We spend every meal times scrounging through the refrigerator and cabinets, offering Charlie anything we can think of to see what he'll eat. Then he'll often eat a couple of bites before he decides he's done with that and you start all over again. Things he used to eat, he doesn't eat anymore. (Bananas, for one.) He won't eat anything with peanut butter on it. He won't eat chocolate. Or Reese's Pieces (his previous "quiet" candy) The only things we can seem to get him to eat these days are buttered/salted noodles, mac & cheese, yogurt and pizza. He did eat some banana bread the other day. He will pretty reliably eat popsicles (Otter Pops), and ice cream. He was pretty fond of chicken nuggets in CT, but when we tried them last week, he would only eat them dipped in ice cream. I think he's got us figured out. The doctor told us to put some powdered drink mix into his milk bottles to beef up his calorie intake. So now he gets chocolate milk bottles. Who knew we would have to start pushing calories into my 9+ lb baby?!
When you put him in his high chair, he does this:
We did this for about an hour a couple of days ago. I finally got him to eat a couple bites of bagel, so I let him down. He wouldn't eat anything after that. Later, we offered him some food, and went to put him in his high chair. He screamed. We put him down. He grabbed a cup (that he had previously dumped out of a box onto the kitchen floor) walked over to a kitchen chair, and pulled himself up onto it. We put the food in his cup, he reached in, pulled it out, and ate it. He is still a picky eater, but he seems to be less picky when he is sitting in a regular chair, with food on a plate and a drink in a cup (we've been working on it - and he's getting pretty good!) instead of a bottle. If it requires silverware, he will scream if you attempt to put it in his mouth, but he'll be fine if you hand it into him to put in his own mouth. Which turns into this:
He ate a whole piece of pizza (the most he's eaten in one sitting in a while) this way. And drank (and spilled) a whole lot of water.
This is just one of those things that we'll look back on when he's doing stupid teenage things and think "Remember when our biggest problem was trying to get him to eat?"
2 comments:
I'm going to butt in and give some advice... of course you can always ignore me. :)
I have a great eater and a picky eater, but my picky eater eats exactly the same things as his brother because of a few simple rules.
1) No milk before or between meals. This may seem counterintuitive since you are desperately trying to get him to take calories, but milk makes you feel full and will prevent him from eating.
2) No snacks at all. (Unless for some reason a meal is going to be severely delayed.) Snacks prevent kids from ever feeling very hungry, which means they will not be very desperate to eat what is in front of them.
3) Choose his meals wisely and stick to your guns. Don't offer him crackers because yhere us no nutrition in those. Pick things with high fat, high protein contents (avocado, egg yolks, beef, full fat yogurt etc). You give him his meal and that is what he gets. No scrambling to find something that he will eat. If he gets hungry enough, he will eat what is put in front of him, assuming there is not a physiological reason for him not eating (and if there is, he should be evaluated by your county's early intervention folks, which is free). I would start at dinner, so that he isn't going too long without food being offered to him. If he chooses not to eat his dinner, he will be pretty hungry come breakfast time. If he still won't eat breakfast (which again should be fattening, not filling), don't give in and try again at lunch. Remember, you are not starving him, he is starving himself. He will either give in by the end of the day or you should definitely have him tested by EI, since no 19 month old should be smart enough to keep playing the hunger games that ling. My hunch is he's got your note and knows if he holds out he can get a popsicle or ice cream. I'd cut those out for good until he's eating better. We only give treats after clean dinner plates.
Toddlers enjoy opposing their parents and if he knows you are desperate for him yo eat, that will oikely make things worse. Also, I suspect that manipulating the environment by moving him to a big boy chair will do nothing in the long run, because that bribe will just get boring and you will have to figure out novel bribes whenever the old ones stop working.
Post a Comment