Toddlers who still hate lumpy food.

[Eddy]

My daughter is nearly will be two in May yet she still refuses to eat lumps. It makes life difficult as I have been blending her food since she was four months. I introduced lumpy food at the suggested time but she hated them and was always sick. I waited again and tried again and again and again. With the same results. It restricts going out as we always have to take her food with us and find a restuarant with a microwave. Forget holidays she hates jar/tin baby food.

We always give her own plate of food at the dinner table when the family eats she plays with it. We have noticed that she has learnt to chew and that it is a psychology lumps are bad problem. So we tried lumps are good, she says but so what.

I think I need professional help at this stage as my health visitor has been telling ne to give her time for a year.

Any suggestions.

Eddy, If you give her a biscuit will she bite and chew and swallow it???

Eddy, I'm thinking along similar lines to sister - does she eat chips and toast? (There aren't many kids who would turn down a chip!) Giving her solid chunks of food to bite off and chew for a while might get her used to the feel of larger pieces of food in her mouth, and then you can try with the lumps again. Or if not chips, hunks of cheese, sticks of carrot/celery/apple, etc.

If she doesn't want lumps maybe she has a hard time swallowing ???

What finger food (if any) does she eat? If she does eat some finger food, it might be worth concentrating on that. Sister asked about biscuits - does she eat rusks? If so, have you tried just ordinary toast, just to get her used to different textures?

If she DOESN'T eat any finger foods, how about trying something like a fruit fool (Safeway does some nice ones)? They're sweet enough that babies love them (they're the only thing I can still spoon feed ds, as he normally insists on feeding himself) and they have a wee bit of texture to them, to get her used to small lumps. The Safeway selection consts of Apricot, Strawberry, Blackcurrant and Gooseberry, all of which have a high proportion of real fruit (and fruit bits) in them. (Ds rarely gets the gooseberry one, as I always nab it!)

Without wanting to sound like the wicked witch or the north, I think it's time to get tough!! I think I would adopt the attitude of lumps or nothing. A little at a time, be prepared for her to be sick, clean it up and carry on. I know it sounds mean but the longer you carry on the more of a headache it will be. I know of someone who still purees her son's spaghetti bolognese and he is 9!!! Relenting slightly, it may be worth checking her tonsils - if they are often swollen, it may be difficult for her to swallow anything!!

Jaybee isn't that the wicked witch of the west? Or maybe my memory is not that good...

Your showing your age now!!!!

Sorry that should be 'you're' - sorry to be petty!!

God I feel it!

She won't try most foods, she's not the experimenting type most times I trick her into tasting food. She can't even finish a quarter of a biscuit. Chips would be heaven. She's recently had 2 tea spoons of spaghetti and then was sick. We've been trying to teach her chewing just in case.

I tried starving her but she doesn't mind not eating for a whole day. She just cries and sleeps. In desparation her puree comes out again.

More recently I tried giving her dinner with another child who eats well she stared at him like he was wierd.

So can she swallow properly ? Have you had her checked?

If you really think she has a problem with her swallowing I think I would bypass the health visitor and speak directly with your gp. At least if you know there is nothing wrong physically you will feel more inclined to 'get tough' - only other thing I can think of is what is she like for other people - do you know any other Mums who would be prepared to try and feed her for a day - she may be playing you up as she knows you will give in at the end of a day!!

If you really think she has a problem with her swallowing I think I would bypass the health visitor and speak directly with your gp. At least if you know there is nothing wrong physically you will feel more inclined to 'get tough' - only other thing I can think of is what is she like for other people - do you know any other Mums who would be prepared to try and feed her for a day - she may be playing you up as she knows you will give in at the end of a day!!

My dd is 11 months and still won't eat lumpy food. Like Eddy I introduced lumpier food at the correct time but dd just gagged on it and then refused to eat it at all. She always eats well but I have to admit that most of what she has is still puree. She will have toast and breadsticks and in the last few days she has had a few small cubes of cheese.
I've got one of Annabel Karmel's books and dd likes alot of the recipes - but just so long as I puree them.
On a typical day she eats something like this

breakfast - half a weetabix mixed with yoghurt plus a couple of fingers of toast sometimes.

lunch - chicken or other meat based meal such as
chicken in tomato sauce or mini shepherds pie followed by fromage frais

dinner - courgette gratin (her favourite) or cauliflower cheese followed by mashed up fresh fruit like apple, pear or banana sometimes with custard or a jar of rice pudding.

She usually has a couple of breadsticks during the day and drinks loads of water (no juice).

I've tried giving her well cooked pasta but she spits and splutters and then refuses to eat it. I also tried offering her some vegetables as finger food - these just end up on the floor.
This morning I tried giving her some Cheerios on her highchair tray - she fed them one by one to one of our golden retrievers who thought all her Christmases had come at once!

I don't want dd to be eating purees forever and sometimes it feels like she will never get past this stage. Friends and family are very reassuring and say that maybe she will be better when she has more teeth (she only has two and they only came through about a month ago).
I'd be interested to hear what other 11 month olds eat and if anyone has had this problem and how you eventually got round it.

I seem to remember that my son preferred either proper pureed food or something totally solid like a breadstick or toast. It was quite a while before he wanted puree with lumps in it or anything similar. Have you tried corkscrew pasta "al dente" (ie almost chewy)? That was the first non pureed food that my son ate in REALLY large amounts.

My son was the same and I was despairing when he turned 2. He also seemed to prefer either totally pureed or totally solid. He was never sick - I think he just didn't like the look of the food. Eddy - if your dd's swallowing/throat is OK (I'd get it checked if she is being sick a lot) then I'd not worry. Gradually over this past year (son is 3 soon) he started to eat lumps. However he is still quite fussy. He tends to prefer having his meals divided up so for example I can end up serving peas on their own, then plain rice, then perhaps a piece of breaded fish.

Puddings must be smooth - yoghurts with lumps are spat out and I am still pureeing his fruit (peach, pear etc) to mix in with his cereal (ready brek) which looks like wallpaper paste - yuk! However he will eat dry cereal. I'd say as long as she is getting her nutrition in whatever form then go with the flow and don't pressurise her.

How is she with cutlery - that is something I noticed - my ds wouldn't eat things if he found it difficult to handle. Will she eat soup? You can make a quick lunch with pureed veg mixed into a can of condensed tomato soup for example.

Try eating somewhere else - I was amazed when my son ate some soup with lumps in at Tesco cafe. I think the change in surroundings can help.

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice, I will keep trying. DD has eaten some very slightly lumpy things in the last couple of days (soft pasta) so I think we may be getting there

Could it be her teeth? Hindsight helps a lot - it was only when all four of my ds's first chewing teet (premolars?) came through fully, that I realised that he went off lumps while cutting them over a period of several months. When I had tried sneaking lumps in (eg fruit & yoghurt) he spat it out. For my own sanity I gave up and let things go on as before, with a variety of pureed and grated textures. Eventually (3 weeks ago!) he suddenly started grabbing lumps of food - and the penny dropped.