Any ideas on how to get protein into baby's food without them knowing?

[fimbles]

Hi!, I'm new to mumsnet and if this topic has been mentioned before, forgive me. I was scrolling down the list of topics in this section and could not seem to find anything that answered my question. My dd is 19 months and like most other toddlers it would appear used to be a good eater, but not anymore. She won't eat any fish, chicken, mince, egg , cheese or veggies. I am at a loss and would like to get some protein into her diet without her objecting!

I would like tips or possibly any recipes for improving her diet which is basically appaling. She is not one for chewing but doesn't seem to have any problems in eating a biscuit or piece of chocolate!!

Thanks for reading!

Hi fimbles. I had this problem with ds2 who is now 2.5 and he is a very picky eater.
Will she eat mash potatoes ? I hide grated cheese in the mash and he loves it. I can also get away with a small amount of grated carrot in his bolognaise (desperate measures!!).
Not sure if your dd eats fruit. My ds2 doesn't. Only the odd slice of apple. But he will eat the organic 100% fruit bars - I buy them in waitrose but most supermarkets I think do them.

Hi Fimbles

I'm having similar problems (but not so extreme) in that dd has suddenly started being a bit picky.

Have you tried:

• mixing things into mashed potato (eg. few flakes of white fish, cheese, cauliflower, peas even)
• baked beans
• pasta with meat in (either tinned ravioli, or the posh stuff)
• home made carrot cake (made with less raw cane sugar and more carrot than the recipe says. You can also grate things like dates and dried apricots to increase the sweetness)
• hiding a small amount of pork/chicken in an apple and potato mush?

Can probably think of a few more things. Dd usually eats the above, but then she will also occasionally eat things like spag bol so I'm luckier than you. What does she eat?

DS is nearly 4 and has just started to eat meat - well chicken and sausages!! after 2 years. My main saving was that he would eat rice so I would cook him brown rice with lentils and/or quinoa (from health food shops), mince chicken really fine and mix it in so he couldn't detect it, sometimes mix spinach in, give lots of peas, baked beans. I bought a really good vegetarian cook book and made child friendly vege dishes which DH and I would have with meat or fish on the side. Unfortunately DS has a nut allergy so nuts are out of the question but if your dd is OK they are also excellent for protein and cooking with.
He also over time became anaemic so I started to give him an iron supplement from the health food shop called floradix.
Oh and I started to take him to McDonalds (my child was never going to eat in McDonald's!!) but would bribe him with the toy if he ate the chicken nuggets, it took a long time but for the past 6 months we would go once a week after the weekly shop and he would eat the nuggets for the toy.
I draw faces on eggs so he gets to 'bop the egg on the head' after which he has to eat him.
Not sure if this helps but good luck.
HTH and it doesn't last as long as DS's dislike.

My dd is like this at 2.8. She loves her veggies (we are vegetarians) but I struggle to get protein into her.

She will usually eat pulses in her finger (although she can't eat kidney beans), things like butter beans or canolini (sp?) beans. Or you could mash things into sauces, mashed potato, or baked beans,etc. My dd also loves to eat cheese in her fingers, and I can occasionally get a veggie burger/sausage in this way. I find bribery works wonders ()-yours will probably be a little young for that though!

It depends really what she will eat?

Thanks everyone for your responses. My dd does not like mashed potato, she almosts vomits when I give her it. I tried putting cheese in last week (I thought it was yummy) - she of course, hated it. I tried a cheese scambled egg yesterday, she had 2 tsp and was up nearly all night with SEVERE trapped wind (something she suffers from anyway since birth!! - my v. bad luck)

The things she will eat is mainly soups, and pureed fruits, (the jar version - not even fresh -although I weaned her on fresh produce), bread with honey on, porridge, organix tomato crips, pasta is the main favourite - so I suppose I should be grateful for that, although she cannot handle too much cheese because of the wind.

Thanks for the idea of carrot cake SenoraPostrophe, and dd doesn't like the fruit bars - Kayleigh, thanks anyway. I can't wait for the day I can bribe my dd with good foods -stupidgirl. What is quinoa, sibble?

Look forward to hearing from you all!

quinoa is a south american grain (I think it is the same as amaranth) as I have both and they look exactly the same to me. They are high in protein and I think calcium as DS will not drink milk or milk products either (but neither do I). I throw them into the boiled rice after it has boiled as they are tastless on their own and can go slimey if slight overcooked.
When DS was at his most picky I just tried to give him a variety of different coloured food with different textures each day and didn't worry if it didn't look like a 'meal' as we know it. I am lucky though that he will eat veggies until the cows come home. I also give him a variety of pastas: rice, buckwheat and veggie for taste variety. Sometimes he would eat teh same food every day for weeks but at least he was eating.
This morning for breakfast he is having home made pop corn, toast, egg and an apple, hardly a conventional breakfast but he is eating it all.
PS DS will not eat potatoes either unless they come in the form of a McDonald's chip!!!

sorry meant to say, try throwing some lentils or quinoa into the soups and see if she will eat them.

Well, at least she's getting some protein if she eats eggs.

Another thing I should have said is don't give up! Dd wouldn't eat egs at all until last week - I've tried once a week for about 6 months now and she finally cracked

Hi fimbles,
I too struggle to get DS to eat meat - he is now 3.He does however probably eat at least as many veg as me - by the bucketload for such a small person. I took to making bolognaise type sauce and adding about 50%veg to it adding loads of tomato puree to disguise the taste somewhat and then pureeing the whole lot so that the meat and veg weren't visable as meat and veg. This seems to go down well with pasta. I have gradually persuaded him to eat bits of meat by sheer perseverence. Put it on the plate cut into teeny tiny pieces, drown it in gravy or some other sauce and sneak it in. We are finally eating real pieces of meat but only little bits at a time unless it is wafer thin ham, sausages or liver which has a different texture (and again if casseroled can be mashed into gravy)- boring I know but be are getting there.
BTW I always remember being left at the table to finish my meat as a small child and eating my veg by drowning it in potato - I ate a phenominal amount of potato - but now eat both v happily. I think that lots of children just don't loke the texture of meat

Have you tried getting your daughter to "help" with the cooking? I find the sluglet (admittedly a good eater) is always ready to try something she has helped cook. A favourite is eggy bread. I break the eggs and she attacks them with gusto with a fork 'mixing' them, then I put the bread in the mix and she thumps it with her fork, I turn it over and she thumps it again (to help the bread to soak up the egg). If you do it one slice at a time, the first piece will be out of the pan and cool enough to eat by the time the bread thumping is finished. It is then devoured with much "Mmmms" and "Yummys".

Another idea for sibble's quinoa suggestion - I use quinoa flakes to make porridge for my dd. Just boil a heaped tablespoon full in about 4-5 oz of the milk of your choice for about 5 minutes until it is a porridgy consistency (you can microwave it too, but I always make a mess of this!) and then stir in some pureed / mashed fruit to sweeten it up. It is a super protein apparently!

Chop up some dried apricots into the porrige to make it a little sweeter.

What about protein shake from a health shop, it comes in chocolate flavour, you can make it up with a blender with some frozen fruit in it like rasberries or blueberries to thicken it and just give it as a 'chocolate milkshake'.
Not sure what age they say you can have protein shakes - may be worth checking.

Fimbles - If she will eat soup then try to get her to eat ones with lentils in. I'm sure they are a good source of protein for vegetarians. I hide lentils in loads of stuff, she won't even taste them.

Loads of good advice here though.

Tofu?

DD (20 months) isn't keen on meat either. Some things she likes:

There's an Annabel Karmel recipe for white fish with oranges and cornflakes (here ). You can make it so it is just sweet mush.
Sandwich ham
Skinless cocktail sausages
Philadelphia on toast
Chicken or beef that has been slow-cooked for about 10 hours so that it is falling apart, preferably in a casserole with fruit (eg beef & apricots, or chicken & peaches). I blended it to start with.
Milk, yoghurt!

Also, I don't know exact amounts, but they really don't need very much protein at all. Especially not if she drinks lots of milk. Adults tend to eat way more protein than they need (in the UK, anyway).

I agree with SP about not giving up. They change every week. DD actually ate untoasted bread today.

Also, vary the location / method. DD will eat anything if I turn it into mush, sit her in front of Teletubbies, and spoon it into her. She also prefers her little chair and table to the highchair. And she'd eat anything I handed her while sat in a supermarket trolley!

She's currently having a phase where she won't eat if I've even touched the spoon - "I do it!".

You can hide lots of things in a pizza. I buy plain pizza bases and make the tomato sauce myself with stuff like pureed carrots and other veg in. Of course, this is no good if your child won't eat cheese. The same principle works for pasta sauces though. Tomato based ones are great for hiding stuff in

I'm very confused by this thread; cow's milk is packed with protein per calorie. Does she not have any milk or yogurt, Fimbles? I know that most adults can get adequate protein from grains alone, so I suspect it's similar for toddlers.
This web page might be useful. This web page is basically saying that your child can probably get all the protein she needs from 4-6 slices of bread per day, or equivalent foods we don't usually think of as protein sources.

Zebra - I think it's certainly the case that protein deficiency is not a problem except in very very unusual cases. And yet it's something people worry about. It's often assumed to be an issue with vegetarian diets, yet hardly any vegetarians have a problem getting enough protein.

Of course a balanced diet is the best (as far as you can manage that with fussy babies!), so ideas for different foods to try on them are good just to liven up their intake. If nothing else it teaches them that it's fun to eat a whole range of foods.

Gosh Zebra - according to those sites, my 21lb 20 month old dd needs 12g or protein a day, provided by 12oz milk - and she drinks a minumum of 15oz, plus yoghurt, and milk on cereals. Shall forget about protein and concentrate on stuffing her with veggies then!

Hi, everyone - sorry I'm late in getting back to your responses - computer on the blink!.

Thanks so much for the welcome advise. Alison222, how do you make a good bolognaise sauce. My dd does not like mine. She used to eat small peices of chicken when she was younger and mince pata. Not anymore!.

Slug, what age did your child help you in the kitchen? I can't imagine my dd helping, she wants to open all the cupboard doors and has the attention span of a flea.

Pidge, udar and m2t - thanks for that will look into into further. Thanks for the web links too!

I tried cauliflour cheese yesterday - dd absolutely loved it ate half the pack in fact. The only thing is she is very sensitive to cow's milk. I posted a thread last week on the health page about "19 month old were severe trapped wind since birth" To cut a long story short, cow's milk/dairy gives her bloated and very windy tummy to the point whe wont sleep until the wind has passed which involves me massaging her tummy for approx 1 - 2 hrs every evening. She does not drink cow's milk as her main drink but pregestimil formula (hyperalergenic) sp? I give the soya deserts which have calcuim in them. If she loved the cauli/cheese that much I make it with skimmed milk and low fat cheese and see how that goes down and maybe mix in pureed chicken or veg - LETS SEE!! Any comments?

Fimbles - Does the fat content in the dairy products make that much of a difference?? Babies need the fat at that age.

Why not make it with Goats milk/Cheese? Will that make a difference? Or use the formula milk in it.

Hi M2T, The fat is important for babies, I agree, but the last consultant I saw said that it was probably the fat in the cow's milk not the protein or lactose that causes my dd'd discomfort. I've never thought of goats milk. Do you know what it tastes like? Do you know what the main difference is between cow & goats milk?The formula milk tastes really horrible and I've used soya milk (Provamel, I think it is called and you can't make savoury sauces with that as it is very sweet.

Some people say Goat's milk tastes more musty, but I personally can't tell it apart from cow's milk. I would have thought the fats were pretty similar in both.

Fimbles, I started her at about 18 months. She helps with little tasks like washing mushrooms, pulling the eyes out of potatoes or tasting the grated cheese to check it's OK. It took a while for her to get the idea, but her greatest love in life is in food so when she got the idea that the end result was yummy, she was more than willing to help out.

I sometimes feel I've made a rod for my own back though. I only have to push one sleeve up and she's off to find her apron and demand to wash her 'nangs'.

Fimbles

Try the Provamel milk that isnt sweetened with apple juice. You might be able to make a savoury sauce with that.

My hubbie is a chef and we had probs with our DS (21months) getting him to eat meat. He makes a lovely bolognaise which he used to puree and DS would eat it. He will now eat proper mince but we still have probs with chicken and ham etc

Bolognaise

Fry half a finely chopped onion, 1 carrot,stick celery and a chopped clove of garlic in olive oil. Add half pound minced beef and fry til brown. Add 1tbsp tomato puree,a tin of tomatoes and a slug of red wine and season. Simmer for at least 30 mins. The longer it cooks the tastier it will be.

Reduce the sauce by taking off pan lid and blitz.

Stir into pasta.

Can be frozen.

My other thought was that chicken can be made into soups and blitzed. Have you tried quorn as well?

Annabel Karmel is a great book to have as well as she has loads of great ideas.

Hope this helps.