12 month old not so interested in food/milk

[KittenKat]

DD just turned 12 months, is less interested in her food and milk.

She still drinks around 15oz, but up until the last few days drank perhaps twice as much as that. She also used to eat a significant amount of food, lunch and desert, dinner and desert. Now, she seems to eat less. She still enjoys eating, eats a bit of everything given to her, but the amount has decreased, and she much prefers to put her hands in it, flick it across the room etc. Its normal right?

Thats the first thing. The second thing is...she has always been a small baby, born 5 lb. Is incredibly active, walks with fingers and furniture all the time, taken some steps on her own, constantly moving, talking, climbing, meeting her milestones, has only just gone into 6-9month clothing, and her weight seems to have petered out a little. Have not had her weighed for a while as HV annoyed me blaming bm etc, implying poor feeding, however even with 30oz of formula and food per day, just not putting on weight in leaps and bounds. However she is more than 3x her birth weight.

I guess, I just need some reassurance that she is fine, or maybe should I take her to GP for a check. DP is constantly worrying, esp now she is less interested in milk.

LOL sounds like she walks with her fingers - she is not that clever! I meant she walks holding to our fingers...

15oz is absolutely normal isn't it? at 15 months DS was drinking 12 oz (now drinks a little more) and paediatrician was quite happy with that.

DS goes through phases of being more or less interested in his food. Try her with high calorie/nutricious food if you aren;t already so she won't need to eat as much.

I find Avocados fab.

If she looks and seems healthy, isn;t falling asleep all over the palce and is hitting most developmental targets I wouldn;t worry too much

are you/DP small? perhaps she's just going to be small...

Kewcumber - I thought 15oz is fine, Ijust think I am worried about the quite sudden drop in interest.

Sleep? She does not have time to sleep! She sleeps through the night 7:30pm - 7am usually but recently been waking at 5:30am . She has around 1.5-2 hours max in the day over two naps, sometimes (often) a bit less!).

She does not like avocado! Can you beleive that?!
We give her lots of pasta, fish, cheese based food, potatoes, eggs. She loves scrambled egg and has a whole one with milk added most mornings.

What other food would be high in calories? She is not keen on lentils, but other than that mashed banana, and avocado she seems to like everything. The only thing she will eat endless amounts of is fruit like grapes, nectarines, peaches, mango, but they are not so high in calories are they?

Yes, we are both small. DP is 5'7'', I am 5'3'', most family members are small too. I guess, we knew she is going to be small, but we just worry that as her growth has slowed, are we doing something wrong? Surely she should be putting on weight in leaps and bounds still?

DP has asked me to correct the last post to say he is actually 5'8'', he has not actually measured himself, he was told this is what he would be by midwife when he was born, and he therefore is sticking to it. End of story he says. So, I stand corrected.

her diet sounds very good (keep trying the bananas and avocado my DS did get into them after a while). If you're scrambling egg add an extra yoke (just the yoke) to the mix all the calories are in teh yoke and she can get two eggs for the volume of one (obviously not too often).

My DS was never a big eater then started eating like a horse when his walking really took off. Since then its been up and down. I think she sounds fine.

oh good. thanks Kewcumber - she does like banana, just not mashed! Although now she prefers to hold it in her hands and squish through her fingers, so I have taken to cutting it up rather than giving her chunks.

Great idea about the eggs. How often should she be eating eggs, should these be limited like for adults? She has one most days

advice on how many eggs has changed so much that I lose track. It used to be advised against due to high cholesterol but I think thats been debunked now, again if she isn;t suffering with it and its gets some protein into her I'd keep going with it.

I had heard that cholesterol in young babies is relly important, but dont know if it still needs to be limited, or what age it becomes less important to brain development. I will look into this one a bit more...

Any other advice to be given on my LO eating habbits? All suggestions gratefully received!!

she could just be teething or coming down with a big.

HI Kitten, I could have written your post. My dd is 12 1/2 months old, she was 5lbs 10 when born and today (just been to HV) weighs 8.5kg (don't know what this is in lbs but know it is less than 20).

She has never been a good eater but since Saturday won't eat ANYTHING apart from grapes and cherries. At all. Goes spare if you go near her with a spoon and won't touch her favourites, Weetabix and fromage frais.

I thought it might just be a phase she's going through but the norm for her is NOT eating.

At one point was on 50th centile for weight (just before we weaned) and 50th for length in March. Is now 9th for weight and 25th for length. Had 4 'isn't she small' comments this week and seen 2 6 month old babies who were bigger.

HV was utter bollocks today and just spouted all the standard food advice, whilst ignoring me saying repeatedly 'But she won't eat anything apart from fruit'. ''Why don't you try grated cheese?' 'She doesn't eat it any more'. The upshot is that I've been told to take dd to the GP.

So....go with your gut feeling I would say. You can usually tell if it's teething because they're grumpy, red cheeks, dribble everywhere. There is chickenpox going round at the moment but if your lo is normal self (as mine is) it's probably not that.

Anyhow, will let you know what doc says (I asked if we could have some higher energy milk but HV just passed the buck as usual).

Six - oh how awful for you. Yes, let me know. I really dont like the HVs being like it, its why I stopped going. She told me DD was close to failing to thrive, we went straight to GP who said she was talking rubbish, not those words but close to!

She is teething, maybe thats it? She had a bug last week, 3 day fever thing, but ate fine then, its gone down hill since then!

I might go see GP if it does not improve, have appt end of week anyway...wont see HV tho.

She is on 0.4 centile for weight, just under 50th centile for length!

oh, another thing I did not mention before, which may or may not be related - her poo is very pale. It has been so for a couple of days now, she is used her bowels 3 times yesterday and 3 rimes today, last one was very very pale indeed - related?

Her milk seems to be impriving, she drank 2x7oz this afternoon/evening, but not intersted in eating much food. She also gagged on a bit of sausage, and then immediately chucked upo the milk from this afternoon . I think it was related, think she stimulated her gag reflex a little to much!

my 12 month old ds is not eating either at the moment and is ok in himself. he also keeps being sick. i have put it down to teething as he always goes off his food then lo and behold a tooth appears. he never has any other symptoms like red cheeks or dribbling. he's never been sick with it before though so who knows. most children will go off their food if they have been ill so perhaps that's it. ds recently got over and ear and throat infection and barely ate for 2 weeks!

Hi Kitten. GP has referred us on to a paediatrician to do some tests to rule out things like coeliac disease. Got an appointment at the beginning of August.

My dd does white poos sometimes when she's had her normal milk but some food - I think it is something to do with more calcium than fibre or something. They do go normal again when she eats. However pale bulky poos can sometimes happen in coeliac disease, but I think that's if they get them all the time rather than every now and then.

I was talking to someone today who said their dd was tiny but caught up when she was at school... so maybe there's hope for us yet?!!

It might be worth going to see your GP Kitten, mine was very helpful and agreed with me that something wasn't right, so at least I don't feel like an over-reacting mum any more. It could just be that this is the way our dd's are rather than there being anything specific tho!

I meant normal milk but no food

Six - I ave just read your post. I hope it goes ok at the paed's. I am sure its a precaution. DP and I talked about it when I read your post, and we think that we would perhaps not mind being referred, if just to assure us that she is doing fine, some people pay privately to have their own baby Dr and dietician!
I am sure DD is fine, I just worry that there is some reason that she is small, perhaps something that I have done/am doing wrong, that I might be able to change, or something medically wrong that I have ignored.
I have GP appt today anyway for me, I shall take her along and have a chat. Shame its a locum GP .

DD ate much better yesterday, she had little lunch, but gulped down tea - haddock with cheesey sauce like she had never eaten! This morning no brekky, and about to do lunch, but she had a late bottle so I am not hopeful!

Good luck Pavlov if you do manage to get to talk about it - I sometimes find that locums are the best people, as they don't have to think about the practices' budget when they refer people on! DD ate breakfast today but no lunch or tea, so... who knows