Toddler Eating Woes

[Proverbs31student]

Good morning y'all,

I've got an issue I need to resolve before this lil' boy makes his arrival in less than 2 months. Rebekah is now 21 months old. She has always eaten very small quantities of food and very few types of food. A couple of months ago, before she reached these new all-time lows, she was consuming A LOT of milk. At that time, we cut back the amount of milk we offered to her and had her drink water instead. We still have minor issues related to that. I'm still working with her to recognize that when she's hungry, she needs to eat food, not drink milk, to fill up. Anyways, since then, the types of food she'll eat has gone downhill too. No pancakes, no waffles, no bread, no pasta, no eggs, no red meat, very little chicken, and the list goes on and on. Last night, I had family members suggest feeding her an item (like bites of an egg patty) and not giving her anything else until she eats it. She's already underweight so I don't want to withhold food for days like they're suggesting. I'm also not sure if her eating problems are her way of defying authority or if they're truly an adversion to the food's taste / texture. I'm at a loss here. These family members always have a way of making me question myself as a mom. I'm just not sure if that's the correct approach to take with a 21 month old. Would she understand what I'm doing? What would y'all do if you were in my situation? I've sent an inquiry to a pediatric nutrition group here to see if I can get some guidance there too. With the pregnancy, though, we just don't have many funds to pay to professionals. I'd love to hear from some moms here who have been through similar struggles with their child / children. Thanks y'all!

[His butterfly]

Well I've never had issues with an underweight child, and I'm not sure what they consider underweight, but I have had issues with picky eaters. From experience they will eat when they get hungry and they will eat enough to satisfy their needs. My pediatrician has always told me to just let them eat when they're hungry and not worry, but like I said I never had an underweight child per se. I had one that was always on the low end of the scale at toddler age but I don't think those charts are accurate.

Have you tried giving her more fruits and flavorful vegetables? Maybe appealing more to her taste would help. If she will eat fruit try and add it more to her meals. But if it's a matter of her not eating anything and she's underweight you may want to consult a pediatrician.

[Jessy]

Is she really "underweight"? Is she healthy, active and happy? If you think she is happy and healthy then she probably is. If that is the case I would just continue offering her healthy foods, try being enthusiastic about them, show her how you eat them and make a big deal out of how yummy they are then leave it, she'll eat when she is hungry and won't when she isn't, ya know? I think the less of a big deal you make out of it the better. I know with Payton he would go a couple days or so without eating much then the next day he would eat like a piggy lol. It's really normal for toddlers to do that, he's pretty skinny, according to official 'charts' he's on the lower end of the weight but luckily we have a pediatrician who sees past that and can look at him and tell he's perfectly active healthy.

Don't stress over it. Follow your mommy instinct, God gave us that for a reason

ETA: I think by cutting back her milk and only offering her water in between meals is a great idea! She'll get the hang of it soon.

[PianoMama]

We have lots of issues with Shaelyn (26 months) eating too. Not enough to be worried...but she's quite picky! One thing that works for us is finding something that she likes and allowing her to take turns. ie - She loves cheese...so she had a small piece of cheese, then a whole grain cracker and so on...back and forth. Eventually she's eaten a good meal of both dairy and grain and I'm happy with that.

We expect our kiddos to eat what everyone else is eating at dinner, but let them choose (to some extent) at other meals.

Hope you find something that works!

[AbundantlyBlessed]

DS has always been underweight, but since his growth curve continues to follow an upward pattern, his pediatrician has not been worried so much. As a parent, it does make any eating issues more stressful, so I can definitely relate. I have taken probably a harsher road with eating issues at times with DS because we've dealt not only with the underweight issue, but at one point before we brought him home he had been diagnosed Failure to Thrive/malnourished. It was very scary and I've always felt like he really needed good nutrition even more once we brought him home after having been through all of that.

That said, we have been pretty strict about his diet. We did not allow him sweets other than fruit until a certain age and even now we limit those. He eats a really good variety of foods. I'd say there are just a few foods he flat out "refuses" to eat and we know it's because he truly "hates" them, not simply he doesn't care for them as much as others. If we only let him eat the foods he loves, his diet would consist of bread and fruit, maybe a handful of veggies, nuts.

Originally Posted by PianoMama

One thing that works for us is finding something that she likes and allowing her to take turns. ie - She loves cheese...so she had a small piece of cheese, then a whole grain cracker and so on...back and forth. Eventually she's eaten a good meal of both dairy and grain and I'm happy with that.

We have used this approach also when he was younger, like the age of your daughter, and it worked well. It meant I pretty much had to feed him quite a bit or be more involved when he was eating than maybe you should have to be at that age, but I think it helped us through some of those issues and helped him realize that he was expected to eat a variety.

As far as the aversions to texture/taste, that is harder to know at that age. I do know there would be times when DS was introduced to things that he would refuse it the first time, maybe even the 2nd or third when offered at a later time (after some time had passed), but on maybe a 4th try he would eat it up. I have read that this is true... children may refuse things on the first attempts, but to make additional attempts, I guess, since it's a new food and the first attempt may not be the best indicator of whether they're going to develop a taste for it or not? I would try to get him to eat a few bites of the new food alternating with other things I knew he loved, like sweet potatoes, like mentioned above, also.

Also, we found that he does NOT care for bland foods. He likes things to be seasoned some and he would generally eat things much better that way. Meats were always harder for us, but I think his jaws were pretty weak and it was just harder for him to chew. He still has trouble with certain types of consistencies of meat like steak... takes him forever to chew up one piece.

You mentioned possibly seeking some professional help but lacking resources... does your state offer any kind of early intervention program? Ours does and we took advantage of the program for DS until he no longer qualified at 3. We were able to see a nutritionist who advised us to try to get DS to drink 2 cups of milk a day to get the calcium/vit D he needs. It's kind of hard to get that in without having him drinking it all day, but we didn't feel like it was contributing to his not eating well at meals. If he did finish that, he then would get water.

We also found that DS has food sensitivities. When we went on the elimination diet through a different nutritionist, we were pretty nervous about how he'd do with such a restricted diet during the elimination phase. He really did very well and we got to wondering if maybe one of the reasons he wasn't eating as well before was because of how he was feeling.

At 3.5, we still have some eating issues, but not nearly as much. There are some meals where he does not eat as well, and it is usually lunch. But usually if he doesn't eat as much at lunch, he's like a bottomless pit at supper. So he's definitely made a lot of progress.

Don't know if any of that helps at all, but we've definitely been through our share if eating struggles so know how frustrating it can be especially when you're concerned about weight/medical issues. You definitely don't want to see them fall back in their growth and it's really stressful when you're having eating challenges.

ETA: I also wanted to mention that there is a chapter on eating healthy in the book, Power of a Praying Parent, which I use regularly to pray for DS, and know it never hurts to cover every area of our children's lives in prayer!