10 Month Old Son Not Eating

[friedleg]

Hi Mums!

Looking for advice.

My son is 10 months and just refuses to eat. Every meal is a fight with lots of crying, pushing the spoon away or mouth firmly shut.

I have tried fruit, potato, egg etc. He is only surviving now because the doctors prescribed High Energy SMA.

I have no idea how to get him to eat. The nutritionist calls once a month to get a weight check and just says add oil and butter to food. I don't find this helpful since he isn't opening his mouth to take any food.

Do you guys have any advice or tricks that you have used on your own little ones to get them to eat?

My dd has always been quite fussy and didn’t get on well with weaning. We’ve made sure to always eat together as a family, and give her what we are having. When she was a baby we just cut it up appropriately for her age. She could then watch us eat and knew we were all having the same, and she did start eating. She’s still fussy now but we still give her what we have and make sure there’s always something on her plate which we know she’ll eat too.

He isn't 'only surviving' because he has special milk. Loads of babies eat very little at ten months and they're fine. Milk is still their main food source until they're one.

You need to remove all of this stress and upset from eating. You're teaching him so many negative associations. Offer him a range of finger foods and some spoons of puree. Let him have what he wants and leave what he wants. There should be no crying.

Food at this age should be a fun new experience not stress and upset - this is true for both of you. No-one should be upset because a ten month old hasn't got to grips with food yet.

Try this relaxed and calm approach for a couple of months, re-evaluate when he's 12 months.

At 10 months it is fine for most of his intake to still be milk. Ideally he’d be on more food by now but it doesn’t matter that he isn’t. He doesn’t need high energy SMA, he can just be on regular stage 1 formula. Food needs to be fun, your post sounds way too pressured. Just put bits on his tray and let him play with them, remove all pressure and just let him do what he wants with it. Offer a small selection of foods (2-3 each ‘meal’), 3 meals per day. Eat with him and just enjoy spending mealtimes together. I say this as some who went through the same and knows how frustrating it is, but he will eat eventually. ‘My child won’t eat’ is a good read if you ignore the preachy bit around breast feeding.

Easy for me to say but I have extensive personal and professional experience.
Rule no 1 is take the pressure of yourself and him. He will pick up on your ( understandable) stress and associate meal times with anxiety.

Have a look on this Infant and Toddler forum. Lots of advice.

https://infantandtoddlerforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ITF107-Factsheet-2_1-Why-Toddlers-Refuse-Food-Dec19-v1.pdf

https://infantandtoddlerforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ITF109-Fact-sheet-2_3-Extreme-food-refusaL-Dec19-v2.pdf

https://infantandtoddlerforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ITF108-Factsheet-2_2-Fussy-Eating-Dec19-v2.pdf