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14 month old not eating

8 replies

nappyaddict · 19/09/2007 15:45

some days my 14 month old just won't eat his lunch or dinner. and i know he likes it cos he will have eaten it before. should i keep trying to give it to him, offer something else or let him go hungry?

OP posts:
mishymoo · 19/09/2007 15:51

My DS did this when he was teething (roughly same age) - wouldn't eat properly for days! I used to give him an extra bottle of milk (to make me feel better knowing he had at least had something) or try him with a yoghurt!

My gp always told me not to worry about it and "a child will never starve itself"!

Have you tried giving him cucumber sticks or cooked carrots sticks to chew on?

GreebosWhiskers · 19/09/2007 15:51

My dd has been like this since about the same age (she's 2.6 now). The hv just said not to cook her anything different & definitely no pudding (for a while I'd put her plate down & she'd push it straight away & demand a yogurt). 'tis hard but I'm trying not to give in to her demands & hope it's true that no child has ever deliberately startved herself

I find it helps if she's had nothing (not even a drink) for about 1.5 hours before mealtimes & I try to feed her early so she's not too tired to eat.

Good luck.

GreebosWhiskers · 19/09/2007 15:52

starved even

nappyaddict · 19/09/2007 16:06

oh i was going to give a yoghurt so i knew he'd had something but maybe i won't do that.

greeboswhiskers did you give any extra milk if she didn't want her dinner?

OP posts:
nappyaddict · 19/09/2007 16:09

oh and also what sort of yoghurt was it? cos ds just has plain natural yoghurt so it isn't as sweet as other yoghurts which was maybe why your dd would demand that instead?

OP posts:
mishymoo · 19/09/2007 16:27

Just to say I didn't give my DS yoghurt all the time - only when I was at my wits end trying to get something down him (and he is not a fussy eater now!) Actually it was the petit filous fromage frais!

He still has his moments now at 2.2 with not wanting to eat so I do just pull it away and he doesn't have anything.

tizzwhizz · 19/09/2007 17:09

Hi my ds started this at 11 months. He can still be funny at 2.5. I used to do the yogurt thing when at my wits end. My health visitor wasnt concerned she took the same view as mishy moos gp.

I found that sometimes giving him a yogurt while his dinner was still in front of him then got him picking at his dinner. I know its not ideal but it doesnt seem to have become a permanent thing.

I found the bigger deal I made of it the less likely he was to eat. Sometimes if I just ignored him he would start munching. We had some real battles with both ending in tears at times, with me it was the worry he would starve or become under weight but he never did. Annabel Karmels book has a really good section on fussy eating helped me chill out.

My HV said with new stuff that sometimes it can take 15 occasions of putting something in front of them to get them to try it.

I found one thing that I could tend to get my ds to eat was a mushed up baked potatoe, cheese and beans. We used to joke he would live on it if he could.

He does still seem to have what we call his eating days and non eating days. But I was told its what he eats over a period of days that matters.

I have found with my ds that little and often throughout the day worked really well rather than bigger meals.

Sorry I know this was a long one, hope I didnt ramble too much.

GColdtimer · 23/09/2007 18:38

Well, 17 month old in my case but thought I would follow on the thread. I know the arguments about not starving themselves and I tend to agree but I just don't know what to do on a day to day basis, dd's fadding eating has gone on for months now.

If she doesn't eat her meal she watches me put it calmly (well on the outside at least) in the bin and I don't offer her anything else, even though she is banging on the freezer door crying for ice cream! The problem is (and this can start with breakfast) she is then hungry about an hour later so she has quite a big snack. She then won't eat her lunch and so it continues. I have tried not giving her any snacks but she gets completely hysterical and I feel that she is too young to understand that she can't have a snack because she didn't eat her lunch/breakfast/tea. I feel mean not giving her anything so I tend to give her fruit which she loves.

I really, really don't want a faddy eater but I also worry that she is too young to get too tough and can't understand the consequences of not eating.

I really am at my wits end. I mean I even gave her fishfingers, beans and chips for tea tonight in a last ditch attempt to get her to eat something and that got pushed away with a look of disdain for crying out loud. We did BLW and she was an absolute dream eater until she hit 1.

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