dd 16 months refusing all savoury food. Help!

[fizzbuzz]

Cm told me this was happening, but didn't realise how bad it was. Have just had 1/2 term at home with dd and realise this is a big problem.

She will only eat, omelette or macoroni cheese, otherwise holds out for sweet/fruit/yoghurt. She doesn't have an excessive amount of pudding, but I am sure she would just eat that give the chance.

This happened when she was about 8 months old, and I witheld all sweet things until she started eating savoury again. Sweet things are reallly fruit or rice pudding, but not much else. She has the odd slice of cake Should I do this again?

We have just got her to sleep through night after 6 months of indescribable hell, so am terrified that if I stop feeding her what she wants she will start waking up in night again through hunger

I don't drip feed her sugar or anything like that, even fruit is sweet to her, and she will happily eat that

hi fizzbuzz dont worry you're not alone.my dd 14m is the same, never really been a very good eater, goes some days eating practically nothing,i think on those days i would be v chuffed if she ate dessert so i could at least say shed eaten something.Shes saying no no no alot now when i put food near her..like yours she does eat fruit a fair bit which can only be a good thing....its so stressful isnt it!!!!! does she drink alot of milk still?

I'd be tempted to cut out all the sweet stuff inc fruit until she accepts that she has to eat the savoury stuff. It will be hard I should think and it will take a few days and if she has a lot of milk still you may have to cut that down too

Also you need to be relaxed about it offer it her if she doesn't eat it take it away and meal time over until the next meal.

She is a humungous eater, huge portion sizes, scary amounts.

Have cut out sweet things today, and she was starving by tea time, ate a bit more savoury, but not a lot

She is normally a fantstic eater...

sounds like she is strong willed also remember it takes them time to get used to new flavours or perhaps in this case learn to enjoy savoury ones. The more sweet stuff you eat the more you crave it and the less sweet it tastes IYSWIM. I really think it will take several days will your CM back you up? - Much harder when out & about at toddlers to stop them snaffling biscuits etc

I know it's hard but she is testing you. She is learning that if she refuses, she gets the good stuff.

You just need to be firm. Withhold the sweet foods until she is established again with the savouries. Then slowly introduce them again, but if she tends to do this, then I would make the sweet stuff more sporadic than regular. Maybe give fruit at other times rather than for pudding to make sure she gets what she needs.

It is very hard though, especially when they see fruit as a good thing, you do not want to withhold it, but you don't want her to get the wrong message. Good luck

Yes, a sweet diet as from tomorrow methinks. CM will back me up, but I know there are biscuits at the toddler group she goes to....Feel cm is in for a battle

That should of course read sweet free...She would bloody love an all sweet diet

you could give her sweet potato as a treat once you've reset her boundaries

Unfortunately I cannot stand the smell of sweet potato ..bleurgh! Any other suggestions greatly received.

Such a small child and yet such a lttle tyrant!

Butternut squash is quite sweet, DS loves it, along with any other orange veg and he has quite the sweet tooth.

Parsnip is also quite sweet, DS (6 months) likes it a lot even though most ends up on his chin/ears/nose at the mo!

Mashed up jacket potato with butter and cheese is surprisingly sweet
Try boiled egg and soldiers
Salad with cheese/smoked mackerel/ham/tortilla bread (they seem to like the fact that tortillas are big!!)
Good luck

I may be being naive, but I think children listen to their bodies and eat what they need. As I child I lived on fruit (and a tiny bit of bread) and while it's only anecdotal, I did honestly turn out ok!!

My daughter (now 17 mo) until recently seemed the same. She is now expanding her repertoire; not because we have tried to force her, but because we offer her all sorts of foods - what we're having often - and sometimes she surprises us by gobbling a load of fish or something.

Personally, unless she is massively overweight, I would knock any unhealthy sweet food (so no cake, juice or biscuits) on the head and give her lots of fruit, yoghurt if she'll eat it, that sort of thing. Plenty of people would love to have a child who would eat a good range of fruit. Peas are also worth a try- they were the only veggie mine would eat until recently. She then moved on to fairly bland savory foods - fish pie was often a winnner, and she loves pasta. If your DD will eat macaroni cheese, could you put some peas, sweetcorn and brocolli into it? It's not the end of the world and I bet she will grow out of it in time.

Stressteddy, thanks for that. But after sweet things, she seems to like salty stuff, eg cheese, anything cheesy, ham (not tuna)She will eat macaroni cheese, and ham omelette by the bucketful, so don't want to encourage that either ...

Am interested in tortilla option, will definitely try that.

Why is food and feeding lo's so complex?

Cheese is good!!

Yes cheese is good, but doesn't it have a high salt content?

She also likes peas and sweetcorn

There you go, there's quite a bit of savoury here. You can expand her repertoire slowly over the coming weeks/months
Please try not to worry too much. It all balances out somewhere along the way
(My mum refused to cook for me when I was 13 and I ate cheese on toast every night for a year )

But I keep offering her a range of gourmet savoury food, which she just turns her little nose up at.

eg salmon and aspapragus bake
chicken risotto,
ham and spinach with pasta,
homemade chicken soup
spag bol
shepherds pie

Lots of gorgeous stuff which I would wolf down (and indeed do, greedy hog that I am) but she doesn't

She's only 16 months and some of those sound quite advanced flavours imo. Do hope this is helping you you and that I'm not winding you up???!

No your not winding me up at all , but she always used to eat them, and now she won't........

Give her some beetroot. Amazingly sweet, but very very yummy. Lots of people seem to be afraid to give it because it can be messy, but my dd absolutely loves it, and she's also a fan of peas and sweetcorn like your dd.

I'm with ScaryHairy in thinking that you should continue to offer fruit, but make sure that it's lots of different fruit, so that she gets a good range of nutrients from it.

Wish my dd would eat fruit. She refuses all except Lychees/longans, neither of which I can get at the moment.

Actually had forgotten that, she LOVES beetroot, is downright disgusting with it, gets evrywhere

And they do pink nappies if they have eaten a lot of beetroot.

Lychees and loganberries eh? Sounds like a sophisticated determined little girl to me

No no, not loganberries. Longan - they are rather like lychees, but without the prickly skin, and a bit smaller. No-one seems to have heard of them except me!

sweetcorn on th cob.
I microwave them for about 4 min and let stand to cool, rub some marg or butter over.