16m no interest in food

[Exworrier]

Any advice very much welcome, feeling very stressed about our current situation.

16m son, has been teething forever, just had all his molars at once and is now halfway into all his canines coming through at once (so this doesn’t help) he is also obsessed with his milk, still has it in a bottle at the moment and has around 25-25oz a day - obviously this milk consumption is doing nothing for his food intake but with a grumpy teething baby that wont sleep i’m struggling to cut it down at this point.

A typical days food for him (please dont come for me…)

5am - 7oz milk
7.30am - breakfast: strawberries, grapes, cereal, yoghurt (less than half eaten)
10.30 - baby crisps (all eaten)
11am - 7oz milk
1pm - lunch : cheese cubes, houmous, cucumber and cooked carrots ( all thrown on the floor) strawberry jelly 1/3 eaten
3pm - banana (all eaten)
5.30pm - tea : sausages, broccolli, peas, potatoes (1/3 eaten) fruit pouch (all eaten)
6.30pm - 7oz milk

It feels he barely eats anything substantial, just snacky bits. Is this ok, or not enough food? i worry he is favouring milk over food. He throws so much I hate the waste.

This is completely normal. He is still exploring and learning and it will be while before he's eating 3 meals a day!!

Could you give him breakfast earlier and stop the 5am bottle ?

@BritishDesiGirl Thank you for this response, sometimes it helps so much just for someone to say thats normal!!
The 5am bottle currently gets us an extra 1.5-2h sleep so we are reluctant.

I forgot to say he is off the chart for height for his age, so it seems like so little for such a big baby.

That all looks fine, I'd cut the 11 milk if I was concerned it was filling him up and he wasn't eating, or if just halve the amount.

It's clearly enough if he's growing. Their stomachs are tiny at this age. Give it a few years and he'll be a teen and eating you out of house and home 😉

Your plan looks fine to me. I would try stopping the 11am milk and bringing his lunch forward to midday, or even a little earlier if he is getting hungry. That might increase his appetite for lunch. But I wouldn’t try changing anything until the tooth is through!

I too am in this situation with my 14mo DS. It’s very hit and miss from meal to meal with some eaten with no fuss, some half eaten and some completely refused. Finding it so stressful as he is under the care of a dietician for failure to thrive from birth. He is however gaining weight and following his centile line so I am trying to remember it’s a phase and he is learning and growing. He is also very independent and knows his own mind so spoon feeding is going to be off the cards very soon.
I also hate the amount of wasted food. My waist line can’t take the extra calories so in the compost it goes.
Solidarity OP @Exworrier 👊

@TheOldLadyOfThreadneedleStreet The 11am bottle falls just before his nap, we find if he doesn’t have it he wont take his nap. I think for now we’ll have to keep it going, once teeth are through I’m hoping he might go without.

Oh forgot to say my DS isn’t a drinker either. He’ll happily have just 10oz of milk a day (3 ounces on his Wheatabix which he sometimes refuses).

Aw I think it looks good what you feed your little one. He seems to be eating variety still?
I am honestly worried about the opposite that my baby eats too much. I’m an over eater so I think I worry about that.
im no expert but I think it’s good that your little one knows his limits. Seems to have good portion control?

This looks fine OP. It's really normal for them to be fussy at this age. Try to cut down the milk if you can but otherwise looks good.