21month old toddler barely wants to eat

[Akshayan]

I am having trouble feeding my 21month old. He is fine to have breakfast but its 9/10 a nightmare during lunch. He just doesnt want to eat or shows any appetite. I really cant work out what the problem is. I cant continue increasing the gap between breakfast and lunch. So if he had breakfast around 8.30am (Weetabix, Banana and Bluberries) then he plays for a bit, naps around 11/12pm and wakes up around 2pm and he is not hungry at all. He sometimes snacks before his nap but thats barely anything. I am confused how he can wake up, and almost 6 hours after breakfast he is still not ready for lunch. Its making it so hard for me and mentally very stressful. I have tried spoon feeding him, I have tried to let him feed himself, nothing seems to work. Even TV doesnt help anymore.

Its making meal making and meal times very unpleasant. He has never been a good eater 😭 I have also tried feeding the same meal again an hour later and he still wont eat it. I cant work out what is wrong here. Typically you would expect a toddler to eat something every 2 hours. He has never shown me any signs of hunger like he would never come to me and show me he is hungry. I dont want to keep spacing his meals more and more. A lot of mums have told me that when their toddler misses a meal they just give them milk instead but I dont want to get into that habit. Any advise I would greately appreciate. Thanks ❤

With mine I didn't try to pressure her to eat. I figured this three meals a day thing was a modern societal fabrication, not how we are naturally inclined to eat. I don't eat like that, why would a child? I followed her lead. She wasn't eating full meals up until around age two, and now (she's 6) she has days where she eats lots and lots, and days where she eats very little. I just allow this. Food is there, if she wants a meal it gets made. If she wants another shortly after that gets made. If she doesn't want much of her dinner that's fine. Meal times are never horrible.

She's a healthy weight and a happy child.

Why are you trying to force him to eat? Does he need it or are you trying to conform to rules that others have set?

Is he doing a lot of physical activity? DD ate like a horse and wasn't ever still. Her friend has a sitter and ate like a bird. Both a healthy weight.

all my kids ate one or two very light/non existent meals each day.

dropping the snacking completely helped a bit. Todays snacking is only a modern fad anyway and not necessary. Never bothered with juice or additional milk.

if your child is moving along the same percentile or only dropping a small amount I wouldn’t give food further thought.

just aim to offer variety, home cooked meals and be disinterested if your toddler eats or not. Best to avoid food becoming a focus

What happens if you feed breakfast earlier and lunch before the nap? The timings do seem a bit funny.

Both of mine were like this, I just fed them when they were hungry and didn't try and make them eat more of they weren't hungry.

The oldest is 5 now, and eats more or less the same as her peers, but she is very good at regulating her intake and stops when she is full which is really good. I think if I forced her to eat more aa a toddler, she would not have it such good self regulation now.

As long as he is happy and growing and developing as expected, I would just follow his lead. Of course if he is losing weight of dropping centiles that would be different.

I have actually never tried that. What time would you say breakfast would be best ? The thing is he starts nursery at 1pm meaning he needs his nap before 12pm. So during nursery days I try to feed him breakfast around 7.30am and lunch just around 12.15pm or 12.30pm when he wakes up. Even then on some days its a miss and then he is off to nursery at 1pm without a lunch or a few bites of his lunch. They offer him his snack around 2pm. However thats still a lunch missed which is what stresses me out. On some days its difficult to wake up early because he would refuse to sleep early or I am too tired as I work 5 days a week (from home though).

Is he losing weight?

Is your child breastfed or do they drink a lot of milk?

At that age my DS hardly ate a thing but was breastfed on demand, which was fine as he was growing correctly and I was giving him multi vitamins.

His older brother didn't eat much but drank a lot of milk as did my DN.

Not that I can notice. He is growing tall meaning he is quite lean.

He was both. BF for about 6 months but mainly formulae. He now drinks cows milk and yeah I add Abidec multivitamin syrup into his milk.

Someone once said to me that life with young kids is a lot easier once you realise you can’t force eating, drinking or pooping. People can’t be forced to do those things if they don’t want to however hard you try.

Two things:

1. keep an eye on his weight


2. track how much he eats over a week, not individual days

He plays around at home. Never sits still at home but loves going out. So we do take him out as much as we can. On some days when its not possible thats also a day where he doesnt have much appetite. Its usually Lunch where my biggest issue is. He is always okay and has hunger for breakfast and dinner

My daughter did this for some time and I would take a 6-cup muffin tray, and load it with small cut fruit, veg, sandwich, crisp, whatever you want to offer. Then pop them in the highchair in the kitchen and leave them alone for some time. Let them explore at their own pace, even if they eat just a few bites or certain foods. Keep trying. Get on with some chores so you are there, but bustling around and not giving them attention. Somehow psychologically, this appeals to kids I have heard.

Thank you 😊. Yeah I am trying so hard to avoid the emotional meltdown I have when he doesnt eat, doesnt chew his food and just keeps it in his mouth. I know he is not picky because I have witnessed him eat the same food when he is super hungry so its more down to mood, either hungry and i will eat or nop cant be bothered to eat now.

I have also been told you need to look at a child's overall calorie intake for the day. If he is eating well at breakfast and dinner, then maybe he just isn't a lunch person. Let him have a snack, and then you can always offer/make something else after an hour or two. Then its dinner as you say. Overall it doesn't seem so bad.

On some days when its not possible thats also a day where he doesnt have much appetite.

Then he's regulating based on what he needs. Good boy, sounds healthy.

If he's in Cow's milk now, how much would you say he has in 24 hours?

My 3.5 year old is like this and has been for awhile. I don't push it and act completely neutral. Some days he skips lunch or skips dinner, occasionally breakfast..

He's growing fine and a healthy weight and height and BMI. It's annoying but I don't sweat it! I think it's good he listens to his body - he's clearly getting enough!

Hi
please do tell me that you have seen an improvement.. I have a 19 M and I am living a nightmare with food ? Xx

Hey
may I ask if you have seen any improvements please ? ☺️

Absolutely! He is 5.5 now, nearly 6, and much better! He eats all his meals or at least part of them. He eats well at school. He will almost always try what we offer for dinner and sometimes say he says doesn't like it but then he will eat vegetables instead to fill him up (we always offer veg with dinner). We made sure always to limit snacks too so he knew he had to eat at mealtimes - once he could understand we would say "I''m sorry you're hungry, next time we are having food is x time. Next time it might be better to eat more breakfast/whatever." Believe me we do have snacks but not loads and not constant. The key for us was not offering alternatives and acting neutral about food. And we would always offer something at mealtimes we knew he should eat but not too exciting (for awhile this was sweetcorn).

Many many thanks for your reply . Hope you don’t mind me using you as a sounding board . I have an 18 months old who can say 75 words , can distal pointing , waved and claps , does a lot of pretend play , has always brought us toys / books etc , follow commands , always answer to her name and stops when she misbehaves. She is also a good sleeper ( can put herself to sleep after the bottle ) and very affectionate, a bit wilful though . She imitates everything . She has good joint attention and always look where I am pointing if not tired . She always holds my hand outside and we are in that “phase “ of stranger - danger. But food has always been an issue . If I feed her she eats everything but won’t touch her main meals . She can touch slimy fruits or melted cheesy fish cake and wolfed is down but won’t touch pasta . I am losing it completely so your reply has helped ☺️

Hi @Claire123e how is your little one come on now? In a similar boat and it’s stressing me no end.