Toddler stopped eating most things he used to like

[pregnantncnc]

DS (14m) has stopped eating "proper" meals. He's really into toast or crackers with nut butter/hummus/ricotta on, cold shredded meat and fruit (just bananas, apples, pears and oranges - nothing else) which we always used to serve as an afternoon snack, and for breakfast he'll eat loads of porridge/cereal/weetabix/pancakes/toast. But he won't eat family meals that he has always eaten before (e.g. pasta, casseroles, pizza, jacket potato, sandwiches, curry, fajitas used to be his favourite, etc). He has also stopped eating all vegetables except peas and kale chips. It is making meal times very stressful. He went through another fussy phase just before his birthday in Feb, but I think that only lasted a week, and this has been going on for nearly 2 weeks already and I know the older he gets the more habits can stick.

I don't really know what I'm asking, it is just really getting me down as not only does he refuse to eat what is cooked, but he also screams and screams at mealtimes, even after we take him out of the high chair, until we go back to the lounge. I'm trying really hard to keep offering different foods but it is so disheartening when he doesn't eat anything. I'm also worried about him getting bored of toast/crackers and then stopping eating those too.

Any advice?????

Be careful with snacks. He may be filling himself up with snacks. Also make sure to serve snacks that are new / difderent

Serve meals together as a family.

On his plate have some 'safe' food and some new food. For example a portion of curry and rice and two toast fingers with nut butter.

Serve the meal and make NO FUSS do not praise do not encourage do not plead. Just put the meals down and chat amongst yourself. Sometimes talk about the food to eachother but not him 'isn't this yellow pepper crunchy daddy'

If he fusses take him out of the high chair immediately. If he's hungry later offer the same food again. Do not offer his snacks that you know he eats.

At 14 months their appetite varies daily so he may want to skip a whole meal.

As long as every time you serve some 'safe' food and apply no pressure he will try things when he's comfortable

☝️

@1940s Thank you for the detailed response, but that is exactly how I have approached his food since 6m. We did BLW from the start, no pressure, no fuss. There is always a safe food on his plate at meal times (at lunchtime today it was oranges, he ate an entire orange and then screamed. I gave him more orange because the internet says not not restrict the safe food, and he ate that too). He's always just eaten whatever - used to happily munch on broccoli, asparagus, carrots, sprouts, etc. Not 3 weeks ago he was happily eating huge portions of fish curry, minted shepherd's pie, fajitas, butternut squash soup, Moroccan lentil stew, salmon, etc.

You're probably right about snacks. He's transitioning down to 1 nap at the moment and his meal times are all over the place, so we're probably relying on snacks more than we should. I'm trying to figure out the balance between wanting to eat with him as much as possible, but also not having his bedtime too late that he's overtired.

Could he be teething or feeling a bit unwell?

The issue is, if he screams for more orange abs gets more orange then he will continue to do that.

When I say 'safe' I'd also list things that you know he used to eat as safe too.

Eg - Pizza Slice (safe) a small tangerine (absolute winner) sliced cucumber (safe from historical trend) half a boiled egg maybe as something 'new/scary'

If I was serving something new and scary for example soup. I'd serve Soup (unsafe!) two oranges and two fingers of peanut butter toast.

Do not under any circumstance fetch new safe food if he screams as that will become a habit. Ensure there's enough safe / historic food on his plate to fill him and a bonus 10% of new foods.

As a slight aside - I would try to use snacks as a super low pressure way to get mine to try new things.

A sliced pepper in the high chair was a mortal enemy.

A sliced pepper placed nonchalantly on the sofa whilst she was pottering around playing became an irresistible object!!

@Raggeo I don't think so, but I have a tendency to blame everything on teething so I try to avoid thinking that haha.

@1940s Thank you, all of this is really helpful. There are very few things that would be really "new/scary", he honestly used to eat anything I gave him, I think this is why I'm struggling with this so much. The only things that are new are things I didn't think I could safely serve him before e.g. prawns, pomegranate seeds etc. Thinking about it, we have probably been jumping up to give him a new really safe food (usually when DH serves DS's meal and doesn't include one in the first place) so will nip that in the bud. Really interesting about the pepper on the sofa - I think I need to unclench a bit around food as I currently only allow food in the high chair or pram (or at the table on my lap but he hates that) and I think he's starting to feel the pressure.

Yes I'm sure he's just using this as a bit of a power game!

I do stick to high chair and screen free meals 99% of the time. But every now and then we have a floor picnic or pizza on the sofa on a blanket (mind you maybe not at 14 months!) but it might take the pressure off a bit whilst he's going through this testing phase. And yes I'd definitely up the 'springing up for more safe foods' my daughter is a good eater but she would live off of chips and raspberry's if I provided an unlimited stream ;)

And unless he really is one of the minute amount of children with restricted eating; he will eat when he's hungry and just needs to maybe have a lunch of 'half a satsuma' (and a plate of ignored pasta) and then dinner time rolls around and he will get on with it!

I'm sure it will pass :)

I've never bothered with snacks as part of a daily routine anyway, sometimes we snack but until now (2.5) she's never really needed snacks every day. I know that goes against the books but she would breastfeed at 7am, toast at 8ish, lunch at 12ish and then a dinner at 5ish with a breastfeed before bed. Occasionally I'd offer a snack in the afternoon but only something very small or something 'new' like peppers or something she wouldn't have taken to in the high chair.
I'm also a big fan of no desserts abs serve food all together - chicken / potato / beocolli / 3 choc buttons. Sometimes she eats choc first then her dinner, sometimes the other way round - but either way I'm
Not bribing her to eat or causing her to overeat just to get a sweet

Before anyone thinks I'm sanctimonious there has been days where lunch has been an entire ice cream from the ice cream van 😂

Great advice about offering safe food alongside a new/ risky food.

Just wanted to add that my now 5 year old went through several fussy stages the worse being around the age your talking about, lasted a good few months but he came out the other end gradually and for from about that age of 3 and a half has been happy to try everything, still somethings he doesn’t like just like anyone but he will at least give new stuff a try and has a good varied diet

Thing I’ve found by the time I’ve gotten to baby number 3 is everything passes.

Just hopping back on this thread in case someone else stumbles across it in the future.

Thanks for all your advice! I've not been obsessing, especially as we've been out and about a bit more - but I've made some changes which have made a huge difference.

Things are definitely improving! Not perfect, but there is a lot less throwing of food, he's happier during mealtimes and is more engaged with the food on his plate.

Things we've been doing:

• Letting him help me prep the veg for dinner (I chop it up while he watches stood on his step, then he puts all of the pieces into the pan/baking tray/steamer), he's been tasting a few bits raw too here and there where its safe. Some ends up on the floor multiple times, but this keeps him entertained for ages and actually seems to make the biggest difference to whether or not he'll taste the veg or just chuck it away. (Can you tell I'm a SAHM running out of entertainment ideas)

• We put his food on a separate plate, then let him choose which bits go on his tray/suction plate. He can also put food back on the plate if he changes his mind. This has hugely reduced the amount of sweeping and throwing of food. He has started playing with his veg again now, and sometimes eating it, which is a huge step forward.

• I offer a small amount of a variety of foods at each meal in his high chair at the table, then offer him the same food at snack time in a different location if I can (if he doesn't touch it). E.g. for lunch today he had crackers with hummus, cucumber, cheese, avocado, broccoli and potato cubes. He left the avocado, cucumber and potato (didn't even touch), which I then offered again about 90min later in a snack tub while he was stood on his kitchen helper stool at the counter. Yesterday he ate eggs for the first time in his pushchair while on a walk. He didn't eat loads but he tried each thing! He doesn't always try it and sometimes, especially if he's tired, he'll have a breastmilk feed instead.

• We mixed up his breakfasts and will give him 'dinner' foods first thing, and breakfast foods in the evening sometimes. It doesn't necessarily make him more likely to eat it in the morning, but if he doesn't then he's hungrier by lunchtime and more likely to eat those foods. Tbh, I'm quite enjoying having enchiladas for breakfast and porridge for dinner.

• We've stopped buying pouches and puffs to have at home. I still have some reusable pouches that I'll use especially in the warmer weather as a nice cooling snack, but for us shop bought pouches were just TOO convenient and easy, and as soon as DS saw them he wanted them and nothing else. We still use prune pouches as a way to get DS to take his vitamins in the morning (in a shot glass, mix the vitamins with prune pouch and a bit of water, then give in a calpol syringe - game changer), but he has about 1/4 of one a day and that's fine for us, definitely isn't displacing regular food anymore.

Few thoughts on this:

1. This is totally normal
2. What matters if the nutritional value of what they eat, not whether it is three big meals or six small meals
3. All children mature - when they go to school they will fall into the three meals routine anyway
4. Do not create food issues in your child by over-wrrying

At this age I just let them eat when they wanted - but very healthy food. The important thing is quality of food not the hour of day they eat it. The less you worry, the less of an issue it will be.

Thanks @picturesandpickles - I've actually unclenched a lot around food since having DS (probably doesn't sound like it from this thread), in fact we were incredibly relaxed until he stopped eating so many things all at once. Then I panicked a bit. It wasn't so much the worry about time of day, but the fact that he wasn't eating things he used to eat... or anything in that general category.

But he's eating again now; today he ate noodles with beef, red cabbage, green beans and peanut sauce AT DINNER TIME, which was unimaginable a few weeks ago. I must try to remember that most things are a phase.

My DS is doing the exact same thing just now he will eat all the white carbs, cereal he can get, most fruit, peas, sweet corn, beans and yoghurt but that’s about it!! Before he would eat almost everything you gave him.
It’s not just at home either he now doesn’t eat much at nursery either except the sandwiches.
It’s so disheartening to make a nice dinner to have him pick it up and fling it away.
I know it’s just a phase but it’s very frustrating and i don’t know what to do.

So glad I found this thread! Have an almost 14 month DD here and also finding that she’s stopped eating loads of things she used to munch happily on, feeing very stressed about it today. I’m worried I’ve been getting the ‘safe’ foods thing wrong because we don’t give her a full plate of food (because she squashes it and chucks it around), just put a few pieces of each part of the meal on her highchair tray, and when she points at her plate (which will be on the table out of her reach) to get more of her safe food, which is usually watermelon or bread of some sort, we put a few more bits of that on her tray. Then when she can see the safe food is all gone she will occasionally eat a few other bits, but usually then stops eating altogether. She doesn’t really fuss or anything, just stops eating. I’m then at the point of wondering whether to make more or the safe food as she’s obviously still hungry, or just leave her to be hungry?! It’s a nightmare!

Out of interest OP, what stool do you use to get your LO helping in the kitchen? And what vitamins do you use?

You wait till they’re at high school and telling you that they’ve eaten healthily and then you go on to the parent app to check their lunch balance and see that they’ve bought pizza and cookies every day. You’ll wish you had some input on what goes on their plate then.

It does get easier. And as long as you can get some healthy choices into him for the first few years I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Tomorrow’s another day. He’ll want something different tomorrow. Sounds like a normal toddler.

so for dinner we have had a dry cracker, and some fruit. He didn’t want the cheese or the what mummy makes sheet fritters i gave him
I officially give up!

@Simonsayshaveacuppa - We have This Kitchen stool for helping with prep (he also sometimes has his lunch standing at it, which has also helped give a less "pressured" environment for trying new foods) and we use the WellBaby multivitamin, although I'm not sure I'd recommend it - DH bought it in bulk because his friend uses it with his baby so we're using it up before looking for a different one that hopefully smells better.

And with the safe food thing - that is what we do sometimes too. Sometimes we give him his plate/bowl and give him a couple of chances of trying to tip it away before we take it away and give him bits of food. Other times we'll do it the way you describe.

We've stopped going to get more of the safe food. We always used to get more more and more, and sometimes he'd eat 2 whole oranges and nothing else haha, so we had to change how we did things! I saw a tip on instagram somewhere that was aimed at older toddlers, but it was to say yes to getting more of the safe/preferred food but not until you have finished your own meal, to give them chance to explore what else they have. I'm not sure that would work with DS or your LO yet, but it might be worth noting for future reference!

@pregnantncnc Hey I’m currently going through the same thing with my 14 month old. Did it ever get better and what did you do to help?

😂😂😂i dont think you sound sanctimonious, you sound really knowledgable. my little one wont have some things in his highchair but if its on mommys plate and hes walkng around hell hoover it right up 😁