Hi - I wonder if i can have some advice, please?
My dd is 1 year and a couple of weeks old, and has been BLW since she was 6 months. She has never been a particularly good eater - goes through phases like a lot of the babies I read about on here, sometimes she will eat loads and other times not a lot. She has dropped from the 50th centile to around the 9th, which is making the HV twitchy and is worrying me slightly (although she seems healthy, and is just small but lively!). She has also been unwell recently. She seems to generally enjoy mealtimes, but things seem to be slipping away a bit.
Firstly: food is for fun until they are one etc, but what happens when they are one and still don't eat a lot? She is very much a boobie baby and is not really dropping feeds.
Secondly: she really picks at her food and often won't eat anything unless I put a tiny bit of something in her mouth; she will then start eating a bit, but I really feel like I shouldn't be encouraging her by feeding her. But she turns away if she doesn't want it, and I don't press her - and she clearly does want to eat as she does once she has had that first little bit!
Thirdly, and similar to the last one: recently she is definitely wanting to be spoonfed - starts to throw things off the highchair but will eat a fair bit more if I help her either with my hands or a spoon. Again she lets me know if she doesn't want something (and does the baby bird thing if she does - sometimes actually handing me the spoon and leaning forward - but it clearly isn't BLW). I am doing it though because I am a bit worried about her dropping weight and if she still wants to eat but won't do it herself I want to help....IYSWIM.
This all just feels like we are losing the way a bit. There are some things she will unfailingly eat, but I don't want to keep giving these if she doesn't eat the meal I have given her.
What should I do? Sorry this is so long, and thank you if you have made it to the end...