Fussy eater

[FuzzyOwl]

My toddler (almost 18 months) predominantly refuses to be spoon fed, and very reluctantly and slowly feeds herself. Does anyone have any suggestions of how I can get more calories into her and encourage her to feed herself more?

Toast with peanut butter?

If you give her snacks, look at how calorific they are.
It could be that, in this world of snacks for babies and toddlers every hour or so, that she isn't hungry at mealtimes.
At 18months, she won't have a huge tummy so perhaps if she is having snacks, they fill her sufficiently enough. Also, if she drinks a lot of milk, that will stem her appetite for food.

I'm not saying don't give her snacks or milk...just that she is perhaps taking more calories that you think. Perhaps write a food diary over a week and see what she eats. Look online to check she is getting roughly the right amount of food groups and then you can telling how to alter her diet accordingly.

She will sometimes eat toast with peanut butter although she is just as likely to throw it over the side of the high chair.

Snacks are generally non existent as she doesn't eat! If I put yoghurt into a reusable pouch, so that she can feed herself, she will sometimes have part of it for breakfast. She does like fruit and will often have blueberries, grapes, strawberries, apple chunks or banana etc for lunch. However, it isn't very much that she tends to eat (maybe two grapes or six blueberries). I'll also offer her cheese at lunchtime and sometimes she eats it but other times she won't. Then in the evening she might have a couple of pasta twirls or she might just throw everything off the high chair and refuse to eat.

I offer her three 6oz bottles of milk but they only have 3oz of milk in and the rest is topped up with water to try to prevent filling her up, but to give her some milk and also to stop her being dehydrated.

Online checks suggest that her intake for the food groups isn't right and the ones she is eating, she isn't having enough. But... She is still on the same centile for weight and looks/appears to be perfectly healthy. Could she just have an abnormally tiny appetite?

Why don't you pop her to the GP and ask them to check if her weight gain and diet is acceptable/normal.
I was going to say health visitor but I might aware that info is often quite hit and miss.

I think lots of toddlers that age aren't really into food yet. I know DD had quite a good appetite but DS (now 11 and diagnosed ASD) had selective food disorder from a very early age (about a year).
As a comparison, my nephew is 2.6 and eats very little but the HV said the other week that he is chunky and heavy for his age (doesn't really look it to us). He is part breastfed and part cows milk and generally barely eats brekkie or lunch but does ok for dinner.

If your DD is boinging about with lots of energy, sleeps well and is gaining some weight and height, then that seems positive.
What she does eat, try to add healthy calories to....so butter, eggs, cheese, fish and chicken etc. Does she like crackers or oat cakes? Would she eat an oat cake with cream cheese with her lunch time berries etc?

Thank you for the suggestion and I think I will do that. First I will keep a food diary for a week of everything that she has, so the doctor can clearly see what she does eat and what is refused. I'll also try the oat cake as she likes cream cheese, so might well eat it. Hopefully I am just unnecessarily worrying.