1 yr old won't eat!

[rufus5]

My dd is 12 months old. She has always been very difficult to feed and is only interested in her milk. I have tried a multitude of different home-made purees (my freezer is about to burst with all the rejected meals!) but she totally refuses to take them from the spoon (although she wolfs yoghurt down, so no problem actually taking a spoonfeed). Have tried so many different flavours, all with same result.

Consequently I thought I'd go the BLW route, but although some food does make it into her mouth she smooshes it about for a bit and then spits it out again. I have tried cutting her milk feeds down, but to no avail, and I'm reluctant to limit her milk too severely as that is all she is taking (she takes 3 or sometimes 4 9oz bottles a day, sleeps all night no problem).

Today, for example, she had a bottle of milk at 7am, refused cereal or toast at 9am, took a small milk feed before her morning nap at 11am, refused any lunch except for a yoghurt which disappeared in about 3 seconds flat at 1pm, small milk feed before afternoon nap, threw a few peas and bits of pasta on the floor at 5pm before taking her night-time bottle and off to bed at 7pm. She only gets water from a sippy cup with her meals, and still needs her milk feeds before her naps to get her over to sleep.

This has been going on since 6 months when we first started weaning her. She's not losing weight and no worries about physical development etc, but it is SO frustrating - all the meals wasted, always trying to come up with new ideas to tempt her to eat, and because by 12 months I was expecting her to be well past this stage!

Has anyone else experienced this? If so did you find a solution? Any idea when she might finally figure out eating a little bit of mummy's lovely food might not be the great evil her screwed up little face implies it is????

she sounds like a very independant little girl, I had problems feeding dd1 as I had this idea that she must do XYZ by a certain age but in the end she found her own way, your dd not loosing weight so try not to worry, I found finger food the way to go, I sat dd1 on my knee and I ate (banana, cheese, strips of peppers etc) and she soon wanted to try some, or sit in high chair and put whatever food on offerit in front of her, talk to her about other things whilst getting on with what your doing, and dont make an issue of it, she'll get there

Yea, she certainly is a stubborn like her father very independent girl. I haven't been worrying up until now as her weight is fine and she's really healthy, so I kept telling myself she'd start eating any day now. 6 months later and being no further forward I'm just getting frustrated. I know you are right and it will just take time, hopefully some day soon she'll just figure it out and I'll probably have to worry about her becoming the let's-eat-everything-within-reach toddler scoffing the fridge contents! Thanks for the encouragement to keep at it and not get annoyed.

Is she getting 3 x 9oz bottles of formula or is she now on cows milk?

Do you eat together with her, or does she have separate meals? If the latter, I really recommend eating at the same time. You can try putting her in her highchair at mealtime, putting some food on the highchair tray (or some food from your plate) and then just get on with eating your own meal (you could make a point of going nomnomnom (I love doing this.. I'm such a kid) or saying yummy whenever you are eating, doing funny swallowing sounds etc). Lots of eyecontact and smiles, but no forcing her to eat.

As you're not worried about her weight at this point I'd say that might be worth a try for a few weeks. Also I've found that it's really easy to get worked up and worried if you're focusing too much on what they're 'supposed' to do at a certain age. I find this with sleeping (DS doesn't sleep enough! Stress stress stress - but after relaxing about it and just following his patterns it actually works much better, and I sleep better as well!), eating, talking, crawling etc!