17 month old dd barely interested in food

[toomuchtooyoung]

Need some help and inspiration, I'm in a rut with her food choices!

My 17 month old has never been particularly bothered about food. We have done a mixture of blw and spoon since starting weaning, and she will now use a spoon to feed herself, but only until she gets bored, usually 3 spoons in. So I load it up and encourage her to take a bit more, not always successfully.

Its not always easy to just give her what we eat as dh is on a very restricted diet. My homecooked food tends to just be too sloppy for her to eat with a spoon, and she's gone off any of the blw foods she used to like. So recently i've resorted to jars, at least it stays on the spoon, but they all seem to smell/taste the same to me, and she's becoming more and more bored of them.

Things she will still eat:
Anything with tuna - but cant give this everyday
Cream cheese and sardines
Couple of strips of omlette
Houmous
Peas

She's never liked sweet potato, bananas give her constipation and recently she's gone off toast, grapes and apple

Probably just turning into a picky eater, but concerned that she's not getting enough nutrients

Any thoughts?

Just out of interest, how much milk does she have each day?

You may already have tried similar but how about:

Caribbean chicken: chicken cooked in coconut milk with plantain mango and peas which can be served with rice or mash (any root veg mash will do). My dd and now DS love this. I batch cook and freeze so it is easy to defrost and serve quickly.

Eggy bread with mashed banana. Bananas need to be very very ripe (almost brown) or they will cause constipation. Mashed nana on top of the eggy bread.

Toasted cheese tortilla. Get two of the ready made tortillas and put cheese inbetween and fry both sides in a frying pan. Cut into triangles and serve with red/green pepper cut into sticks or carrot sticks.

Meatball pasta. Beef meatballs browned and then onion (diced) tinned tomato, courgette, carrot or any other handy veg. Cook for circa 30 mins. Again I batch cook and freeze. It can be served with pasta or rice or mash. If your dd doesn't like pasta, try Orzo shaped pasta (shaped like rice grains). My dd will not eat any other shape of pasta. I thought she just didn't like pasta until I tried orzo shaped. All big supermarkets stock it.

Bagel with cream cheese?

If it helps, my dd is a good eater but there are things she just won't touch. Tuna is one of them but she will eat salmon which isn't really massively different. And her favourites change all the time. It's hard to keep up.

Jilted - she'll have two 6oz bottles, although the morning one she drinks half and the rest goes in porridge, and doesnt always finish the evening one. Too much?

Skandi1 - thanks for the ideas, will give some of them a go. She'll eat a bit if eggy bread but then no more. And bagels/toast which she used to like she'll have a couple of pieces but then loses interest

It's almost as though food is just an interruption to whatever she was doing before. My mum keeps telling me I was similar, although I used to fall asleep in my food. She resorted to little but often, perhaps that's the way to go

Hi toomuch, was asking as I've got a few friends who complain of similar then you find that their DC have about 4 bottles of follow on milk a day . Don't think that 12 oz is too much at all. It is 354 ml and the current recommendation is for 300ml, so it's not much over, especially when she's not finishing at least one of her bottles. Though if you are giving formula or follow on milk I would swap to cows as the others can cause constipation whcih can affect appetite.

As for a little and often, she could well be a grazer, I am and so is my DD. So you may find that if you offer less and more often she will take more.

As they get older they do tend to go through a phase of rejecting more and more food. If she used to some foods though, or you want to introduce new ones, one way of doing it is to give them along with the things you know she will eat. So you could try some houmous and breadsticks for a snack and offer some grapes on the plate too. That way you know she is eating something and if the pressure is off she may pick up the grapes at some point. We have a "you don't have to eat it but it stays on the plate rule". If you ignore the protests for long enough they usually end up eating it anyway .

As for not eating your homemade food, have you tried a different spoon like the plastic Ikea ones? Does she have to eat with a spoon at all, how do you feel about her eating things like lasagne or spag bol with her fingers?

As for the meals, if she eats different foods from you how about cooking something like a small fish pie/spag bol/korma and freezing it in batches? There are some good recipes on here and here.

Personally though I wouldn't get too stressed about it. Keep offering her food you know she will eat along with something new and don't worry too much if she isn't bothered. As long as she is bright and alert and is putting on weight you have no worries.

Just one last thing, on the tuna note I always thought that it was only supposed to be offered once a week. Could be wrong though.

Love your name too, now you've got me singing the song .

Hi Jilted. Glad you like the song, also glad you don't think it's about my misspent youth!

Dd is on cows milk and has been since we swapped. We've also tried a variety of spoons, angled, normal, big, small, and yes to eating with hands, whatever will get it in.

Thanks for the recipie links, will have a look. I'm sure you're right about the tuna, and have been limiting how many times she gets it.

She doesn't seem bothered by the lack of food, is bright and alert, some say too blinkin' bright and alert! Guess I'll try the little but often approach. She's 11kg and 80cm, a bit taller than her peers, and has endless energy, like a duracell bunny.

Doesn't sound like much of a problem for her then, but can understand how frustrating it can be at times for you .

Sounds like little and often could be the solution then. If its any help our DD is 4.5 and just the same. We've just found how to work with it.