My 13mo barely eats!

[TeaFairy86]

Any advice would be helpful on this please!

My 13 mo still barely eats anything but yogurt or baby snack crisps.
He was weaned at about 5mo and hasn't improved with eating much at all.

I have offered him nearly everything i can think of and he will push my hand away if it's spoon fed or just leave it on his highchair tray barely touching it until he throws it all on the floor without even trying it.
I have spoken to my Hv and all she suggested was trying him with more snacks or eating with him, which we do anyway. Offering him snacks is easy, doesn't mean he will eat it though.

Recently DS has been waking between midnight and 1am for a feed which he hasn't done for a while and then he won't have anything until the next morning when he has breakfast.

I have offered Weetabix, baby porridge( plain and with honey), normal hot oats amd rice crispies with cows milk. He won't touch any if that. At best he will eat a few dry Cheerios, nibble on toast and then have yogurts for breakfast.

For snacks he is offered fruit, veggies, rice crackers(which he nibbles)
Rusks, that he doesn't like. He won't even eat chocolate and had none of his birthday cake!
Evening meals he is offered everything from pasta in tomato sauce, gravy dinners with veg , fish fingers...Nope, not interested! He won't even drink anything but water.

I really don't know what to do. He is on half cows milk and half formula in his bottles at the moment. He is having 3 bottles a day. I really wanted to wean him fully onto cows milk but i am afraid he will be too hungry as he is eating too little.

Should i seek more help from HV or even GP? Or do i just have a seriously fussy child?

I don't know if this helps but mine didn't either. He's 20 months now and only just eating. He always got what he needed from milk (breast fed) it was suggested to me that if I dropped milk he might eat more, I didn't but it might have helped?

Thank you. It's a comfort to know that other parents have been through the same thing. Ds has had lunch(if you can call it that) and is happy playing. I am hoping he will go through until around 2ish so he can have a snack instead of that 2nd bottle. Worth a try. Thank you!

As long as you get enough wee and poo and weight gain I think it usually works out ok in the end

Oh we get more than enough of the wee and poo and his weight is fine I always feel slightly pressured to wean him off formula. Especially since he hit that 1 year mark. I feel much better now though. Thanks x

My dc3 is 20 months and the same, he only eats pasta yogurt toast and bananas...every day!
The only thing he'll take off a spoon is yogurt, other than that he will only eat above foods from his highchair tray.
I just give a couple extra bottles of milk, I trued cutting them and it made noo difference at all.
My dc1 (12) was the same up until recently, now he eats (almost) anything.
dc2 (9) was a good eater but now very fussy which isn't great as she already has quite a restricted diet. I think eating anything is better than nothing so just do what you can and top up with a multi vit xx

Thanks NoTeaNoShadeNoPinkLemonade for your reply. I didn't realise it was as common so i don't feel so alone with this now. My Ds is the same, will only be spoon fed yogurt or the the pureed fruit pots you can get. I always thought feeding little ones would be a doddle! Xx

Will he spoon feed himself? My 13 mo won’t let me spoon feed her but likes doing it herself - for the few spoonfuls that she will eat!

No unfortunately not. I have put his bowl/plate with his spoon in front of him to have a go or even loaded the spoon and handed it to him but he either flicks it at me or just throws it on the floor. 😞

Hi Op,

I feel your pain and started a thread not long ago with similar issues. My DD is 1 at the end of August and is basically not weaned, hasn't eaten one meal or enough that would constitute to dropping a bottle. We are now still on 5 bottles a day. Everything I've offered has been home cooked, BLW with spoon feeding yoghurts / mixed avocado with cream cheese ect. Loves full fat yogurt, I can hand her the spoon and she will eat happily away but gobble a bottle afterwards so not that filing. My DD does try most foods, but spits the majority of it out eventually (even after it's really well chewed). She starts nursery in September, so basically they'll have to continue on weaning. What I've found hard is she's only small on the 8th percentile so trying to cram extra calories in her, but think she'll only really have a small appetite but she can pack away quite a lot of formula some days.

I've been speaking to a dietician because we thought she had CMPA (but doesn't) and was able to cover concerns about the lack of eating, she recommended to stay on formula beyond 1 - it's more nutritious than cows milk, so will hopefully help the gaps nutrition wise whilst she's still being weaned. I've felt some comfort speaking to other mums on here and learning that there little ones didn't start eating till 18 months and even longer. I also tried to introduce snacks but no improvement and felt that with 5 bottles 3 meals and two snacks was a bit ridiculous considering none was being eaten and spent most of the day at home offering food or bottles (really not fun)

Anyway, what I have discovered that's helped us and this may be more down to my DD but she gets really frustrated in the high chair basically clenching the tray and just sounds generally annoyed. We travelled to Scotland yesterday and I decided to try her in the wooden high chairs as normally avoided because she's so small and pack my own special small one. However yesterday I thought I'd try and she was so more relaxed without the tray able to look around and was eating some of the food. My high chair is quite restrictive at home plus my travel one, so when home going to try and get a wooden one. The mess wasn't great and still food was on the floor but hoping to keep meal times more relaxed. Not sure if your DS gets frustrated with being locked in a high chair as well? So sorry for the super long post, but really know how you feel. I was starting to get worried, but trying to change my mindset and think if she tried some of the foods and seems fed up get her out of the chair and repeat next meal, that's all we can do. They'll get there eventually it's just hard when it's your first child x

My daughter was a terrible eater at first. Maybe not quite as bad but it was really hard work. When all other kids seemed to be eating family meals and sandwiches etc and mine wasn't at all. She loved yoghurt as well. She is 3 now and a lot better. She has just started to eat sausage casserole!! She usually never eats foods mixed in a sauce apart from bolognaise. But just wanted to say keep offering foods and you will get there slowly. Think health visitors sometimes expect all babies to just eat everything you eat from very early. Well that's what I found which didn't help as I felt I was doing something wrong. I have now got second dd who is 7 months and is a pretty good eater but it's still early days and the hv last week was saying she should be having 3 meals a day plus snacks plus supper and reducing milk during the day so she gets full from food and no milk during the night. She is still young and can't eat that much food yet. Sorry, just annoyed me a bit as not all babies are the same with eating.

Thank you both for your responses. My son can get frustrated in his highchair from time to time but he usually isn't too bad. He had some honey on toast this morning and he seemed to enjoy that which was nice to see. Maybe i just need to relax more and let him set his own pace. I too get annoyed with the HV. They expect all babies to be eating 3 meals a day with 2 snacks and supper and god knows what else! No wonder parents get worried and feel pressured!

My 12mo doesn’t eat a huge amount, older dc were eating full meals and then some at his age! The only porridge/cereal he’ll eat just now is fruit baby porridge (blueberry/apple etc) and he loves flavoured yoghurt.

Not keen on much veg, doesn’t really like bread or toast. So lunch tends to be cheese nibbles, blueberries/strawberries etc and maybe a couple of mouthfuls of roll/wrap.

He’ll eat scrambled egg - if covered in cheese. Will nibble on ham and chicken but probably no more than a mouthful in total. He’ll eat pasta but again a few spoonfuls and that’s it.

Lately been waking around 2am for a bottle too! Then cup of milk when wakes up and I try hold off more milk until bed. I’m hoping it’ll just come to him one day. He’s not been weighed for a while but sits around 50th for weight and I’m sure he’s still putting it on.

My niece who is 13mo eats 2-3x as much as him though.