Young Toddlers Eating Issues and Ideas
- 05-26-2010, 02:09 PM #9Registered User
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he is now 27 months. but we started off eating like this at about 14 months old, except smaller proportions of everything other than cheerios and fruits. he was very fussy and would spit out everything else. especially milk, smoothies and sandwiches. some days, when the food isnt presented on his plate but just on the table for everyone else, he'd ask for it, try it. sometimes he would accept it, most days, spit. and get back to cheerios and fruits. when he was truly hungry, he actually asks for udon soup or macroni for breakfasts!
he refused to eat and would only graze for months. at one point i was so up to my wits' ends, i tried making cute looking food like food faces, and cooking those aeroplane/ bear shaped pastas. and guess what? he freaked out. he refused to eat "anyone's eyes/ head/ ears off!!! it was hilarious as well as i thought i was gonna go crazy trying to feed this child. but the doc assured me he's alright and i shouldnt stop offering him in a neutral fashion. and he is right. it passed.
thing was, we just carried on presenting the food on the table and offering in bits. and it is only recent months, like 20 months, he is open to eating them in decent toddler size portions. he still is not a great eater. he eats in small portions and he is small sized but happy and healthy :)
- 05-26-2010, 02:34 PM #10
my son, who until the age of 14 months would eat EVERYTHING, became a very picky eater for a very long time. i think he lived off of mac & cheese for about a year!
it has to do, i think, with the number of taste buds. a small child has roughly 10,000 tastebuds. an adult has only about 3,000... that's why your tastes can change as you grow up & get older.
many kids are "white" kids... they like: white bread, white pasta, white rice... you get the idea. but it's because "white"= bland.
all you can do is keep trying.
jessica seinfeld has a great cookbook that uses purees in new and interesting ways in order to ensure that your kids are eating everything they need to stay healthy, think: pureed beets in pancake batter to make "pink" pancakes! or blueberries work too, for blue pancakes. using pureed carrot in mac&cheese or pureed cauliflower works too.
you get the idea.
all i can say is persevere. it SHOULD get better. about 2 years ago (my son was 3) i started giving him a choice: one carrot or 3 green beans... he made his own choices and he's slowly becoming less picky.
i have also recently pointed out that i don't make him eat 'yucky' things...(things i don't eat myself)... he now loves things such as salmon sashimi (with wasabi!), mushrooms, fried noodles, prawn cakes etc.
i've also done things like use a cookie cutter to make shapes out of their peanut butter sandwiches... they LOVE that! and usually ask for more!
- 05-26-2010, 03:48 PM #11Registered User
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I gave him premade hummus from supermarket that we eat. It tastes quite strong and I'm surprised he liked it.
Tofu and steam egg(Chinese/Japanese style) are still his favorite maybe worth trying.
He likes French fries (we gave him some at restaurants) so I'm planning to make some roasted potato cubes for him tomorrow.
- 05-26-2010, 10:22 PM #12Registered User
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Pixelelf - thanks for sharing - that was great. But I do hope it does not get worse than this! I have heard so much about toddlers who nearly stop eating...Oh that must have been stressful.
Cara - Is that the Delectibly Delicious book? I have seen that book at my friend's place. It looks a bit labour intensive. I tend to shy away from recipes for my baby that have more than 10 ingredients. I just don't have the time for that. Little dude screams in hysterics as soon as I step foot in the kitchen.
Baffely - I haven't seen the pre-made stuff here. At home in Canada, that's just a given - I wouldn't think of making it (I did once many years ago and it wasn't that nice). I basically only go to ParknShop here and they don't have it for sure. I'll have a look out for it next time I'm at CitySuper or 360. Are you talking about Chawanmushi(the egg tofu stuff)? Yeah, my son likes that. Very easy for him to eat:)
I went shopping today and got some ingredients to make some new stuff. I'm hoping he won't spit it out.
- 05-26-2010, 11:30 PM #13Registered User
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does he like soup? maybe you could cook some pasta in chicken soup...easy to eat....use the smallest alphabet pasta....
- 05-27-2010, 12:19 AM #14
yeah that's the book... you don't have to follow it exactly, once you get the idea, it's easy to adjust it to your own abilities/schedule
ie) buy the "pancake mix" that you just add water, THEN add the pureed fruit.
buy kraft mac & cheese, add some extra "real" cheese and the pureed veg.
the thing you have to do is steam and puree all your veg at once. do it once per week, then freeze in bags that are labelled....it really only took us about an hour of steaming/puree-ing one night and that lasted us at least a week.
the other thing i thought of was, just because he spits it out today, doesn't mean he'll spit it out tomorrow... it may take a couple of tries for him to learn to accept the new texture & taste.
- 05-27-2010, 10:38 AM #15Registered User
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Leslie - He hasn't been a big soup eater - a bit here and there. I find it a bit of a pain to give him as it's so watery. I think as another poster suggested that he can start to drink it. I just got a box of organic creamy broccoli soup yesterday so that will be on the menu this week. Good call on the chicken soup and alphabet pasta. will look for the pasta next time I'm out. This boy is costing us a lot of money...:)
Cara - yeah, I get what you mean. Great idea for the steaming too. I really have to try that. I think I can stuff a little bit more into our freezer! Also, I'm pretty diligent about continuing to give him things that he didn't like before. otherwise it's such a waste.
Breakfast of organic cereal toaster bars (thumbs down from little dude), full fat yogurt (nearly half a small container), 3.4 of finger banana. Sigh... Am just thinking of his lunch now - got some good recipes from Healthy Toddler Recipes, Recipes for Feeding Your Toddler- Toddler Menus, Toddler Foods, Toddler Lunch, Toddler Breakfast Ideas at wholesometoddlerfood.com
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