About to lose it with 15 month old....

[snowboarder]

Sorry - bit of a rant - I am seriously about to lose the plot with naughty baby snowboarder and meal time antics. He's a strapping lad so obv something goes in, it's more the limited menu, coercement antics I need to employ and the general mess and food throwing that is actually driving me to shouting at him. He WONT try anything new. He only really voluntarily eats pasta and toast, everything else I have to encourage him to eat. Even lovely brightly coloured fruit just gets squished and lobbed. He demands to play with increasingly bizarre kitchen equipment (blender and a watering can please mummy this evening) or will eat nothing. It's not so much the quantity of what he eats/doesn't eat that I'm bothered about, its the behaviour and the fact that actually he was better at about 7/8 months. AND will it ever get any better?. Have tried all types of stick/non stick food bowls, little sets of cutlery, no bowls, mini sandwich's, fun food etc. We are down to pasta with varying accompanyment for lunch and sausages/omlette/meatballs/home made pizza for supper. Mini falafaels spat and thrown tonight. Vegetables only consumed when hidden in pasta sauce. Just will not even pick most other things up. (Has always refused to be spoon fed, so that's not helpful)

I give UP.

[Fuschia]

Oh sweetie! You can take a horse to water and all that.

Go on, give up. It will get worse before it gets better. He is testing out the world and his position in it and your role as his personal assistant. You can't MAKE him eat, all you can do is offer the stuff.. no point letting it upset you.

His diet doesn't sound so bad. Carry on sticking some veg in his pasta sauce, rotate the food he likes and carry on adding some veg etc to his plate.

Try offering him a taste from your plate esp if you are out and you have something interesting. Try offering him fruit in a little yoghurt pot, or made into a mini kebab, from a little plastic bag while he's in his buggy, or floated in a boat when he's in the bath...

xx

[Moi23]

Not sure if 15 months is too early for this, but kids quickly cotton on to 'how much it winds mummy up that I won't eat, he he, what fun...'

[The Nappy Lady]

....and they all seem to regress - C now refuses stuff she was eating fine eg broccoli, but it dies go full circle.

He will not starve and it will get better. Fs advice very good.

Also set a time limit and then take it all away and nothing else until next mealtime. Very good advice I was given that helped a lot as they start to respect mealtime a bit more.

Could you give less, then if eaten top up so less for him to chuck around etc?

Big hugs

M

xx

[trinity]

I think fuschia's advice is sound.

The only other thing I would add is does he eat at the same time as you and/or your partner? Let him get on with his food lobbing whilst you get on with your dinner. He might just think what you are doing is more interesting than what he is doing. Particularly if you are able to ignore his eating habits.

Good luck

Trinity

[Ann]

Snowboarder, relax!

The key words from your post are 'strapping lad'. He's obviously getting his nutritional requirements and probably doesn't need much variety at his age. I suppose I'm saying what we think babies must have versus what they really need are not necessarily the same. If he's thriving and healthy, well done you!

It sounds like he just wants to eat what he wants and you've probably provided him with far more vitamins, minerals etc than he could possibly need; our bodies don't store these.

It would be a shame to make mealtimes stressful for him as he gets older and more socially aware. I rather suspect when he's older and has meals with other families he'll be fine, hungry boys generally speaking are.

[The Nappy Lady]

Very true Ann, my daughter had a boy from school round for a playdate and I could not believe how easy he was to feed - no sooner had I put the plate in front of him than it was gone.

I think once the novelty of feeding wears off it can be a really hard time with toddlers but then improves again from about 3 to 4 (for us anyway). With our first I got way too stressed and mealtimes were a battle. With no2 if she doesn't eat it I just whip it away. Must say though that I think she eats better because most mealtimes are with her sister. Social meals seem to help a lot.

M

[snowboarder]

I know it's easy to look back and say, yeah, realx it will all be fine. I know it will eventually - I don't know many adults who feel the need to regularly turn their entire plate upside down, but it's rather wearing to constantly cook stuff and wipe the floor on your hands and knees 3 times a day every single day. To throw away eg this evening supper - falafal/baked beans/yoghurt/peeled pear. He ate half a falfael and three handfuls of beans. It's just kinda how to get through NOW and have an idea of when it might get better. Or maybe I've just made this happen by indulging him up to now....?

[Fuschia]

SB: i think of my twins as 'good eaters' but sometimes I'm sure most of it ends up on the floor. I am usually using the 20 mins they/re immobilised in their highchair either tidying the kitchen or necking my own food.. if I do look closely sometimes I realise M is pinching T's cheese and tomato and piling bread and cucumber on his plate.. I am no doubt kidding myself they get a balanced diet I think it's a case of Mr Spratt could eat no fat, and all that... all I can say is, they probably eat much the same as DS1 did, but with him I used to worry and fuss and make different things and try to second guess him.. now I am feeidng three, I've realised some interesting stuff.. like.... 6 weeks ago both twins stopped eating peas or sweetcorn.. now DS1 loves them so they haven't left the menu.. I have given them a spoonful every few days ever since and it has gone on the floor. Last week M ate all of hers, all of T's and a good part of mine! Then early this week, T took a liking for them too and ate 3/4 of a portion. Till he saw we holding a pea to his mouth and I said look, T's eating a pea! Cue 10 minutes of silly game playing where he put it in and out of his mouth 100 times, giggling.

Have they worked out the 'mummy is very interested in every morsel we eat!' game and the 'how to get mummy to kneel down on the floor!' game?! You betcha..

I think your dedicated attempts to encourage him are having zilch effect so you might as well just turn on the radio and think 'la la la' thoughts to yourself, if you can.

[pebbles]

SB - I totally feel for you and understand.

My now nearly 3 yr old was a great baby to wean and then literally at 15 months things changed and he literally refused everything except for pasta and pesto and marmite on toast. No matter how many people said just chill he's trying to get a rise out of you i continued to get stressed EVERY SINGLE DAY. Basically I just used to puree all vegies and put it into the pesto (i tried to tell him tomato sauce was red pesto but he was having none of it). We tried eating with him regularly, blar blar blar but nothing worked.

He was a bit better with grandparents when we weren't there but stil not great.

HOWEVER it does get easier. We now have a 9 month old baby who i've been doing a bit of puree but probably more "finger foods" and now that he sees his little sister eating vegies and pasta with tom sauce and meat that hasn't been mashed into something to hide what it is suddenly literally about 2 weeks ago things totally changed. I think also it has to do with the fact that i'm concentrating on her so he's being ignored with his throwing food everywhere antics

Keep breathing deeply but from my experience it's a long old nightmarish experience!!!

Good luck

[citizenED]

Oh, snowboarder, conclusively the at-my-wits-end post of the day. Feel for you, it is all so dispiriting, all the effort we go to and the time you take for our little cherubs to throw it back in our faces, or floor, or wherever. The little sods just don't get it, and we don't either. Our agenda just does not match with their agenda.

The phenomenom that it the "Phases" concept of childrearing means that you can be sure that in a couple of months he will be through this - or more likely, you will.

[Helen GV]

have you tried reverse psychology? We get quite far with 'for baby? no no no, for daddy/mummy, not for baby, nooooo, oh ok, just this once..' doesnt always work but making a little game might ease the frustration for you at the very least!

[RobMiller]

One of our 22 month (identical) twin boys has been a fairly consistent good eater. For the last few months, however, his brother has been much more picky - with good and bad days. He just looks at the plate, shakes his head, says "no" and calmly hands it back. They're both strapping lads too though, so I'm beginning to wonder whether there's any link to how much food they eat!

[GinaG3]

Oh my, is your 15 months old my 17 months old. I am hating this right now. We have consistent dinner menu of fish fingers and beans or pasta with whatever sauce, she isnt fussed - so long as its pasta, dare it be the nice mixed colour pasta I picked up the other day though.

She was a great eater when she was young. Weaning was the days of her not getting enough of her squash, sweet potato, carrot, spinach. Any vegetable she would lap it up. Now they have to be hidden, we encourage and encourage but no budge.

BTW, she is a rebellious vegetarian already, apart from fish fingers. Any meat in her direction gets tantrums all round. Nightmare!

Hope thing look up for you soon too, I feel your pain :)

[Parsley]

Hi snowboarder, I think it's pretty normal..my little one refused LOTS of things at this age. I noticed that his eating was considerably better when he ate with other toddlers (ideally unfussy ones). He would see the others chowing down on their dinner and want to get stuck in too. Luckily we share a nanny with a very good eater, and this seems to have rubbed off on our lad.

Also - I think reverse psychology works. Our little one has tried all sorts of weird and wonderful things because he's been told he wouldn't like it. Sometimes he doesn't like it. (Wasn't keen on Stilton!) Other times, he's surprised us. (he likes radishes).

It will get better!

[Fuschia]

SB: have you tried ellas kitchen fruit pouches? Sainsburys do a nice kids fromage frais also in a pouch. The mode of delivery is very attractive to toddlers I have found...

[melbourne groover]

Recently we went to a friends house and her method was giving a small bowl of plain yoghurt with veges to dip in. Has worked a treat with my 4 year old.

I think eating is the one thing that truly reduced me to tears first time around, when my daughter was a baby she pretty much survived on jarred porridge (gurk, how revolting, what was I thinking...). No time to be quite so freaked out by it (me this is) this time. All the above is really good advice. Deep breath, they don't starve themselves, in times of desperation perhaps have a small glass of wine (if at tea that is, not recommended for stressful breakfast;-)) Also try and eat with other enthusiastic eating children, this really does help, if only so you have some other adults around....

Am also liking dinner motto at above friend's house "You get what you get and you don't get upset", it is heard reverberating around ours reguarly now...

Also, my very fussy non-eating baby is now a robust healthy 4 1/2yr old, who will eat loads of stuff, though of course we still have our moments.

Good luck (and remember the wine...)

[linzkg]

my boy has also been through some weird phase when by he takes one or 2 mouthfuls and then decides he doesn't want it - i end up preparing various meals hoping he'll take up one of them - i was wasting so much food. he chucks it and squashes it and spits it out - all this when he actually used to eat even a bowl of plain old greens - basically whatever i put in front of him.

i ended up feeding him food from the bottles - which he ate every time (makes you wonder about my cooking hey!) - and then fulling him up with a sweet one afterwards.

i then started to put a bowl of food on the coffee table and walk away not making a fuss - when i turned back casually i found him standing alongside the bowl tearing into the food - ha! got 'em! i ignore him when he kicks off now so he tends to stop .. otherwise i find taped versions of in the night garden distract him - hehe

the other way i've found works is if i'm eating food with him, and even sometimes feeding him mouthfuls from my plate - i know this isn't a good habit but he's just one so i figure i got plenty of time to get him out of this habit.

[snowboarder]

Thanks all. Am feeling calmer this evening (but have been at work so only had to deal with breakfast!!). Yeah he will sometimes have ellas smoothies and the pouch yoghurts are the only yoghurts he will touch (if at all). Tsk I keep reading annabel bloody karmel who tells me 'toodlers just love lots of brightly coloured vegetables' and that if I make my pizza in a rabbit face shape everyhitng will be ok!

It's the bowl upturning/throwing though. When do they grow out of this? 2?

He does eat better at b/fast and lunch when I eat with him. Supper is the worst as poss a) I don't eat and b) have usually used up my pasta quota for the day!

[Fuschia]

snowboarder Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> It's the bowl upturning/throwing though. When do

> they grow out of this? 2?

Can you junk the bowl and put food directly on his tray? What sort of bowl do you have?

[snowboarder]

Every single bowl available in sainsburys/jojo/mothercare! Suction bowls, fun bowls with little compartments etc etc. I do basically just put one piece of pasta at a time on his tray (forgetting cat was sleeping there just 5 mins ago) but it would be nice to be able to give hima little bowl and let him get on with it, and let me eat too! Even putting more than 4 pieces of pasta sparks off food lobbing.

Ahg maybe I'm just being too controlling! Suction bowls sometimes come off the worst - he gets them off eventually and then food really does fly!!

[Fuschia]

Would suggest give him a small handful at a time, if he throws it don't rush to replace it... he will soon learn.

Say "Don't throw your food.. now it's all gone, oh dear!"

I do think if you stop playing the pick up game, and don't get into the "you didn't eat your dinner so I will now give you yoghurt isntead" game.. he will twig quite quickly that he's going to be hungry if he chucks all his food away..

I do find sometimes my T will carefully discard all of one item and then concentrate on another, then want the first back.. some toddlers like a simple and neat plate, I think (just one choice at a time)

We have baby bjorn plates that are quite stable and hard to chuck...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BabyBjorn-Plate-Spoon-Spring-Green/dp/B00186ZABY

[Mellors]

Or, if you are a bad mummy, you could do what I do and shout "NO!" really loudly and threaten a clip round the ear (and the odd small real one in desperation), That stopped B from chucking it all on the floor.

BTW - any food chucking at my house means instand dismissal from the table, with no more food until the next meal. That solves the rest of that mealtime at least.

God, I am dreadful, please don't report me to social services....

[melbourne groover]

I am finding my son a much more enthusiastic "chucker" than my daughter ever was. It seems to be his main method of saying he has had enough, food, plates, cups anything he can get his mitts on, am developing olympic style reflexes. Although is now into throwing things into the shower when I am in it, not ideal. I am finding he is definately reacting more to my big NO's and just laughing and throwing more enthusiastically. Hmmm, kitchen floor not exactly pristine....am sure Annabel Karmel doesn't have this...

[Belle]

I shout no too but, like your son MG, my little boy just shrieks with delight and does it even more. So now I'm doing as others have suggested and ignoring/not replacing the food/drink he chucks. Trouble is when he's not eaten enough he does then get grumpy mid morning or whatever. I have also tried the 'if you keep throwing that off you won't get strawberries/yoghurt' etc but it doesn't seem to work.