At breaking point !!!

[-Ma'Bree-]

Brianna is 16mnths and a happy child..she smiles with everyone and has picked up speech so fast its amazing ! her fave song is old mac-donald coz she waits for me to sing the verse and then happily sings 'iae-iae-ooo' (sp) lol and she knows the exact moment to sing it too..
So anyway am happy with everything else except her feeding oh dear-seriously i am at a point at which i DREAD meal times and most times by the end of the meal i am in tears..she barely eats..i have tried everything..nothing does it..is it just her torturing me or is there a problem ?

she was born with a wee heart disorder so was in special care for about 5 days..she pulled through bless her but obviously lost some birth weight..after that she didnt gain weight for a couple of weeks so was prescribed 'high calorie milk' anyway later on she started solids and at first she ate reasonably well then suddenly she stopped..i have always tried to cook her meals myself has some jars or whatever if travelling etc ..hv told me to add cheese, cream etc to food but she only has 3 or 4 spoons before we start the battle..tried finger foods-she eats one or two of whatever it is then just squeeshes the rest and plays with them

she has her milk bottles well, but at her age she needs to eat !!! she's quite tall for her age so pple confuse her to be slightly older although she's quite slim too so sometimes she fits into 9-12mnths clothes..i am stressed beyond..sad to say but sometimes i ask nursery to give her her lunch and pretend to be in a rush or say i had an app or something as i cant bare to see her not eat anymore..my poor baby !

sorry its abit long..just feel sooo bad

 

[littlekitten8]

Oh hun I'm sorry you are having to go through this. I can offer you advice from someone who had major problems eating as a kid and went through to late teens. Sometimes kids go through a stage where they just don't want to eat much. The more pressure you put on her to eat, the less she will want to eat. Have you tried making meal times into a game? Make her food look appetising like making mini bagel pizzas with faces on etc. Also encourage her to help you prepare the food ( we did this with my niece from about 14 months old...just simple things like getting her bowl out or getting things out of the fridge). Try having snacks available for her during the day so even if she doesn't want to eat a proper size meal she can still eat throughout the day. You may find these things help because the pressure is off. She may grow out of it like my niece or she may not like me. I know its very hard but try not to let her see you are getting stressed cos that will make her stressed in turn and make her less likely to eat. Hope this helps hun. PM me if you want to chat x

 

[-Ma'Bree-]

Thanks loads for the advice...yeah i have tried not making a fuss about eating..i even let her feed herself at times which at times work, i dont care about her getting the yoghurt all over her hair and the carpet, my triumph is the three spoons she did manage to get into her mouth.i ve never tried mini pizzas as didnt think she'd be able to chew that but i do play lil' games and sing and all...i let her do what she wants and gave up restricting her to the high-chair as that just made things worse..so i follow her around the house trying to give her a spoon here and a spoon there, that works too and at times she eats up maybe halp her food which is great !
trust me when i say the situation is driving me mad...some days its so bad i have to blend her food into almost a liquid and feed her through the bottle, i know that isnt right but what can i do ?
i'll try the pizzas and asking her to help me..thanks loads xxx

 

[Vickie]

Hannah does this sometimes (she's 18 months now) and I feel she's old enough to know if she needs to eat. I also noticed that she was refusing her food to try to get something she liked "better". Now if she won't eat we simply remove her from her high chair and she can go play until we've finished. Usually the next morning she's starving and makes up for what she didn't eat the night before.

I also let her help me prepare food and have done so since she turned a year old. She loves to throw things in the green bin (our organics waste) and put stuff in bowls etc.