nursery - he's been going for 2 years.
Any help or advice welcome.
Thank you if you've read this far!