I know this has been done to death but...I am stumped!

[moomina]

Ds (16 months) seems to be refusing more and more food every day. His basic diet (i.e things I am pretty sure he will eat, most days) seems now to be:

blueberries
slices of cheese
baby tomatoes
olives
pineapple
peas
rice cakes
smiley potato faces if drenched in ketchup
milk (but he's still on formula because cow's milk as a drink gives him vile nappies!)

I am trying to be very laid back about all this but frankly it's starting to worry me a bit. He has bags of energy and generally sleeps fairly well, but is a bit grumpy atm and I'm concerned he's hungry. He's never had a day's illness so far. But really, he should be eating more than this, shouldn't he?

I have tried everything I can think of, from elaborate Annabel Karmel meals to plonking him in front of Baby Einstein and spoonfeeding him Ready Brek (obviously not a path I want to go too far down!)

Any suggestions - even if it's just to tell me not to worry?!

don't worry, keep offering him different things, don't succomb to the temptation to make those different things the junk food options just because you're worried he doesn't have enough variety. He is NOT going to starve himself. That looks like a really healthy mix to my lay person's eye. Lots of veg+fruit, which is really good.

Is he drinking too much milk?

My dd went onto cows milk at 12 mths, but still had it from bottles sometimes 9oz at a time! ANd she too got vile nappies, so if she requested a bottle (which she does some days and not others) i watered the milk down and it soon sorted out unpleasant nappies.

So i was just thinking that your ds could be taking too much milk and filling him up. They only need a pint a day after age of 1 and this includes anything in meals too.

And lastly i will tell you not to worry! My dd would go for days refusing to eat, because she didn't want mummy's help and just insisted on splodging it round the table, in her hair etc anywhere but her mouth. I just leave her to it, shes certainly not fading away and like your ds has hardly been ill.

i believe the most important thing is for her to see me, dp and others eating and i try and ensure we have a proper mealtime at the table everytime and insist she stays there even if not eating.

I did wonder that, Fran, but he only has 200mls first thing (and then usually eats breakfast fairly happily) and then the same last thing at night. He will sometimes have half a beaker of milk during the day but I always make sure to give it after lunch - so I don't think it can be that. He is just very, very picky, I think!

It's almost more that his grandma is driving me round the bend about it and implying that I should be far more worried than I appear to be, so I guess I'm looking for reassurance. She tells me that he will end up in hospital being drip-fed if he doesn't eat more - which rationally I know is bllcks - but when you hear it day after day...

Sounds like my DS1! Don't want to dishearten you but he's still pretty much like it at 2y9m. However, as Zebra has said, at least it's all healthy stuff so I would try not to worry too much about it. Hang in there

Have you asked your HV why cow's milk should be giving him vile nappies? Maybe there is an issue there.
With regards what he eats, no it doesn't seem much but it is a healthy variety - I don't see chocolate, biscuits, crisps, etc on that list so you are doing better than many! Will he really not eat bread or toast? Also, is the diet deliberately vegetarian?

Hi lonelymum. Yep, we've been through the whole thing about the nappies with both HV and GP - they both just said that cow's milk in large quantities (i.e. as a whole cupful of drink) was upsetting his stomach a bit (slight intolerance rather than full-blown allergy, IYKWIM). His nappies would be very mucusy - yuk. So we were advised to stick to formula for a while and try cow's milk again around 18 months. But his eating was actually much better when all that was going on so I'm not sure it's connected?

His diet isn't deliberately veggie - it's just impossible to get more than the tiniest mouthful of meat into him! He was offered some frankly delicious chicken nuggets (homemade, I hasten to add!) yesterday which were spat out onto the floor. Grrr! He will eat a bit of toast in the morning and the odd bit of bread but nothing as ambitious as an entire sandwich, oh no...

I'm sorry if this is all wrong, but do you still puree his food entirely/at all? My 20 month old eats pureed food brilliantly, but will scarcely touch food that has only been chopped (with some exceptions).

He's the opposite - will only eat tiny food he can pick up in his fingers! [really need rolling eyes emoticon] Hence love of blueberries, olives, etc, I think.

He doesn't like being fed with a spoon (unless sitting hypnotised in front of Baby Mozart...)

What would happen if you gave him a meal with none of "his" foods in it? Would he eat any? If he missed a meal, would he eat something new at the next meal because he was really hungry? I don't mean to be unkind, but I just wonder how children get like this in the first place. My children have all been/are fussy eaters, but never with such a restricted diet. Can you identify how your ds came to only eat certain foods?

This is what the book I used for feeding my daughter when she was little says about coping with fussy eaters.

Some children find comfort in a narrow repetitious diet and seem to thrive on surprisingly few foods. This may last for a few weeks or months before it ends.

Try to work out why your child dislikes particular foods so much. Is it the taste, texture or does the food make your child feel ill

Resist the temptation to givve snacks between meals. If they become hungry, only offer fruit, vegetable sticks or cheese - not crisps or biscuits, otherwise the child will catch on and refuse all meals knowing that you will later meet their demand for empty calrie alternatives.

Try to sit down and eat with your child.

Try not to get cross, as children quickly learn that refusing food will be met with a reaction and learn to use this as an attention-seeking device.

Never force a child to eat.

Offer a range of foods, but only a small amount of a food your child doesn't like at a time, and eventually he may surprise you!

Praise your child for what he has eaten, rather than concentrating on what remains. If he indicates that he's had enough, take the plate away. o child will voluntarily starve himself.

Offer only one drink at meal times so the child doesn't fill up with liquids instead of food.

Try additional foods at meals which your child responds to best - those where he has your full attention, when the house is quiet, when he's not too tired to eat.

If you are really concerned, keep a record of everything your child eats over the course of a week, to see whether the problem really is as bad as you think. If it's as bad or worse than you thought, discuss the food diary with the HV or doctor who can check your child's weight and height gain.

Most paediatricians agree that children will not starve when there is food about, they will eventually eat whatever is given to them if they are hungry.

dd went off food at around the same age but did up her milk intake to compensate. ds spent a summer reverting to purees as he was teething and I ended up feeding him jars containing fennel from Boots !

Do you eat with him ? Perhaps you could offer him a bit from your plate for one meal and a favourite at the other. Would he eat pasta shapes, rice or couscous as you could mix all sorts in with those for him to pick at or egg in different guises ? What about pieces of sliced ham with the cheese, or sweetcorn with peas, similar in texture but a little variety !

I'm sure it is very frustrating but doubt he'll deliberately starve himself !

Thanks WWB. I do try (or will try) to do all those things. I think I am quite relaxed about it all around him, don't tend to get cross etc. I try to make mealtimes as fun as possible and praise him when he does eat. I don't care, for example, whether he eats with his fingers or with a spoon (whereas my mum will fuss over him and try to get him eating every mouthful off the spoon, which I think is contributing to the problem) He doesn't snack between meals either, except for the odd bit of chopped dried apricot, raisins, a rice cake.

Having said all that, this morning he ate an bowl of Shreddies, then clambered up onto grandpa's lap to snaffle some more from his bowl, then had some raisins! All that and a full beaker of milk... We'll just see how we do with lunch - I have bought lots of yummy stuff to see if I can tempt him!

thanks everyone

moomina, you mentioned that he will also eat bread though not much yet you didn't put that on his list? Bread is an important one. Why not make a list including ALL the things he eats and you might be surprised that there's more over a week than you think.

You also didn't say how his weight is as that's a sure fire indicator.

My dd is 2 and is also harrowingly fussy. It drives me nuts most of the time but I just can't cope with being stressed about it anymore as she's been fussy from about 13 months now. Her diet consists of the following over an entire week so often a lot of the things she'll only have a very small amount of:

Broccoli
Baby corn
Spicy bean burgers
Bananas
Pasta in tomato sauce
Wholemeal bread dry
Shreddies
Small pieces of cheese
Organic cereal bars
Chips

And I can honestly say apart from those things she eats nothing else. Even at parties she doesn't nibble on cakes or sandwiches. She refuses all meat or fish. And she doesn't fill up on milk as she has 2 small cups a day, one in the morning, one before bed. She's quite small in weight but not noticably so. And sometimes I do wonder about her energy levels as she's not a bombing about kind of child, she's quite slow and quiet, but that might just be her nature.

I was thinking of starting a post about how the hell to get a fussy toddler to try new foods but then I thought I know all the answers: eat with them / get them to eat with other kids / refuse anything else unless they eat what you want them to etc. etc. and all ofthose have failed dismally. So I guess we've just got to grin and bear it and be glad our kids aren't surviving on junk alone!