Faddy one year old??

[MooMoosmum]

My son turned 1 last week. For the last three weeks or so he has been rejecting his usual pureed food (home made)and will only eat what his dad is eating - I am veggie and my food isn't interesting enough(!) LOL

We realised that he must want more grown up food, so have been trying to offer him larger 'chunky' food and small lumps. My problem is that now I am worried he isn't eating enough! When he was on pureed stuff I knew exactly what he was eating - lamb stew with four veggies in it and a portion of lentils etc. but now it seems he will only eat a quarter of a sandwich or a very small portion of chicken. Dinner tonight was small pasta shapes with a home made cheese sauce and bits of ham, but he hardly ate anything, compared to what he was previously eating a few weeks back with the puree.

Am I being silly and worrying uncessarily? He is my first child and it all seems so confusing!

HELP!

You're not being silly but maybe worrying unecessarilly (as we all do!). My DD is 14 months and very similar with eating habbits. We've had a couple of months of this now, she seems to go through phases. She is completely off pureed food but likes porridge or weetabix for breakfast. At mealtimes she only eats chunky food and usually only the meat. Food looks much more pureed than lumps, so he's probably getting more than you think. I do put snacks out inbetween which she sometimes eats. She'll eat crackers, grapes and loves dried fruit but only if I leave it for her to graze on. So long as your DS seems happy and healthy and is still weightgaining, I'm sure he'll be fine.

you're not being silly

Penelope Leach (very unfashionable I know) sorted out my anxiety on this one.

Unless your DS has a medical condition which is preventing him from eating, he'll eat when he's hungry. Now I just give DD a balanced diet, which she picks at in a very unbalanced way. I am practising not even noticing what she does/doesn't eat because over days or even weeks it will all even itself out.

Even at 1yo, babies know what you want them to eat and rejecting it is the first bit of power they have over their world. You can't blame them for practising it.

You do have to surrender control over what he eats. Believe me I know how hard this is - I've anguished over it for months. But all you can control is what you offer him, make it nutritious and balanced and trust him to eat what he needs. Of course there's also vitamin syrup/drops if you get really worried but they really do taste foul.

And it's great he wants to eat like Daddy. Put whatever you want him to eat on Daddy's plate and let him 'pinch' it. This of course means Daddy cannot eat bad things (he he).

Try letting him feed himself with some pasta (spirals with whatever are a favourite here). You may be amazed by quite how much your DS can shovel in.

Thanks for this. I suppose because he is our first child, we are muddling through

I guess its just a culture shock from me shoveling in loads of pureed food to him not having any of it!

you can still give him what you were giving him before, just don't puree it. And present it differently - so let him feed himself, put it on a plate instead of a bowl or in a different bowl! And give him something to hold at the same time so he thinks he's having the same as you and your dp are.

my son can be like this at times as he is still haveing tetthing difficulties. the one item that never fails to get gobbled up is ships from the local chippy.

ok so its not the absolute healthiest but it gets some carbs into him and after he is happy munching these its not to hard to get the odd veggie into him.

I am so glad I found this thread! My 12 month old was great at eating up till now! Now he throws everything off the table until he gets bread and hummous!

Its driving me mad! He will eat 2 spoonfuls of some sort of mash i.e fishpie/shephards pie then that's it......bored, hanging out of highchair, throws bowl on floor etc etc.

He eats next to nothing!

He still has milk first thing before breakfast and again at 10am, then bedtime, maybe its too much? Have you given up follow on milk yet?

Also, anyone introduce a fork yet?

In my humble opinion, it sounds like your son is having too much milk. This maybe why he is being so difficult with his food - my son has one bottle a day and we are still on the follow on stuff. I have tried cow's milk once and he went beserk!

I know we need to make the switch soon to cows stuff, but have the health visitor coming on Tuesday for his one year check, so will see what she says then.

My son won't even think of using a fork, so you aren't alone in that! He will hold a spoon and then when you put food on it, he carefully tips it all off before putting it in his mouth....

Dinner tonight was a disaster - wouldn't eat pasta, veggie sauce or toast so ended up going to bed with four petit filous instead! Not my finest moment, but what could I do?