1 year old feeding problems

[Kittiewhite89]

Hi
I have a recently turned 1 year old daughter and weaning has never been enjoyable.
We started purees at 6 months and moved to finger foods solely at about 8 months.
At about 10 months she refused to eat herself and would only be spoonfed so we went back to purees with texture appropriate for her age which went well up until last month.

Now she refuses to be spoonfed. I blame myself as I used to get so stressed out with her eating and I can imagine I've created a negative experience for mealtimes.
I've decided now to go back to her feeding herself as I can't deal with the fighting anymore and I want her to enjoy her food.

My problem is that she just won't feed herself. I eat my meals with her at the table or leave her to it while I tidy up but I still talk to her. She has her own bowl and cup of water for each meal.
If she throws food off the high chair once it goes back on the plate, if she throws it twice she gets a firm "no" but it stays on the floor. If she continues I end mealtime and she gets no dessert as I don't want to reward her with anything sweet if she eats nothing.

She's basically eating hardly anything all day every day.
She has 6oz milk in the morning with Greek yoghurt and fruit purée for breakfast.
For lunch she might have a bite or two.
She has more yoghurt as a snack so I can get extra calcium into her.
Her evening meal she won't eat even a quarter but I do give her a fruit pot and she has another 6oz before bed.

I offer her only a bit at a time on her plate so she doesn't get overwhelmed and I offer of all sorts of food - meats, pasta, veg but she only has a bite or 2 then she won't eat.

People say she won't starve herself but to be honest It feels like she just has no interest in food whatsoever and still doesn't understand that food fills her up.

She's always been a small but chunky ish baby but I'm so worried about her slipping down on the charts as she isn't even eating half of the recommended amount of food for her age. She's not teething and she's not sick, and she's been walking since 11 months so I can't understand why she isn't hungry. She doesn't drink juice either only water.

Anyone else having this problem and any advice? :(

kittie you do sound very, very stressed. From your post a few things stand out, apart from the stress obviously!

You say she's not eating half of the recommended amount. Where have you seen these guidelines? Just asking as I'm not aware of any. She's having 12floz of formula a day, so she's getting the 300 ml of milk each day, in fact she's getting a little more so don't worry about her calcium.

Bearing in mind that she is getting enough calcium, could you change her diet a little? You don't have to stop the yoghurt completely, but I think anyone would get bored og it twice a day!

Did you know that figs, including dried, brocolli, almonds (try smooth almond butter on toast) and sardines and tinned salmon with bones are all high in calcium too?

Maybe you could try her with something different for breakfast tomorrow. Does she like eggy bread?

A lot of parents get anxious St about 12 months because baby can seem to eat a lot less than they did before, however, their growth rate has slowed down a lot and it could simp,y be that she's not hungry

If you would like some more reassurance, try My Chikd Won't Eat by Carlos Gonzalez

So she will eat but only sweet stuff like fruit, is that right? How is she with sweeter veg like butternut squash and sweet potato? I did have to sort of wean my son from sweet food to savoury by reducing sweetness gradually. Have you tried mixing fruit in with porridge or something instead of yoghurt? My understanding is that if they're having so much milk for their drinks then you don't have to worry about their dairy/calcium intake.

Gosh your meal time sound so stressed. Why do you even say no when she threw the food? Just leave it on the floor and don't make a comment? And also pudding shouldn't be a reward. It doesn't work once you have two. (If only one child, then you can all not have puddings. You don't want a situation where one child gets a pudding and another doesn't).