'food is fun before one' but just had first birthday...

[PhilPhil]

I'm new here - although have lurked around for a while. Ds has just turned one, but weaning isn't working very well! He is mainly blw, apart from porridge or weetabix at breakfast which we give to him on a spoon (and he eats well). He manages finger food without any problem but he won't eat any vegetables (except cucumber) or meat, or potato, or yoghurt, or anything much really - he eats fruit, toast, rice cakes, cheese, fishfingers, sultanas and sometimes scrambled egg. He used to eat a bit more (some veg, and jacket potato, has never eaten meat), but has gone backwards and has eaten less and less since Christmas.

Now he's one should I be worrying that his diet is so restricted? And what can I do to encourage him to eat more things?

Any help greatly appreciated!

Hello

TBH sounds like he has a pretty varied diet compared to many adults, let alone babies! I'd just keep offering him a wide range of foods, perhaps mixing new things with things you know he'll eat, and try to relax. If he's well and happy and growing then he's getting enough to eat!

My own son (nearly 1) is a good eater - BLW including preloaded spoons that he feeds himself for Greek yogurt etc - but definitely goes in phases. Some weeks he will devour a particular thing and then just turn his nose up. It can be frustrating if I've spent a while cooking something up! So I try to just ignore it and keep offering him whatever we're having.

Have you tried fish other than fish fingers? My son likes salmon and trout and mackerel and it's so easy to bake fish in the oven. I also make tuna or salmon fishcakes - tin of tuna well drained then mixed with mashed potato or mashed sweet potato, an egg and some flour and then shaped into patties and fried - which are great for lunch or when out and about.

Also, prawns are a big hit in our house. I add them to various things, eg pasta or a baby veg stir fry with prawns (and have recently gotten into adding a homemade satay sauce to stir fries which DS loves).

On the veg front, have you tried corn on the cob? It's another one that can be popular (admittedly, I've never made it at home...I don't really like corn! But we've had it when we've been out and at friends' houses). I had to start it off but my son seems to enjoy it. Another super easy way for me to get some veg into a meal is a cheese and spinach sauce - you just make a cheese sauce and add some spinach and it's great with pasta or whatever. I use frozen spinach usually (though I have been known to use up aging rocket or watercress leaves in a cheese sauce too!).

Also, if he likes scrambled egg you could try adding things and making an omelette. I quite often do a cheese omelette with something else (eg cheese and tomato, cheese and onions, cheese and mushrooms).

watching this as ive often wondered what u do after one if theyre not eatin properly! And also cos 9mo blw ds has gone backwards with his intake too :(

Can I slightly hijack and ask you your satay sauce recipe FF??

FlipFantasia, thank you. We have tried omelettes - no success. But I will try fishcakes and keep on offering veg... I think I'm just a bit dismayed as I kept telling myself that he would get the hang of food eventually, and now it's getting worse not better and I'm not sure what to do! And of course, my (lovely) Mum keeps saying, 'if you were feeding him purees he'd be eating veg and meat'

PhilPhil sorry to hear your mum is being "helpful". My own mum (who, luckily for me lives in Ireland when I live in London) was quite anti-BLW and it really I can only look at friends and family who did the puree route, but by 1 years old most of them were doing finger foods exclusively (with some spoon feeding battles going on) so I really don't think purees would help! On the omelette front, I cook it til it's quite crispy iykwim and then slice it up, so that it's quite similar to scrambled egg...your really will get the hang of things. Though it does sound like he eats quite a lot of good stuff, but I know how it can seem an uphill struggle sometimes. I find that I'm always thinking of things he may like and can get a little stressed when he's not eating. Another idea I had was maybe quesadillas with added stuff (quesadillas are my stand-by lunch as they're so easy and fast). I've added bolognaise/chilli to quesadillas and DS has liked it. Bascially take a tortilla or wrap, cover half of it in your topping (eg cheese & mushed up avocado or cheese and bolognaise), fold the other half over (to make a half moon) and then fry in a dry pan and flip over to toast both sides. So basically a tortilla cheese toasty with some added bits!

Titty the satay sauce is comedy easy - 1/3 cup smooth peanut butter, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp lemon juice and whisk it up and then add water or whole milk to get it to the consistency you want. You can make it in advance and chill if you want.

Sorry PhilPhil it sounded garbled but my own mum was anti-BLW and I was glad she lived in Ireland whenever we came up against problems! Also should say "your son will get the hang of things". It's well past wine o'clock here and my preview skills have slipped somewhat

Thank you - all ideas appreciated. We'll try quesadillas. Had trout last night with potatoes, carrots and leek and he didn't eat anything at all, then wolfed down a whole banana. And tonight played with noodles, but didn't eat any chicken stir fry! If your ds doesn't eat, do you offer an alternative? We're offering fruit whether or not he's eaten any first course, but not offering something different - does that sound reasonable?

My Mum is really lovely, and has tried hard for 6 months not to knock blw (when I think she's been sorely tempted!) but as time goes on she's finding it harder to remain supportive!

Your son sounds similar to mine, who was not BLW. I'm afraid he is 2 and is still a picky little bugger. Was always crap right from being weaned. We gave him a lot of finger foods, but also fed from a spoon. I think if you have a crap eater you just have one I'm afraid. Starting to wean my DD who is 6.5 months and she actually eats! Very bizarre experience.

You can't win. I really wanted to kill this guy at work who suggested my son doesn't eat because he WASN'T blw. Dick. Sorry, but just because I offered him food on a spoon doesn't mean I was force feeding him or giving him complexes, and just cos your 2 BLW kids eat well (sample size of ... err...2) doesn't mean that mine would have done if weaned that way.

Part of the reason I didn't do BLW if I'm honest was I wasn't enough behind the idea to defend it in particular to my highly annoying MIL so I sympathise there!

I am rather beginning to think he's just fussy - I've told my husband that it must come from his side of the family! Do you offer alternatives if he doesn't eat anything of what's put in front of him?

PhilPhil - I could have written this message, my daughter turns one in a couple of weeks, we have also gone backwards and she has decided that she prefers a milk diet. The only thing that she regularly will eat is a yoghurt which she feeds herself with a self loaded spoon, would also appear that she is partial to biscuits when she is at MIL house too......

MIL always on hand to offer advise, recently it came in the form of an article she had cut out from the Daily Express about BLW babies, not taking on enough food, quickly followed by an enquiry as to when i was next getting her weighed, grrrr.

I have been hoping that we are going through one of the phases that Flipfantasia was talking about, and recognise that when babies are teething, which she is at the moment, or has a cold, also a recent occurence, that they will take on less food, but rather than being peaks and troughs, we have plateaued, mainly on the troughs - i would be astounded if she managed a whole banana! If all other food is thrown off the high chair, i do go for the fail safe raisens, but thats about it and haven't been offering anything else if shes dismissed everything else. Will be watching your thread with interest as am really unsure what to do myself...... will also be trying the quesadillas tomorrow!

No we don't offer alternative main course, but it doesn't really seem to work! I don't want him to think he can just have what he wants, but we do offer him fruit and sometimes yoghurt afterwards. He often eats no tea whatsoever, but it doesn't seem to bother him. He usually has sandwiches for lunch, which he does eat mostly. He also eats a good breakfast of readybrek and fruit most days.

My DS would scoff a whole banana in a minute flat, despite 30 seconds previously refusing a perfectly normal main course acting like he wasn't even remotely hungry. Recently though he's decided he's off bananas

Oh and waffler yes we have a useful article, which I assume was left by the MIL as it's from the telegraph on our mantlepiece. Saying how easy it is to fix fussy eaters if you don't pander to them, and how this woman called in some supernanny style lady for her DS and it worked in days flat....yeah good luck with that! Though to be honest I would not have believed a child could be so fussy as mine til I saw it with my own eyes. Friends always moan their toddlers are fussy, then they see mine and they go..."Oh. I see what you mean."

SummerLightning, I'm with you about scoffing bananas - DS will routinely refuse first course, not even pick anything up, act as if he has no idea why you think he might want to eat, and then a banana appears and he goes berserk, and it's gone in seconds! Goodness knows how he'll manage when he next decides he doesn't like them either!

summer your colleague sounds like a knob!

On the subject of fussy eaters, my older sister went for 18 months only eating purple and orange food (from ages 2-3). This was after refusing spoons, refusing to sit at tables, refusing anything etc, so my parents would leave food stashed in bowls around the house and hope she helped herself. So my mum can go on and on and on about the stress of fussy eaters. But she always quotes the GP who told her that my sister was fine, you don't hear of healthy children starving etc.

Oh and I do offer alternatives sometimes, mainly Greek yogurt though the trusty banana has been known to be used as well. Mainly cos DS was a slow weight gainer in his early months and I can still get stressed about it sometimes (despite the fact that he is fine, albeit lean!).

Why do toddlers make so little sense? Ds screamed the house down as I gave him some scampi in breadcrumbs and when he bit into it was "broken" and he wanted me to fix it! I honestly thought he'd badly scalded himself or something that's how much he screamed!
Oh and he's back onto bananas but only mashed up like his sister has them (she's 6 months and he is playing up big time now she is tucking into food with no fuss and showing him up)

My LO also won't eat meat if its given as just like a piece of chicken, however i make these little burgers combining chicken/pork with pureed dried apricots, breadcrumbs and onion and he loves them.

Don't sweat it, you'll get there.

Can you give me a little more detail about your burger recipe? We've been to the health visitor today and DS has put on half an ounce in two months (although he had a vomiting bug during that time, so that might account for some of it - I hope so!). So keener than ever to encourage him to eat...

Sorry to hear of the slow weight gain PhilPhil - I bet the vomiting bug definitely had a lot to do with it! Could have exacerbated the normal slow-down in weight gain as babies get older...

I've made the cheesy beefburgers from the BLW forum (without the harissa) and they were tasty (but then my son will eat most things once cheese is added!).