So, does your baby eat? Because mine still doesn’t, not with any consistency. Sure, she has her good days, like the Thursday she ate a WHOLE ENTIRE CHICKEN FINGER (happily, the most nutritious part of the chicken), but in general it is a battle, and one I am waging poorly.
The situation is not helped by the varying opinions on how much a 13-to-17-month-old baby ought to be consuming in a day. [Speaking of 13-to-17-month-old babies, I have tired of explaining Simone's actual and adjusted ages, and now when someone asks how old she is, I simply express her age as a range. I assume people think I can’t remember, that I've only managed to narrow the date of her birth to a four month window, or maybe that we found her in the woods and "13-to-17 months" is the closest estimate we could come up with by counting her rings.]
Anyhow, her pediatrician is concerned, but her pulmonologist says she’s doing splendidly. The pulmonologist is easily pleased—if baby is keeping her blood oxygenated and her toes pink, he’s full of praise for us. This is the difference between a critical care specialist and a general practice pediatrician, by the way—the height of the bar your baby must clear. Simone was just allowed to discontinue Pulmicort until winter, so by pulmonologist standards, she is some kind of respiratory rock star. As for the fact that she still gets most of her nutrition via bottle, he says “It would be stranger if she DIDN’T have any eating issues after being on the vent for two months.” He doesn’t pull any punches, Simone’s pulmonologist, and at every appointment reminds us how astounded he is that Simone didn’t die. “I’ve read her chart,” he said as he first entered her NICU room to introduce himself, “And frankly I’m surprised she’s here at all.”
But I’d like to start setting the bar a little higher, now, start inching closer to treating Simone like a Regular Old Baby. The problem being that I have no idea what one expects of Regular Old Babies. I do own a book about them, but I rarely open it, because it has been singularly unhelpful. For instance, the typical day’s menu it gives for a child Simone’s age:
BREAKFAST: 3 egg whites, yogurt smoothie, bran muffin, coffee (decaf), 6-8 oz. juice
MORNING SNACK: Wheel of gouda, piece of toast with peanut butter, two apples
LUNCH: Whole chicken breast, spinach salad, Bananas Foster
AFTERNOON SNACK: 12 oz milk, slice of pie, pkg. Lil’ Smokies
DINNER: Filet mignon or Turducken, baked potato, 1 cup chili, whole avocado, Big Gulp
I’m typing that from memory, so it may not be 100% accurate, but you get the general idea. It is a lot of food.
So what I’m wondering—and this is where you come in, people—is this: If you have a baby between the ages of 13 and 17 months, or HAVE had a baby between the ages of 13 and 17 months, what does it eat in a day? And does it still make an unholy—though enthusiastic—mess when given a sippy cup?
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Hell, I get excited if my 3 1/2 year old eats a whole chicken finger. And the doctor always tells me he is fat. I say feed her what she will eat and don’t stress too much. Kids seem to cycle through eating–some days they eat like they are starving, some days they don’t touch anything.
My ‘baby’ is 6 1/2 years old and she still makes a ridiculous mess with a sippy cup many days. We’ve used Playtex cups since trying everything with my oldest. They work the best and leak very little. She has to work to make the mess.
I’d say a chicken finger is a great start to things. Just let her try everything and give her a lot of the things she likes. Don’t worry about balancing her diet at this point – you could give her a vitamin if you’re really concerned. Some days my 5 year old will only eat a cheese stick for lunch. She is a healthy girl and her pediatrician says to be happy she is on the lower end of the scale. I guess they see a lot of the opposite nowadays.
My girl was full term, so take it all with a grain (or pound) of salt. She self weaned at around 12 months – and she was in daycare full time. I was a tyrant and cut off her bottles being warmed and switched her to whole milk. It sounds worse than it was, I wasn’t punishing her. But after a week of throwing fits, her milk consumption came down quite a bit to more of a compliment to meals rather than entire meals.
As for foods – she ate a combo of the baby oatmeal and the baby fruit (jarred – I’m not cool enough to make her own), Gerber puffs for snacks, cheese quesadillas, and a variety of foods her father and I would eat. My pediatrician told me that the point of the food at this age was really texture rather than flavor, so I worked to get her to accept as much as possible.
The hardest lesson was not to act like a short order cook and make her a separate meal if she felt like it. That was a lesson for me, not her, and I should note that she never went on a full on hunger strike for more than a few hours. I don’t judge any parent that has a difficult eater in their midst.
Your Early Intervention program probably has someone who can look at the feeding issues with you and make some recommendations.
We’re in the “they’ll eat when they’re hungry” camp. Some days our 12 month old eats the equivalent of an appetizer. Most days, she munches 2-3 teaspoons of food. She’s a big fan of chewing and spitting it out to the dog. We do “baby led solids”, aka we are too busy to sit there with a spoon. She eats a lot of boobjuice still and that’s OK by me. Less messy than the sippy.
Son (now 2.5) would often leave me awe inspired at his ability to seemingly starve himself, and yet still gain weight and, well, GROW. He was never picky, just would have jogs of eating very little and then making up for it.
They are all beautiful and unique snowflakes, but to refrain, they will eat when hungry. You can do whatever you want to the food; dress it up, cut it up, blend it, sculpt it. If they’re not interested, they’re just not interested. Rest assured knowing hunger will call, and they will answer.
My youngest is 17 months old (almost 18) and he eats pretty much anything you put in front of him. What he is inconsistent about is the AMOUNT he eats. Sometimes he is a bottomless pit and other times he nibbles delicately like a little mouse.
My first son was far pickier (and continues to be so). His pediatrician advised that I stop trying to think in terms of what he ate in a day and think more about how he might eat in an entire week. Apparently it is not so weird (or wrong) for small children to go a few days not eating much and, like previous commenters noted, when they are hungry they will eat.
FWIW…current baby is still on the bottle (OH THE SHAME) and drinks about 32 ounces of whole milk a day. He makes an unholy mess with EVERYTHING, not just a sippy cup.
Eating with my 14-month olds is a total crapshoot, so it sounds to me like Simone is a Regular Old Baby as far as this is concerned! Here’s today’s intake (which was a great day for us). I’m doing the division for ya, so these quantities are for 1 kid:
Breakfast:
-1/2 banana mashed into a medium bowl of oatmeal
-too many blueberries – 25? 30?
-1/2 mini bagel
Snack:
-1/2 Dora yogurt
-more blueberries (Apparently I love changing diapers)
-handful cheerios
-4 oz milk
Lunch:
-1 banana
-1 graham cracker
-1/2 grilled cheese sammie
Snack:
-1/2 mini bagel
Dinner:
-1 1/2 turkey meatball
-1/4 diced sweet potato
-1/2 graham cracker
This is probably obvious to most people, but I’ve only just learned to stop offering a lot of puffs, cheerios, etc at mealtime. It has the welcome effect of leaving the kids HUNGRY for the main course. Duh.
Good luck with all this info!
I don’t normally comment, but as the subject of this post is one I’m all too familiar with, I thought I’d chime in. Our 26-weeker, who is now nearly 4, had – and still has – major eating issues. Things have gotten much better in the last year. The range of things he’ll eat is still very narrow, but he’s increasingly willing to branch out. Texture was a huge issue for us: he refused to eat anything soft or slippery. It seems to have been mainly a control issue – not wanting to have something slide down his throat quickly (2 months on the vent takes its toll). When he was Simone’s age we were in complete despair. We tried occupational therapy (no progress), we tried distractions of various sorts at meal times, we tried offering a diet of m&ms and maple syrup (please. eat. something.) – nothing seemed to work. He got most of his nutrients from milk until he was about 2, when he gradually started eating raw vegetables and fruits and cheerios and toast and the kinds of things most kids are eating at 9 months. It took him at least until age 2 to get the hang of a sippy cup and we’re just now transitioning to a regular cup. In the past year, though, he’s made enormous progress. He now eats pasta, eggs, cheese, and a handful of other things, in addition to fruits and veggies. He is very thin, but active and healthy.
One thing we’ve learned is that the effects of prematurity linger with regard to eating issues. It’s hard to resist putting the bad old days behind one, especially as your child starts meeting all the obvious milestones on time and doing all kinds of other age-appropriate things. But you may want to give Simone a break when it comes to eating. Comparing her progress on this front with that of term infants may just create more stress for you. That was our experience, anyway. In retrospect, I see that we spent way too much time worrying about these issues in the first couple years. I think we are much more relaxed now that progress is being made. We’re realizing that he’ll get there in his own time and the more we make an issue of eating, the more likely it is that problems will continue (or others will develop).
I won’t tell you not to worry, because, well, of course, you will worry. But I do want to assure you that what you describe sounds not at all unusual for a preemie (in my non-professional opinion), and that it does get better eventually. We still have challenges. Travel, for instance, is tricky, when you can’t be sure you’ll be able to find suitable food on the road. We tend to travel with lots of provisions. But it’s nothing like it was in those miserable first two years. And we’ve been especially fortunate in having a sympathetic paediatrician, who said, when we (repeatedly) expressed our concerns, “if this is his biggest problem after all he’s been through, consider yourselves very very lucky”.
Uh, I suck at guessing portion size, because there are two of them (and sometimes Millbarge attempts to broker trades with Fitzhume by leaning across the divide between their trays and muttering “Say, old chap, do you have any grey poupon?” Er, actually she’s always trying to offer Fitzhume cucumbers and broccoli (the non-edible foods, apparently) in exchange for olives or something) so just divide everything in half.
Bottles first thing in the morning.
Breakfast: 1/4 avocado, piece of cheese the size of two of those Pink Pearl erasers, a cup of cream top yogurt with oatmeal mixed in, a nectarine, grapes or blueberries, water as needed. Water the babies, I mean, not the blueberries.
Snack: Bottles
Grazing: Trader Joe kitty cookies or cheerios or what the hell ever they point to expectantly.
Please Stop Crying After Your Nap, Oh For God’s Sake, Put THIS In Your Pie Holes And Stop With The Yelling:
One banana and water.
Dinner: 1/4 avocado, cheese, 2 eggs (scrambled with a tbsp of cream) OR toast OR pasta, corn, maybe broccoli, some sort of fruit (grapefruit? kiwi?), oh, you’re still hungry? Some other sort of fruit and LOOK, you said you were hungry. WTF are you throwing that for? Honest to God, I’m starting a food fight at your weddings, you little ingrates.
Bottles at bedtime.
Fitzhume: Bottle at midnight. Yes, I know. The stupid handout at the doctor’s office said that babies her age don’t need a bottle at night, and I just don’t care. She does.
Millbarge was delayed and required feeding therapy and a fuck of a lot of patience for a really long time. She got the majority of her calories from the bottle until way past the “Oh…she’s still having formula? How…interesting.” point. She still regards all new foods with the utmost suspicion until Her Majesty’s Royal Food Taster (Fitzhume) eats it and lives.
The carpet can testify (against us in court, if being giant slobs is ever declared a crime) about the neverending mess involved with sippy cups.
Oh, for what it’s worth, Millbarge’s delays were accompanied by some other whatevers, and I just want to say this:
That whole “they’ll just eat when they’re hungry” business is NOT ALWAYS TRUE. That is true only for typical babies.
Delayed babies, or babies with other challenges may NOT “just eat when they’re hungry.”
They might, in fact, sit in front of a full tray of perfectly acceptable food and scream at you in impotent rage because they are so goddamned hungry that they can’t stand it, but they are unable to eat what is in front of them, and it’s hell.
They don’t eat when they’re hungry, they eat when they’re READY, and some babies need help getting to that stage.
I’ll be coming back to read all these comments in case it helps me feed my 11 month old with a metabolic disorder (who likes food, in bites the size of mini peas) and who is 5th percentile for weight – BUT – I wanted to chime in about the doctors. Sometimes they don’t know fuck all, and they don’t talk to each other. My pediatrician congratulated me for keeping H out of the hospital all year and that she was doing so well, metabolic clinic docs think I should get her weight up (how, exactly, they don’t say) but in the span of five days I got praise and doom and gloom. I see a happy alert smart petite baby with regular and proportional growth, so after I cry a little, in my mind, I tell the negative doc to fuck off.
Holy comments, Batman!
I try to think of food in colors, with the idea that those really colorful foods are healthier. If my baby eats something purple, something orange, and something green in a day, I’m happy.
She’s 14 months, I just finished weaning her, she has a dairy intolerance, and prefers to self feed, although she hates the “level 3″ foods with the texture. I try to distract her with finger foods she can pick up while I shovel in the pureed stuff:
Brekkie:
Some raspberries or cut up banana
Oatmeal (fortified!) mixed with soy milk
Lunch:
Hard boiled egg, sliced
Soy yogurt
Pureed Peas or Spinach
Dinner:
Whatever we’re eating, or
Mixed veggies or sweet potatoes
Cut up chicken or hot dog
Blueberries
She snacks a lot on cheerios, those puffs, and crackers. She loves carbs! She’s pretty good with the sippy, but I’ve been bad about letting her use the spoon herself. Our carpet is a mess too, which is what happens when your living room is also your dining room.
Lots of luck. I think all babies are picky eaters, to an extent. It’s been great to read what others are doing, maybe I should branch out a little!
I will be in therapy over my preemie twins’ feeding issues. They’re four now and we still have days where they wear a pair of Picky Pants. Offer lots of different foods and textures. Dip cookies or crackers in yogurt. Give her a spoon so she can practice while you scooch some in when she isn’t paying attention. One of my girls had MAJOR texture issues that occasionally rear their ugly heads. We just keep offering. Small bits of what I ate were what they got at that age. That with a few bottles of whole milk. They were almost two before I gave up the last bottle but I did sippy cups during the day and a bottle of whole milk before bed to help with the calorie count. At that age, their menu was pretty boring. B’fast was some cheerios, some cut up bananas and a sippy of milk. Snacks were usually bits of cheese or nilla wafers and yogurt. Lunch might be a half a grilled cheese with real butter, some green beans and a small sippy of watered down juice. Another snack might be cream cheese on a mini bagel or pb crackers. Dinner, whatever I made for the rest of the family but in small bits for “finger” and “fork” feeding. Plan on things being messy for a while. (A big hit with my kids is one scrambled egg with a half slice of american cheese melted into it.) A half hour before bed, we would give 8 oz of whole milk.
Most of all, remember that this too shall pass. You will all manage to survive it but you will wonder how on more than one occasion. And some day, your darling girl will look at you, over a plate of yesterday’s favorite food and announce, “I don’t like this anymore.”
My (ex 25 weekers) twins are 19-22 months old (I love the range thing). We have one that loves to eat and the other eats because she has to (yes she spent longer on the ventilator). We don’t force feed (how do you do that anyway?) but do offer toys or lately spoons for distraction during mealtimes- self feeding has really made mealtimes less stressful and more fun.
Breakfast: 10 oz of milk, 1-2 weetabix with 50-100g mashed fruit mixed in.
Lunch: slice of bread OR a roll OR 150g of pureed veg (whatever is available), water in a sippy
Snack: a cookie OR some fruit (my eater hates fresh whole fruit, my non eater on the otherhand will have a few bites), water in the sippy
Dinner: 150-200g pureed veg and meat OR spag bol (just started eating this) or tofu and veg mashed/pureed. 1/2 a cup of full fat fruit yoghurt. Water in the sippy.
We still give lots of purees as my non eater has only just stopped vomitting with table foods.
I only offer water in the sippy, as juice is way too sticky and they spit the milk out. Regarding the sippy mess, thank goodness it is summer is all I can say, otherwise they’d be going through 3-4 outfit changes a day.
Wait I suppose I shouldn’t call her a non eater, rather my less enthusiastic eater, it’s just too long to type out.
This is also what is offered, not necessarily what she eats (all leftovers are fed to my eater)
Argh. I hate feeding. It was so simple when it was just breastfeeding on demand. What I want to know is HOW MUCH of everything they are supposed to be eating? Nobody tells you!
My 13 month old has always refused to be spoon fed, which has added a challenge. Yesterday she ate about a tablespoon of scrambled eggs, 5 avocado rolls when we went out for sushi, a mouthful of banana, a crust of toast, a pear, a tablespoon of pasta bake. That’s a pretty typical haul, except normally there would be more fruit & no sushi. Keeping her in organic fruit is bankrupting me.
Relax! The more I wanted my son to eat, the more he refused eating. He had bottles till the age of three and could eat together with us when he wanted (and make a terrible mess, too). I only took care that he got no sugar, not to much fruit juice, mostly water or tea without sugar.
I offered him pure food without spices and little salt, and single pieces on his plate were important. He did not like mixed up food at all. For example: mash potatoes, brokkoli pieces with a little oil and a peace of chicken. Apple and banana pieces, yoghurt pure without fruit or sugar… and so on.
Toddlers develop taste, adult food mostly is much too spicy.
As a child he was always skinny, now he is strong an tall and very healthy, finally discovering spicy food and salad (with 21 years)!
Some days, all she’s eat would be a few bits of toast and occasionally a carrot stick. I didn’t wean until she was 19 months so I think the bulk of her nutrition was still coming from milk.
Offer the food and don’t worry if she doesn’t eat it. Kids will eat if they are hungry (apparently anyway).
My daughter is now almost 3 and still some days will not eat hardly anything. Bleh, kids and food, guaranteed way to make me insane. Like today? She’s eaten a slice of apple, some crackers and cheese and some plain noodles. Also, I suspect there was a spoonful of pure butter consumed, judging by the mess left on the bench when I got out of the toilet.
Oh and I meant to add, it’s bedtime in 10 minutes, so what she’s eaten has been everything over the last 12 hours, not just the morning.
Toby is nearly 15 months now, and from about 9-12 months I was like all “Ha! Am Super-Mother! my child will eat absolutely everything!”, and now? He will eat pretty much nothing. Actually, that’s a lie – he eats bread with leberwurst pretty reliably, and rice. And fruit mousse. But other than that, not so much. And woe betide I try to make him eat anything red. No way, José! Quantity is fairly variable too – some days he seems to never stop eating, and others, I can’t get him to eat more than a bite of anything, and he wakes at 3am starving hungry.
He’s weaned apart from before bedtime, so if he doesn’t eat solids, he doesn’t eat at all. I’m generally relatively laid-back about the whole thing – I offer him everything, and if he eats it, he eats it, and if he doesn’t, he doesn’t. Apart from before bedtime, when I start chasing hi mround the house with various foodstuffs (see 3am waking).
Have you heard about baby led weaning? There’s a book by Gill Rapley. Its basically offering what you’re eating, at the same time as you eat it, and letting them play with it, ignore it, eat it or whatever. Its worked brilliantly for my 1 year old – she now eats absolutely anything and we never have any battles or stress over food.
I know its different with preemies, but perhaps just taking some off your plate if she looks interested, and leaving her to get on with it (which is the hard part!) might help de-stress the situation. Plus, at her age they’re such copy cats that anything you’re doing is probably interesting.
I too have sippy cup everywhere. I’ve decided just to give her water, and that way I don’t care if the floor gets damp. :-)
Nic
I have three, one of them is almost 1 right now. As long as you place food in front of the child at regular intervals, offer a wide variety, and relax, she will eventually eat what she needs. Her body knows what she needs and will prompt her. It is so hard to tell what they actually are eating, not throwing on the floor or mashing into their hair. As long as she is bigger the next time you go to the dr., she’s fine. Also keep in mind that they might like weird non baby stuff, for instance my youngest LOVES bell peppers – whether cooked as stuffed peppers, tomato sauce, thai stir fry… whatever. Who would’ve thought a 10 month old would love bell peppers? And if all she eats is crackers: buy whole grain crackers and dole them out, one after each sentence that you write on your blog which I’m sure you’ll be posting to, daily, obviously, as a sort of compensation to your loyal readers who offer you so much invaluable advice, even better than your doctor, with no co pay required.
The Chieftain, now 16 months, eats, in no particular order, peas, eggs, potatoes (sometimes), blueberries, raspberries, toast, cheddar cheese, chicken, beef, ham, pork, fish, brussels sprouts, plain Greek yogurt, softened prunes, broccoli, (very soft) carrot, apple, orange, plum (but not peach), frozen cherries (softened), tomatoes fresh and sauced, and, er, some other stuff I can’t think of. He drinks milk and water.
However, the amounts he eats? Well, in the morning he might have up to half a slice of toast, buttered, and then nothing until 2-3pm except for milk. He tends to eat more a that time, and then by the time I come home and get dinner cooked, usually between 7-8PM, he’s absolutely starving.
Except when he isn’t.
And the amounts? Some times he eats everything, other times, maybe a teaspoon or two. And he still takes milk during the night, sometimes up to 16oz…but he’s been cutting down to 4-8oz, so we’re not too worried..
Oh, he loves cauliflower, and suprisingly, roasted garlic…
You have had a lot of responses….so I am gonna try not to go too crazy here…
but yea,
I have a 17 month old. I have struggled with feeding him for months. He. Does. Not. Eat. I am still nursing, and he also drinks cows milk…so at least we have that going for us. Sigh.
Typical day.
Breakfast..a few bites of egg and 13 cheerios. Then I spoon feed him a YoBaby for an hour.
Lunch…6 peas, 3 pasta pickups. Then I spoon feed him some oatmeal with prune for an hour.
Dinner…a pinch of chicken, a sliver of strawberry, 5 grains of quinoa, and air. Then I give him a Pediasure in a straw sippy and call it a day.
My pediatrician asked us to spoon feed him twice a day, because he really seems to prefer that his servents place the food in his mouth, but it takes FOREVERRRRrrrrr. I have tried offering snacks throughout the day. No interest.
He seems happy and jolly so I am hoping its just a phase? Sigh. Double sigh.
The best piece of advice I ever read was to think in terms of a week as to how baby eats. Did she have a good nutritional week? If one day all my boy eats is banana and cherries (that would be yesterday) and the next hot dog (that would be today) by the end of the week it probably all works out. He’s in a big “can’t eat, life’s short, gotta go play!” phase now so he’s getting lots of stuff like banana and bread and crackers that he can eat on the fly.
He insists on feeding himself. Oh. the. mess. Insists on drinking out of a proper cup even though he’s not that good at it because his big brother drinks out of a proper glass and sippy cups are for babies.
He’s 19 months and he gets some cow milk after each meal and a bottle at breakfast and before bed.
Is she interested in what you eat? Let her have her own plate with whatever you’re eating, and make sure the 3 of you eat together, at a table, as much as possible. Give her a cup with a small amount of liquid in it and be prepared for lots of spills – don’t cry!
Alexa…
I have a 10 month old who absolutley HATES baby food!!! SO what does that leave??? Yes, People food. I have tried steak, but she got so tired chewing, she fell asleep at the dinner table after only one bite! (?) Seriously, I do give a quantity of people food, such as canned veggies that we eat:
1. carrots
2. peas
3. beans (waxed and grean) hell, go all out and mix em up!
4. potatoes (squares) too lazy to actually peel an actual potato and cut it up. Hey, do NOT judge, I am NOT the take home chef here!
5. peas/carrots medley
6. little jars of packed meat. turkey or chicken. Abbie LOVES these. But be careful; choking hazard. WTF?
7. Pizza…my kid loves the shit.
8. Mashed potatoes. Note: If you are lazy (asI am), Idaho makes a mean box of instant Mashed potatoes that taste pretty close to homemade. Add some gravy to the bad-boys and voila! a meal! Mangia! Mangia!
I have been having the same problem with my kids. They go through eating spurts where they will eat everything hanging loose, and not eat anything at all! My son is 4 and weighs 75lbs and is over 4 feet tall. He is soooo picky and hard to please. It is a fight every day to get him to eat… healthy! My daughter is 10 months and weighs 24 1/2 lbs and is 31 in long. She is not picky, she just doesn’t want baby food, only people food. Oh well, soon enough, they will be old enough to decide for themselves what the hell they want to eat and we won’t have to stress every damn day on what to make for dinner. Good Luck!!!!
The most comforting book I have read is called _Child of Mine_ and is written by a nutritionist who has been working with children and their eating issues for decades. I think it would be very useful for you to read, both in terms of “how much should she eat?”, and also in terms of “how do I do this without screwing up her relationship with food?”, which is how I came to find this book. I come from a family of weird dieters, and so needed to common sense advice I found there.
At that age my 30 weeker would eat a couple tablespoons of food at a sitting most of the time.
I remember vividly thinking the kid would never eat enough, and by then his weight had plateaued (at 18 months he weighed 21 lb). Then one night he ate an entire full-sized grilled cheese sandwich from Culver’s. (Our furnace went out and I had to get him out of the house while it was replaced, in November.)
He still doesn’t eat as much as other kids, at 22 months, but he’ll have days where he never stops eating too. He’s a big fan of fruit smoothies right now (pureed frozen berries, milk, and whole-milk yogurt) and would eat a whole carton of raspberries in one sitting if I let him. Same for cheddar.
Some great advice our ped gave us: kids eat like snakes. They’ll eat a lot one or two days and then really back off for days after that. My children were all full-term so no ideas there but I do remind myself of her advice when one of my kids decides to eat little to nothing for breakfast, skip lunch and then skip dinner too.
As people have said, every kid is different and has different eating habits regardless of whether they were full term or not. I was lucky in that I had a good eater (he’s almost two now and I keep waiting for the pickiness to begin, which I’m sure it will). But even he had his phases when he wouldn’t eat for a period of time. These days, he eats pretty well, but he does not eat anything that resembles a vegetable. Oy.
Anyway, I think at Simone’s age, whichever age that might be, it’s fairly normal for kids to not eat because there’s so many other exciting things going on. They’re learning to walk! So much to see! So much exploring to do! So much trouble to get into! Who has time for this eating nonsense that requires I sit in one spot?
Good luck.
My daughter is 16 months and was born full term. She spent the first 6 months of her life comfortably around the 50th percentile for weight, then decided she wanted nothing to do with food and has been dropping in percentiles ever since. Now, at 16 months, she’s barely 19 pounds.
A typical day:
breakfast – part of a banana or a handful of grapes (and before anyone says anything, yes I do cut them up for her). Some days she might eat a few bites of yogurt. She actually loves the concept of yogurt. She will pick one off the shelf of the fridge, stand by the drawer until I had her a spoon, lovingly point out the baby on the container, proudly carry both to her chair, and then promptly refuse to take even a bite.
lunch – a few bites of grilled cheese and approximately 6 peas. This is a good day. A bad day might be one bite of grilled cheese and 2 peas.
snack – handful of bunny graham crackers. She will eat 2 or 3, throw the rest off the side while loudly proclaiming “uh oh!”, refuse anymore with a firm, “all gone” and then eat the rest off the floor. I’ve considered serving full meals on the floor since some days it seems that’s where she gets the bulk of her calories.
dinner – couple bites of pasta and veggies, maybe some cheese.
That’s really about it. Where she gets her endless energy, I have no idea. She HATES her sippy cup and would prefer to get all of her milk from me, but seeing as how she is no longer a newborn, I’m trying to break the 12 times a day nursing habit. When she does drink from the sippy, it’s a few sips, then the cup is flung petulantly to the floor with an indignant glare. Her poor, tortured soul.
i have been reading your blog for some time and have to admit that there were times i was really jealous when i would read about your being able to nurse simone or reading how much she weighed. we have struggled with feeding since adali was able to first try the bottle in the nicu. we convinced our neonatologist to discharge us (for my sanity) even though she couldn’t finish an ounce of breastmilk by bottle. we would feed her with a special bottle where you would literally just squirt the milk in her mouth and hope that she swallowed. i was so excited to make it to solid food thinking everything would get better. wrong!
adali is 16 months today and only weighs 17 1/2 pounds. she hates to sit still to eat so the high chair now collects dust. she’s likes a wide range of food but will only take a few bites of anything.
here are some suggestions…make the food you give her as high in calories as you can. examples: she eats yogurt for breakfast…instead of yobaby which is 120 calories for 4 oz give her liberte (hard to find) which has 250 calories or dannon la creme yogurt which has 150 calories.
another idea is to add a little olive oil to foods she will eat.
i didn’t want to do this but now put carnation instant breakfast powder in her sippy cup at dinnertime so she gets a bot of extra calories before bed.
another think i do that most parents would probably cringe at is give her a few spoonfuls of nutella every once in awhile.
by doing just these few things we are starting to see a little bit of payoff by weight gain.
oh yeah and sippy cups are always a huge mess! good luck!
Like you need an 84th comment, but here’s one anyway.
Regarding the sippy cup, yes. Even spill-proof ones will be messy. Baby always finds a way.
As far as what a child that age might eat, the answer is “whatever she wants to eat.” All of my babies were born in an unremarkable fashion, had normal health (and no, I’m not trying to make you cry or hate me) and still lived off of two spoonsful of oatmeal, one shriveled fruit snack (with adhering hair and mystery particulate), and vigorous lungsful of recklessly discharged air each day. My eagle eye and anxious offerings were to no avail and yet they thrived.
Just keep offering her food. My kids love fruit of all kinds, most especially bananas and apple sauce.
Thanks for the blog. It never fails to give me a guffaw.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but there is a great book on feeding babies/kids called “Child of Mine” by Ellyn Satter.
Get it.
I have 17 month old twins (born at 35 weeks) and this book is my bible. It will help you avoid a power struggle with the food thing. I am all about avoiding the power struggle. It’s full of great info and I highly recommend it.
Carrie
All I know about kids is that, if you want them to eat, they won’t. They can sense your overwhelming neediness. If you leave the food out and walk away, they’ll eat it. I watched this in action with my own two kids!
My daughter will be 13 months in a few days, and here’s what she eats:
- Breakfast: baby cereal (let me put in a note here that my 3.5 year old STILL eats baby cereal and loves it. I let her, because it’s got protein and iron in it) and some pureed fruit (bananas, apples, pears, peaches, oranges), cheerios
- Lunch: ham or balogna cut up, cheese (sliced tiny or shredded), crackers, cheerios, rice, noodles, pureed fruit or cut up fruit (apples, pear, whole blueberries), baby cereal
- Dinner: a jar of meat-based babyfood, pureed (to make sure she gets enough meat in her diet), lunch-type stuff, fruit (pureed or cut up), some of whatever we’re eating, frozen peas (loves thoes!), cheerios
She drinks just short of two 8oz bottles a day, so I’m struggling to get more milk into her. I also give her a sippy cup, and yes, experience mess when she shakes and bangs it.
And right now she’s squacking at me with a book, demanding I read it, a la Simone! :D
I also feed her yogurt, and try to give her whatever she’s pointing to and wants.
I once read that a toddler/baby will feed themselves all they need over the course of a week, even if it’s fruit one day, meat the next, etc.
I second the comments that as long as she’s gaining weight and is well hydrated, you’re doing great. :)
Looks like you have gotten lots of good input, but I’ll add this. My son did not eat any solid food except Dannon LaCreme vanilla yogurt (if that even counts as solid food) until he was approximately 2 years old. Not adjusted. Truly 2 years old with enough teeth to properly masticate hot dog pieces and string cheese. He drank at least 36 ounces of whole milk per day which made the pediatrician shudder. So I started lying about how much milk he drank and, at well child visits, I would make up elaborate menus. Oh yes, he eats 3 servings of meat per day and lots of whole grains…probably 5 servings a day and, oh no, no processed foods of any kind. Now he’s almost six. Still eats mostly hot dogs and mac and cheese but takes a vitamin every day and is pretty darn healthy. And just this year he started tolerating chicken…as long as there are no bones and it is breaded & fried.
My kids are older but I well remember my son at 13 months. He decided that eating was no longer interesting. He refused all foods but the odd cheerio or goldfish cracker. Seriously. His weight dropped off the charts.
So, just chiming in to offer empathy.
oh, and by the way, I really think that a whole turducken is too much for a child Simone’s age.
Well, it depends on the kid, ya know? I have 3 year old twins and an 11 month old. One of my twins would tear through a turducken at 13-17 months, the other eats so little we are seeing a specialist. My 11 month old drinks ok from a sippy cup and nibbles at the finger foods that she gets in her mouth, but still gets 85% of her nutrition from a bottle. (I would prefer her getting 85% from the breast, but she had other ideas and weaned herself last month). 13-17 months is a big range for a baby/toddler. At one year they are still getting most of their nutrition from liquid, but by 15 months they are able to digest more and more solid foods.
I used to be in the “put healthy food in front of them, if they’re hungry they’ll eat what they need” camp, but now, not so much. My twins were born healthy and full term (please don’t shoot me now) but looking at N now you wouldn’t know it. He only weighed 29 lbs at his 3 year appointment, and only gained 1 and 1/2 lbs in 6 months. He seems to have no desire to eat, no matter how little I appear to care. My advice to you is to give Simone I wide array of foods but make sure that one of her faves is available at every meal and keep an eye on her weight gain. If you are ever in doubt if your child is in fact eating enough, write down everything she takes in over a week and then look at the big picture. Most toddlers are getting more food in them than you realize.
Try frozen peas. Too little to choke on, melt quickly, and are great for teethers who are miserable but need food!
My kid seems to exist on a diet of sunshine and good will. And, if I’m lucky, some cheerios, a serving of fruit/veggies, and on a great day, 22-24 ounces of formula. My pediatrician said not to worry, since she’s getting molars, and teeth make all forms of eating unpleasant. I tried just leaving the food out for her to eat it when she wants, and she just crushes it on her head. I assume she’ll work through these issues with her therapist one day. In the meantime, cheerios.
My 3 kids were that age… but it’s been a while. They are now 7 (twins) and 4.
I apologize for not reading a lot of your comments. But I DID notice someone giving their 14m old peanut butter. Please please PLEASE avoid nuts until AT LEAST age 2 and waiting until 3 is even better.
I do remember our girls being more “picky”… not in terms of what they ate, but HOW MUCH they ate. That continues to be the trend today. They have more grown up tastes and never have been into “kid food”. For instance, last night I received much praise and happy moans (as they ate) over grilled squash, carrots, and steak. One proclaimed “I love vegetables!” Which is incredibly awesome… but the 30 calories in those vegetables aren’t going to put weight on your little body. So please do enjoy but also eat the other items!
One thing that we DO focus on is making what they eat “worth it”. If they are only going to eat 1/2 of what a “normal” serving is… it needs to be packed full of healthy calories, fat & vitamins.
OH… I also clearly remember there being a battle over independence. Us feeding them was frustrating. Getting the girls to eat anything off of a spoon that was in our hand was pointless. They did better (but yes – messier!) if they were in control of the food.
And milk… our girls were HUGE milk fans at that age… HUGE! But that is a fine line to walk because they can and will easily fill up on milk and skip the solids.
My daughter (now three) was never a great eater. She nursed until 17 months and I would console myself that she was getting some nutrition that way. I can’t remember the specifics, except for the stage we affectionately call her “Ham Period.” She would eat nothing but ham for days on end. That’s right…ham. Cubed Hormel awfulness. Her first sentence was “MORE HAM MAMA!”
Eh, my baby didn’t eat, and I never really figured it out. In fact, he still doesn’t really eat, and I still haven’t figured it out, and he’s 3 1/2. SO. Let me know if you figure it out?
Breakfast foods were always my most successful: Cheerios, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, pancakes…
Simone will eat what she sees the other children eating when she can go to day care. Of course, she can’t go until she gets older and stronger, which (you must imagine) she can’t do until she starts eating.
Our son began eating at the day care, but only if it was the sort of thing we couldn’t bear eating at home. In Holland (where we live), they have different ideas about baby and toddler food. Peanut butter is a baby staple here; they give the walls a periodic coating of the stuff, as well as offering it every day to unsuspecting kids. Another favorite is “smeerworst” (=liverworst you smear), containing miscellaneous pork products and smeary chemicals. That became our son’s favorite. He still refused to eat what we offered and what we liked to eat. I remember in particular a lentil battle that lasted days. Then when we gave up, he said triumphantly, “I didn’t eat your money!”
Our (baby) daughter will eat buckets if she is placed in front of the television and the food is shoveled into her dazed, unsuspecting face.
What’s the lesser of two evils, smeerworst or the teletubbies?
She’s so deliciously pudgy – I don’t get why there is a concern!? My second daughter (full-term) ate very little solid food at that age – she just wasn’t interested and preferred to just breastfeed. She’s seven now and brilliant, of course. Simone sounds perfectly normal to me.
My now 14 year old ate nothing of substance until she was probably four years old. While I spent a good deal of time freaking out about it, her pediatrician (who was the same one her dad had as a child and therefore a veteran of thousands of picky eaters) sat me down as I sniffed tearfully that my baby would.not.eat and told me that babies are hedonists and would do only what pleased them and that in fifty years of practice he’d never seen a baby starve herself and that I was to RELAX.
After that I fed her what she wanted when she wanted it. She went through the “only white food” stage, the “only vegetables” stage and the “nothing but dino shaped Kraft Dinner” stage and has suffered no ill effects.
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