My 16 month old on hunger-strike! I'm at my wits end!

[purplebee]

I am dreading meal-times as my ds won't eat a thing and is losing weight, everyone has noticed how thin he is getting. Doc says it's a phase but it's been ages now! Over two weeks!

I've tried everything, eating with him, fancy recipes, simple recipes, I've tried to feed him out of his chair, anything to make it more excoted. I try not to let him see us react, hiding our worry but I'm at the end of my tether. HELP!!!!!

hi purple, my dd has phases where she won't eat - thankfully these are getting fewer and further between, but it's so worrying isn't it? she is now 16mo btw.

What i have found works, is buying (expensive) foods like ellas kitchen purees (lots) and innocent smoothies. DD will delight in sucking them up withot really realising they're food iyswim, and then often she'll get the food in her tummy, and realise she's hungry so will go on to ask for other food, usually raisins or bananas. I know it's not a sustainable way of feeding them, but if your ds is usually a good eater then it might help for a while?

also, where/how is he fed? dd would always pick up on my anxiety in her highchair and it would make her behaviour 10x worse. We have bought a little table an chair set for her, which we put in front of the tv at mealtimes (tv rarely on any other time of day so its a bit of a treat) and she gets soo utterly absorbed we can push the odd bit of food in her mouth without her complaining. It also allows us to step back from her and let her get on with it, which she does quite happily.

Finally 16months is a bit teething time, dd has recently got all of her molars an her canines are now othering her, i know this, not because she's stopped eating (yet) but because she won't let me clean her teeth any more

HTH

My dd does this a lot. She refused to eat anything at all until she was 13 months, she only had milk. She hated baby food and just wanted to wait until she could eat what we ate. Once she started, she eats anything!
However, as soon as she is ill it's the first hing that goes. She just stops eating and doesn't start again properly until she is feeling 100%. Sometimes I have to leave little bowls of things I know she likes around the lounge (raisins, satsuma, even biscuits) and she will come to it when she wants it. My hv and dr both told me to give her anything, as long as she eats. I am ashamed to say that sometimes when she is ill all I offer her is 'bad' stuff as I know at least she's got something in her tummy. As the last poster said, it is often not until they get something in their tummy that they realise how hungry they are.
Try not to worry. I know it's easy to say that but he will eat when he's hungry. Good luck!

My ds is 21 months and recently went for a month without eating properly, after being ill. It is a phase that will pass, as he is now eating everything he can get his hands on!

I know how worrying it can be though.

Thanks everyone, and Riven, you are right, the everyone sharing a meal seems to be the only way he will accept any solids. He was fine with SMA and would have at the very most two tea-spoons at mealtimes. We went to a lunch yesterday and he had fish fingers with the hosts daughter of a similar age. I nearly cried with joy!