Poorly toddler not eating - how worried should I be?

[HaroldCopter]

Days (2.9) has been poorly with a cough and wheezing for a couple of weeks and has been in hospital twice in the last week due to breathing difficulties. Had inhalers, oxygen, nebuliser and now on antibiotics so quite a tough time for us all. He's also had explosive diarrhoea since Tuesday which I've put down to the steroids he was on (no vomiting). He normally has a good appetite but has been really off his food for the last 4-5 days, e.g today he's had a small bowl of cereal, a few bites of pizza at lunchtime (maybe 4 or 5) and for dinner, one piece of pasta (yes, one!) and a quarter of a sundried tomato. He's drinking well, but a lot of milk which I now want to restrict (dairy generally) until the diarrhoea passes. He's already lost a couple of pounds with being ill, but since starting on the antibiotics is much more himself, playing, chatting etc. At what stage should I start to get worried about him not eating, and anyone got any tips to get him eating? We've been giving him foods he usually loves so that's not the issue - he just doesn't want anything.

Oops the first word should be DS not days!

My ds has had a few days hardly eating when ill. At the time I got myself really wound up about it but in retrospect I can see it's just how he deals with illness - it's happened a couple more times since.

One thing I did try to do is to cut down on snacking so that the little food he did eat was from a decent meal rather than me panicking and filling him up on empty food like rice cakes etc just to get something into him.

Is he drinking a decent amount of water? If so then I think that's much more important.

Think you're potentially right to cut down the milk, could this be filling him up too much?

Hope he's fully better soon!

As long as he's getting liquids I wouldn't worry too much yet. DD pretty much stopped eating during a week's holiday once (just because it was a strange place I think) but it didn't seem to matter. Just keep giving him lots of options.

As long as he is having plenty of fluids, I wouldn't be concerned about not eating. When you feel rubbish you just don't want to do you? Don't make a big deal out of it and he'll start eating more once he's feeling better.

Going with other pp advice - as long as he's taking plenty fluids don't worry about it. Keep offering food but don't make an issue of it if he refuses it. He'll eat in his own time when he's feeling better

DS once went a week without eating anything more than a few rasins. He was in hopsital at the time and they weren't concerned.

Make sure food is available, keep fluids up and he will eat when he is ready

If you are worried maybe pop to GPs for advice. I think I'd let him eat whatever he fancied while poorly. A GP once told me to offer things like Quavers, biscuits etc. Anything is better than nothing & the normal routines & rules go out the window when they're poorly IMO.

Hope he is better soon.