Tell me to stop worrying please - 10.5 mth off her food

[BonyM]

The last few days, dd2 has been right off her food - will only eat 5 or 6 spoons of her savoury before refusing the rest and sometimes refuses it before she's even tried it.

She will eat bread and sometimes her yoghurt (although not always all of it) and has about half of her cereal in the morning (weetabix or ready brek).

She does have a cold at the moment and my logical self is telling me that this is why she's not interested in her food, but another part of me thinks that if that was the case, she wouldn't even want bread and cereal so I'm worried that she's becoming really fussy and has decided to live on cereal and bread.

Doesn't help that I cook everything myself so I spend ages concocting tasty dinners only to chuck them all in the bin.

Ach, it's normal, esp with a cold -- or maybe it's teeth
My two went on food strike recently and didn't eat well for about 3 wks. It must have been a bug; it passed
Gah about the concocting tasty dinners though

I know how you feel. It can be frustrating and it is such a waste to throw food away. That said, they have variable appetites and I just try and go with it. If they want it, they will eat it. What I have been careful to do is to not offer a million different things in a bid to get ds to eat something as I'm concerned about setting up a bad precedent. He is 15m and I had one of these phases last week but it's gone again now.

My ds is 22 months, so we've been through these phases quite often. They usually seem to be linked to illness, or teething. I just give him what he will eat, usually plain pasta, and don't bother with cooking proper meals until the phase passes.

That's my concern beansprout - I worry if she doesn't eat anything (not least because I think she'll be waking up wanting to feed at night) so, against my instincts, tend to offer her stuff that I know she will eat - yoghurt, bread, rice cakes. Don't want her to expect this though and start refusing her "proper" food because she knows she'll be offered something else.

I would indulge her a little bit whilst she is poorly, whilst making sure she has loads of fluids.

When it's obvious she's fully fit again, put her 'normal' food back in front of her and if she doesn't eat it, just remove it without a fuss, not offering anything else. She'll eat if she's well and hungry.

Worst thing you can do is turn it into a battle and for you to get all het up about it, cos you can bet she ain't worried about it!

emmatom - thank you - eminently sensible advice and this is what my instinct is telling me I should do. I will stop getting stressed!