What do you do if your baby refuses what is offered?

[CharlieMouseWillDoIt]

My 12 month old has mainly been BLW, but I do spoon feed things that I'd eat with a spoon (cereal, yoghurt, etc).

To begin with she would happily eat most things I offered, but she is becoming increasingly fussy. Things that she used to gobble up, she'll now throw off the side of her highchair. Give her a slice of toast, however, and she'll eat it without any trouble or throwing.

I'm not sure what to do. I hate the thought of her going hungry, so I do tend to offer toast/fruit/breadsticks etc if she has refused the first thing that was offered. However, I don't want to get into this habit as she gets older.

I'm continuing to bf on demand, but I worry won't be getting enough calories/vitamins from this now she is older.

She won't let herself go hungry, especially if she can bf on demand, so I wouldn't worry about that. Are you perhaps still feeding her the sort of diet appropriate at 6months scaled up in size, and not the sort that's appropriate at 12? Their needs change, and they need to be getting more calories from carbohydrates as they become more mobile and less simply "growing". Might explain why she keeps heading for the bread?

It's really normal for them to have a fussy phase at about age 1. It's supposed to hark back to the times that they would have just been starting to explore more and likely to eat strange plants/berries etc which may have been poisonous.

At the age of 1 I wouldn't worry about bad habits :) Toast and fruit is a plain enough alternative anyway, DS is allowed toast if he is hungry and hasn't eaten his dinner and I can tell he isn't going to, but I won't cook him a whole other dinner.

Also, extreme case, but DS barely ate anything at all until he was 22 months and existed almost solely on breastmilk until then, his weight has always been within healthy parameters for him, and he's always developed normally and hit milestones on time, so I don't think it has affected him.

A great book to read is "My Child Won't Eat!" - it's just been re-released.

(He eats loads now, BTW, and I'm a little worried he might now be slightly overweight. So they do get there! :))

Thank you for your reassurance. I think it's one of those things that deep down I know is OK, but does get worrying/frustrating when everything I've cooked gets thrown on the floor!

It's true she loves her bread and potatoes, but doesn't eat pasta any more and has never really been into rice.