My 1 yr old only eating mashed up food still...

[mammainlove]

My 1 year old DD turns her nose up at most finger foods, i.e. cooked veg' pieces, fruit etc. She will only eat mashed up food (and breast milk a lot). Is this a problem at her age? If i keep leaving her bits around the room, and offering her pieces, will she eventually eat them?

Yes she will - but when she wants to..

My 2 yr old will still only eat veg mashed up though he will now eat fruit in pieces... He's ok with cake though! I am going along with the theory when he is 18yrs old I won't be mashing his over cooked carrots with a fork.

Don't make a fuss to her about it. They all have their little quirks.

And I don't mean to sound harsh. My youngest has tested my patience with his eating at times and I have found the best way to cope is to not focus on it.

You say she has lots of milk? How much? I think it's around this age that food starts to increase in importance but all children are different. If she is thriving then don't worry but perhaps have a chat with your HV if she's good one.

thank u. she breastfeeds on demend really, every 2 hours or so. i try not to feed her within an hour before preparing her solids, but it's hard saying no when she pulls at my top!

Ds was still eating very mashed up foods - 1yr is still very young.

Make the mashed food pretty lumpy and progress gradually to more and more lumps. That way it's not a shock to the system and they end up chewing away happily before they realise.

Cautionary tale on the '18 year old' theory..... a friend told me about her daughter's new 16 year-old boyfriend coming to dinner. She prepared a traditional roast dinner and he went pale explaining that he 'didn't like chewing anything'... so he turned down any meat and then proceeded to mash up all the roast spuds and veggies into his gravy. No dental problems apparently.... just arrested development. Needless to say, he was dropped pretty quickly. :)