16 month old refusing to eat! HELP!! SOS!

[Beegey]

My DD is j=16 months and being a bugger about food. Been getting gradually worse and am at the end of my tether! It started with refusing veg so we would have to hide it to now refusing most savoury meals (apart from sandwiches/cheeseand meaty spag bol type dishes, oddly enough). She just wants fruit and yogurt.

I have tried to remain passive at meal times in a 'take it or leave it' way but she will inevitably leave it. Ashamed to say I am a nanny and my training suggests to carry on the planned meal regardless, but how long can a child live on yogurt and fruit?!

She is a healthy little thing otherwise, drinks plenty of water and milk (though I have cut back the latter in hope of increasing her appetite) she has just been walking for a couple of weeks so I thought she would be eating more these days not less. She has started waking early in the morning, I guess because she is hungry, she generally has a good brekkie of weetabix or porridge.

Help, generous M'netters. New baby coming in 6 weeks, I am so tired and tearful over this :(

i think you;re doing the right thing tbh.

personally i don't "hide" veg because i think then they never get used to it, tho nothing wrong with doing hidden veg and also offering bits of the "real" thing iyswim?

i would just keep offering. i have on occassion just started not offering puddings if i feel mine are holding out for that. we just don't do puddings for a few weeks.

I used to get very upset about this too, till a very kind and thoughtful friend with much older DCs told me that no healthy child offered food will allow themselves to starve. To be honest, I don't know if it is true, but it really helped me.

I still stressed about it, but not so much. Hopefully it is just a phase, and you'll all get over it.

Good luck.

Don't have any new advice, I'm afraid, except that it won't go on forever - they really won't starve themselves. Is it possible that she's feeling under the weather at all? Teething, perhaps? That's when my DS tends to go to his fruit and yoghurt diet.

Actually, I think my DS went off food a little bit when he started getting interested in walking - almost like he was too busy to sit and eat!

I also think you're doing the right thing just to keep offering food and trying to stay relaxed.

Ah, thanks for your wise word of encouragement. I am determind not to start getting used to feeding her crap, so will jut have to persevere and hope eventually she will just snap out of it.

Thanks again :)

Sorry, typo city, ykwim!