How much should a 14m eat? And how do I get a 14m to eat - anything...???

[pollydoodle]

I am in desparate need of some MN wisdom to help encourage my ds to eat - having once been a good eater seems to be eating less and less. Yesterday it was half a piece of toast, half a cheese stick, about a teaspoonful of rice, a couple of rice cakes and eight peas. Yes, it is so bad I am counting peas and almost at the point of counting rice grains (not so difficult as I watch ds pick them up one by one...). Significantly more food stayed in his bowl or ended up on the floor. The fact he is developing a nice overarm throw is little consolation when he is eating virtually nothing.

I know that it's hot at the moment so I'm not surprised that his appetite has gone down but this has been going on for several weeks now so I think that is an exacerbating factor rather than the root cause of the problem.

It's happened gradually over a period of weeks that has involved moving house, changing nurseries, teething etc but we things have settled down in the last month so I was hoping that he would have settled back into eating but that doesn't seem to have happened .

Some of it is a control thing - if I come within arms length with anything on a spoon it flies across the kitchen (although at nursery they do seem to be able to spoon feed him a bit). If he tries with a spoon he is unable to really feed himself more than a couple of mouthfuls so usually it's finger food but with cutlery around for him to play with and get used to.

He is still drinking his milk and water or juice. However in this heat I've been reluctant to down the quantity as I'm worried about dehydration.

I've tried everything I can think of - leaving out breakfast and waiting to see if he would get hungry for an early lunch, sitting there for ages trying to get anything in, having a limited time for eating, sitting next to him and being heavily involved, putting stuff in front of him and hovering in the background to see if he would eat when I am not next to him, getting his dad or granny to feed him, eating at the same time as him, not eating at the same time as him... nothing so far has made a difference.

So mumsnetters - has anybody please got any ideas of what I could try next?

Thanks!

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hi, kids often go through stages where they eat less. last summer dd (then 15 months) went trough a stage like that, she was living on milk, apricots and ham. I was really concerned and it showed. Slowly she went back eating decent amount of (different) food. The main thing I did was leaving her feed herself, that seemed to make a big difference for her. We also always have breakfast, lunch and dinner together at the table. good luck, try not to let it become a big issue, I know it's hard though!

Being spoon-fed is very very annoying. Kids can manage to self-feed just about anything, although it can be messy.

The weather is probably part of the problem. Also, you are getting wound up about this and turning it into a battle, which is never a good plan.

I read somewhere that toddlers generally eat like 10 mouthfulls of food per day. They don't eat as much as they do before they turn one, because they don't need to - they're not growing as fast.

I'd just offer a wide range of foods, don't worry about cutlery, and just let him eat what he wants, within reason. And please don't get stressed about it. Kids don't starve to death when food is on offer.

Try looking at his intake over a week, rather than a day. This advice really helped me when I my DDs were skinny, emaciated toddlers and I worried myself sick over them. Some days they ate virtually nothing, others they ate well and it seemed reasonable over the course of a week.

my dd is 14 months and eats much less than she used to, I also have a friend with a 16 month old who wont eat anything much and has lost weight.

Remember children do not starve themselves. Maybe the weather has taken the edge off his appetite? I would jusst keep offering - give plenty of what he likes. Don't get too anxious - they pick up on it.How is his mood -other than the food does he seem happy enough? have energy etc?

The thing to try next is......

relaxing about the whole issue!

Seriously. I know it is hard. I battled with 3 children. Then I had number 4 and decided when it came to food, I would let him eat as much as he likes. He is still not eating vegetables (except carrots sometimes and baked beans) but fortunately he eats more fruit than any of the others. He still gets offered everything but I don't fuss about whether he eats it or not. He is only 3 so I don't know what the longterm outcome will be, but it has helped my nerves no end, not having daily battles with him over food.

Is your son mobile yet? by which I mean walking? That should increase his appetite a bit although none of my children are eating much at the moment so I do think you should factor in the hot weather right now.

I have read that in the second year baies naturally take a drop in the amount they eat - DS did at about 15/16 months though he's picked up again now at 21 months. I think it's best to stick to regular mealtimes because they're picking up a lot of stuff about routines, times of day etc at this age. As another poster said as long as he's happy, eating a variety of things even if not much, and seems well - don't worry! If you put pressure on at this stage you'll just get tantrums and potential food related issues later.

Thank you everybody for your suggestions - much appreciated.

I am trying not to make an issue of it with ds - or for me - and to remember as you say apronstrings and NQC that children don't starve themselves. And yes, he is running around all day so hopefully his appetite will increase again and his his stomach won't have shrunk (or is that another myth perpeptuated by my mother? ).

sandyballs his daily intake seems to be pretty consistent but I do try to look at a week rather than each day, it's just I'd suddenly realised his overall trend was to eat less and less rather than more and more so thought I had would check out to see how other mumsnetters fared. I've always had to be pragmatic when it comes to ds, even when I think I ought to worry more, as dh was very ill around the time ds was born and is still on the recovery path so there just hasn't been the opportunity to worry too much! maybe now that dh is getting better I am getting more time - so now I have got time to worry and that's not necessarily a good thing...

thanks again everybody.
now it's lunchtime I'm off to take a deep breath and relax and see how hungry ds is.

now all I need to do is find out his secret of so much energy on so little food and no appetite so that I could lose all those extra baby pounds