Q&A: feeding issues at 8.5 months, 15 months, and 2 years

A trifecta of feeding issues for the weekend.

Tina writes:

"I have a question about my 8 1/2 month old's eating, or rather lack thereof, habits.  To be honest,  I am actually not that concerned right now, but I am wondering when I should be concerned.  My son is breastfed and because I am fortunate enough to work from home part-time, he rarely takes a bottle. He has always been a snacker, eating on average in less than 10 minutes.  We introduced solids at 6 month starting with rice.  We pureed everything else, except applesauce. 

He can chew, although occasionally he spits it (and everything else) back up.  We have also introduced finger foods, mainly whatever bland items we are eating at dinner.  I have given no thought to weaning him and had fully planned to breastfeed for at least a year. We have no history of allergies in either family.

I guess since I am writing you I am probably more concerned than I am willing to admit.  I just don't know when I should truly be concerned about his development if he doesn't start eating."

He actually sounds dead-on normal to me. There are many, many kids who like eating right at around the 6-month mark because it's new and exciting and they get to do what the big people are doing. But then it's just not as interesting as crawling or rolling or staring at ceiling fans or blowing raspberries. And being spoon-fed totally loses its appeal, so they only want to eat things they can feed themselves, but even that gets boring soon. So they hit a dip in eating (both amount and variety).

The cure is pretty much the same cure to most baby-related problems: Wait a few months and it'll all change. Keep offering your son foods he can feed himself from what you're eating, or snacks during the day of healthy things like big pieces of apple, banana, avocado, cheerios, etc. Since he's still getting most of his nutrition from breastmilk anyway, it's not a big deal if he's not eating as much as he used to. If I were going to bet money, I'd bet that he'll start putting food away at around 13 months (another time kids seem to suddenly start eating if they didn't before). It'll be easier then because he'll have more deterity and more teeth, so he'll have a wider range of available options.

The lovely Dee writes:

"I'm having a tough time with my 15 month old daughter when it comes to eating. Since she is my first child, I've not had any previous experience with the palate and dining preferences of little people :-) so I'm at a loss on how to proceed.

The tough part is not the eating itself, per se, but coming up with foods that she'll want to try (and hopefully like). Many times, I'll simply give her some of whatever my husband and I are having for dinner but in many instances, she doesn't care at all for it (e.g., grilled sirloin diced into small pieces, etc.). I then must wrack my brain to come up with something else I think she'll like.

There are certain foods she loves so often I'll rotate those but because they are  limited in number, I don't want to bore her with repetition of them. They include smoked turkey breast, macaroni and cheese, green beans, spaghetti with sauce, club crackers, hot dogs (without 'skin' and cut into pieces), watermelon, goldfish crackers, and a few other things. Not exactly the healthiest menu but she steadfastly refuses many new foods we try or she'll like them at one sitting and then not touch them the next time I serve them to her.

Even though I know that no two children are alike, I was wondering if perhaps you or your gracious readers can recommend some other foods that their children have been fans of. I figure that way, I can perhaps start adding some to our rotation and see if any become favorites. I can think of no other way to expand her eating horizons at this point in time.

Please keep in mind that she's not really good at using silverware yet (she tries but just can't seem to connect food with utensil and then with mouth) so most foods I serve are 'finger foods' in nature--easy for her to pick up and get into her mouth sans utensils."

Here's my theory, and I don't have any evidence except anecdotal evidence, so take this for what you're paying for it: I think that at around the age of 2, kids stop eating the things they ate when they were younger because refusing food is one of the only ways they can exercise control over their lives. So that means that a kid who eats 20 different things at 15 months and a kid who eats 250 things at 15 months will both probably end up eating the same 20 things from the ages of 2 to 4.

I was reading a post Danielle at Foodmomiac wrote about making foods for your kids' lunchboxes, in which Danielle pointed out that adults get bored eating the same things every day, but kids truly like to repeat things and have the same things to eat all the time:

"I, personally, need variety in my daily lunches. Small children do not. Small children are happy with Mac and Cheese or PB&J every day. Please, please, please remember this when making your lunches. The goal is to make your kids happy, while providing nutritious meals. The goal is not to win a school lunch award."

So the lack of variety is more of a problem for us than it is for the kids, and how many foods we introduce them to now will have nothing to do with how many they eat when they're 3, and may not even have anything to do with how many they eat when they're 30.

Having said that, the foods I'd recommend trying are rice and beans, quesadillas (cut in wedges and served with salsa to dip them in), baby carrots, edamame, corn on the cob, pieces of avocado, yogurt, hummus (either on pita wedges or fed to her with a spoon), baked fries (either regular potato or sweet potato--cut the potato, toss in a little oil and salt, and bake at 350 until done), and cut pieces of fruit (big enough that she can really grab them and shove them in).

Anyone else have any ideas for Dee?

Nikki writes:

"So my 2-year-old son seems to think that anything but junk food is the devil. I can not get him to eat things that he once loved. What can I do to get him to eat the once-loved foods.  Any suggestions?"

Wait until he's 4. And I'm kind of serious about that. I'm not sure there's much a parent can do when a 2-year-old is using food choices as control. You don't want to engage in a battle of wills, because it's not good for either of you or for your relationship. Plus, a child has more energy and boldness, so he'll probably win. You have to use your patience and wisdom to wait him out.

One thing you can do is not buy the junk food so it's not available in the house to him. (Or hide it really, really well so you can eat it when he's in bed for the night. Not that I'd know anything about that.) He may not want to eat the nutritious foods you subsitute for the junk food, but eventually he will eat at least some of them so he doesn't go hungry.

Another thing you could do is trick him into thinking things are junk food that actually aren't. A guy I know was told by his mother that dried fruit was candy, and she only allowed them to have it on Sunday nights after supper, so he grew up thinking prunes and raisins were a special treat. Hee. If you could ration out healthy snacks and pretend you weren't sure he was really allowed to have them, you could make him think they're something he wants to eat.

You could also try outsourcing his eating as much as possible. The control game is one he really wants to play with you, since you're his mother. He won't care as much about doing it with a babysitter or grandparent, so if he spends time away from you, ask whoever's with him to try to get him to eat with them. Odds are that he'll eat better for them than he will for you.

Whatever you end up doing, don't let him know that his lack of eating bothers you. Be unemotional and nonchalant about it, and he may come around more quickly because it's boring not getting a rise out of you. But know that it's super-common, and we all grow up despite not eating anything all day for weeks on end when we're 2. He'll probably make up for it when he's 15 and eat you out of house and home.

Comments

[Slim]

For Tina:
One thing to remember is that kids often need to see a food a few times before they'll try it. Don't let one rejection stop you from putting it on his tray again. Also remember that kids don't have the same food aversions we do, necessarily, although they may prefer things they've been exposed to via breastmilk. Break out the vegetables you don't usually serve (well, maybe you don't, maybe you do): Your son may love cauliflower --nubbly and easy to grasp-- or lima beans.

[Kim-Anh]

My almost 1-year old has been picky about not eating his vegetables (lord, never thought I'd have me one of *those*) but lately I've been getting creative by hiding veggies like broccoli in his grilled cheese, which I cut into small pieces for finger food. He can't even tell they're in there. Sometimes I even use a veggie puree under the cheese, as though it were pizza sauce. Anything to get those veggies in!

[foodmomiac]

I do have some more suggestions for Dee, and some of these might seem to contradict what I wrote in my School Lunch post. Although the most important thing to do is make sure your kids are eating nutritiously (whether it's varied or not), I also think there is some importance to cultivating an adventurous palate. My kids were never spared spices. Max is now 13 months old. For lunch yesterday, he had chili - two bowls of it. Dinner the night before that was homemade vegetable soup. I always present to them EVERYTHING we are eating, whether it is spicy or not. I think that presenting kids with bland foods will cultivate a bland palate. However, if they do not like it, they are then welcome to have something else. I do want them to eat.
Some great foods for finger food age kids include stews, soups (I just feed the solid part), cut up veggie burgers, meatballs in barbecue sauce, and cheese. We do a lot of cheese, and both of my kids prefer sharp cheddar to bland cheeses like mozzarella.

[foodmomiac]

One more idea - Max's favorite food is pizza, cut up into small pieces.

[Jody]

During our kids' second year, they ate a lot of Healthy Choice Veggie soups. Obviously it would be better to make your own soup, but I had three toddlers and more money than time, and Healthy Choice does their veggies in big chunks. I used a slotted spoon to lift out all the big bits for the babies, and then drank the broth myself (or tried giving it to them in little open cups, but let's face it, that was just a fun way to end the meal and leave me with a big clean-up finish).

They also ate lots of veggie burgers broken into bite-sized, finger-food bits. These were the veggie burgers that had actual bits of veggie visible in them, not just the ones aspiring to be meat patties. My kids preferred the ones made by the company that advertised its owner-operator beginnings (not Morningstar? I honestly got confused even at the time, and it's been years since my kids liked veggie burgers now).

They also ate a lot of Amy's Lasagna, again with the more-money-than-time thing.

Crunchy Granola at http://crunchygranola.blogspot.com just had a huge post up about kids and eating, from the POV of a mom to a child with eating aversion. She mentioned that kids need to see a new food 31 (!!) times before they decide they like it, and offered some good language to use when your kids are busy declining the food. (Mostly variations on, "you're choosing something else today" -- NEVER "you don't like that food.")

[smashedpea]

Dee, your daughter sounds like mine (same age, too). One day she likes something, the next she won't go near it. We just keep offering her whatever we have for dinner, regardless of whether it's spicy or not.

Often she'll take what we're eating, though sometimes only the day after as leftovers. She's got a bunch of favourite foods (plain yogurt, fruit, bread, cheerios, pasta) which she'll get whenever she won't eat what we're having. But with us, she's had spicy shrimp pasta, thai food, and even green leaf lettuce.

Most often, she'll eat a combination of her faves and whatever we're having. Last night, for example, she had some pizza along with yogurt and grapes. Maybe not what I would eat myself, but she liked it.

It also seems that she goes through phases - she used to looooove chicken, but currently won't touch it. She's into bread these days, but a couple of weeks ago couldn't stand the sight of it. I used to stress a bit when she wanted to eat the same stuff over and over, but now I just go with the flow. Sure, I try to get her to eat a variety, but it's no big deal if she only eats bread for dinner one night. She'll eat something else soon enough :)

Other suggestions - she likes meatballs, grapes, avocado, cucumber and tomato salad, turkey sausages, cherries, cottage cheese, crackers, homemade soups and stews (though she may not eat everything in there), oven-fried potatoes tossed in a bit of oil, salt, pepper and paprika (before baking).

We can't get her to eat cookies, but I guess that's not really too big a problem :)

Good luck to you and your little one.
Oh and it took her a couple of months after weaning before she ever took cow's milk. So I think it's true, you just have to keep offering it to her.

[cagey]

Tina,
I had similar concerns with my son (now 11 months old). I eventually gave up on baby food and we have been doing table food since before 9 months. At his 9 month appt. with the doctor, I "confessed" this and she actually said "Good! He NEEDS to learn to like what you are eating anyway". She also pointed out that until about a year, eating is a "skill" that he is learning and that he should be getting most of his nutrition from the breastfeeding anyway. She expressed no concerns whatsoever about iron deficiency.

I should also mention that we eat mostly ethnic food - Indian, Thai, Middle Eastern, Greek - my sons favorites are South Indian and Middle Eastern, so far.

[christie]

All the above suggestions are good ones. I have had lots of success with pancakes (I make big batches with whole-wheat flour, freeze them, and pop them in the toaster as needed), served with yogurt or unsweetened applesauce for dipping.

[Slim]

Uh, what I wrote was for Dee. I need to go read Moxie's sleep posts.

[Dot]

Lots of good food suggestions already, but here are some additional suggestions from my 15 month old:

Sushi - he loves avocado rolls and stuff like that. He just picks them up and gnaws on them!
Frittatas/scrambled eggs - they make good finger food and you can put almost anything in there. (the other night we were having a stir fry, so I took out some of the vegetables and meat and chopped them up and cooked in egg for him. he loved.
Veggie burgers/frozen meatballs - I keep these in the freezer and pop into the microwave whenever I need a supplement to dinner.
I've noticed that sometimes he doesn't like food all mixed up with sauces, and prefers things plain. So I almost always have some of the following on hand to supplement his dinner: avocado chunks, steamed brocolli spears, cheese chunks, canned black beans, frozen green peas, fruit like mangos/bananas/peaches (he won't touch grapes or strawberries). If she likes watermelon, try canteloupe or honeydew for a change.

Generally, we feed him what we eat, with the above type items on hand as well, so he gets a nice mix of food.

[deezydubya]

We're like a lot of the commenters - our 15 month old son gets what we're eating whether it's spicy or not, supplemented by other known favorites.

One thing he is absolutely mad for, though, is olives. I buy black sliced ones, and then he can poke his finger into the middle and eat them that way, which he finds hilariously funny. If he's given olives he'll eat them all first before he eats anything else. BTW he started eating olives b/c they were part of a nacho platter at a restaurant (he was eating the topping, not the chips, and lapping up the olives and jalapenos like they were candy!)

I also feed him things that husband and I won't eat. Many of them - avocado and olives especially - are his faves but neither of us will touch them.

[hedra]

There are several good discussions of similar picky eating (and how to manage it), for various ages, at Parenthacks.com ( http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/09/the_eat_what_we.html , and http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/08/getting_a_few_m.html , for example).

I won't repeat all of what I've said there, but just a few notes:

1) Tina, one thing my family doc did to save my sanity was to tell me flat out that if my child ate NO SOLIDS AT ALL to 12 months, he would not be concerned. He did say that on average, the kids fed only breastmilk to a year were a tad smaller than their peers at that age, but over time, they all bounced right back, and at 4 years, there was nary a difference between the one set and the other. It gave me a lot of emotional leeway to allow my kids to eat as suited them, though we still ended up with a major problem for one of them.

2) Dee, there's nothing wrong with just having something she'll eat as part of your daily meals, so she's always included. Over time, she'll start to include the other foods in her diet, as well as the ones you're including in yours that she likes. What you're building up is a sense of belonging, a food culture, that will support her trying things later. She doesn't need to try them all NOW, she needs to get used to the idea that these things are foods, and foods we as a family eat. Imagine being faced with avocados for the first time... yeah, mommy says don't eat playdoh, but *this* is okay? She's NUTS! LOL! (And I'll say that she's got quite a decent variety there! Average is I think 17 foods for NON-picky eaters, and 12 for picky eaters, and even the picky ones usually get quite a decent balance of nutrition.) Just keep on with what you'd eat anyway. Unless you're going to expand your own dietary options as well? In which case, offer things you'd like to add for yourself. (Salads are a hit with just one of my kids, but hey, one is good!)... also, presentation may be an issue - anything set up so you can dip it into something else seems to draw the attention. Think arts-and-crafts time, not dinner, and that may jump the resistance hump. :)

3) Nikki, yes, wait until he's 4 (or 5, when things can shift very suddenly). However, if he's limiting himself to only high-feedback foods (sweet, salty, fatty), and refusing everything else, that's enough to set off the curiosity alarm for me. Kids who have physical/health/trauma 'issues' with food (post-traumatic reactions, food allergies, reflux, silent reflux, swallowing disorders, sensory issues, etc.) tend to go mainly for high-feedback foods, and reject anything else. They need something that will have enough positive to outweigh the negatives of eating at all. If medical history or behavior suggests that an old issue (like reflux) may be resurfacing, or an unknown issue may be becoming more obvious (like sensory or swallowing issues), it may be worth talking to a Speech Language Pathologist who deals with feeding behavior. The odds are that it is normal behavior, but what we saw first with my oldest (who had all-of-the-above - reflux, food allergy, minor choking trauma, sensory issues) was a gradual dropping of all formerly eaten foods and a narrowing of diet to only things that were very sweet, salty, or greasy. Chicken nuggets, donuts, sweet cereals, PB&J with a lot of J, etc. It took years after that started for us to realize that we had a huge problem on our hands, and I only wish someone had given me a heads up that we were seeing possible red flags sooner. The doctor (same adored one as above) thought it was normal eating behavior, but finally my BIL (a SLP) gave me the diagnostic rundown to self-check: Only high-feedback foods, chart drop after weaning, panic on being offered new foods, unwilling to taste foods (even if they know they can spit them out). That's not 'proof of problem' there, that's just 'enough to go get a screening done'. Not a panic, just a heads-up. And likely, it is just normal food control, but you'd be the one to judge.

As for going beyond the high-feedback foods, anything that makes food entertaining or scientific (experiments with sauces!) may help - cookie cutter sandwiches, dipping trays, etc. Engage curiosity to overcome the natural caution/control issue at this age.

Good luck!

[joline]

I think the answer to all three of these problems is exactly the same. It is our jobs as parents to offer a variety of healthy foods to our children on a regular basis. It is their job to choose what to eat and how much.
For the 8 1/2 month old, mom is doing this and baby is choosing what to eat and how much (which isnt much) Mom dont worry! YOu are doing great!
For the 15 month old, babies eat waht their parents eat all over the world. I suggest you still just give her small portions of what you are eating and let her choose whether or not to eat it. Try to include at least one food you know she will like, but I wouldnt make her special meals. She will learn to like what the family eats together.
For the 2 year old, offer healthy foods. You dont have to bring junk foods into the house at all, you decide what to offer, your child decides what to eat and how much. I think better a child refuse to eat than get used to eating junk. MY MIL disagrees and is constantly plying my children with things like pudding whenever they tell her they arent hungry. Then she says "It's the only thing I could get in him" and I ALWAYS say, if he isnt hungry , he doesnt need to eat. Also, you can create healthy versions of junk foods. My children LOVE chicken nuggets, but I make my own out of chicken breast rolled in crushed corn flakes, sprayed with pam and baked. THey LOVE them! I make my own french fries out of sweet potatoes cut in slices and baked in a similar way. I make strawberry smoothies and tell my kids they are milkshakes. They also think that cinnamon bagels are donuts.
Good luck
Joline

[Dee]

Thank you, everyone (and especially Moxie for sharing my dilemma with y'all), for your great ideas. You've come up with some really great ideas and you've also helped me realize that we're not doing too badly with her current eating habits. Please keep the great advice coming :-)

In the meantime, I've made a list of some things I need to add to my next shopping list (notably, black olives--which she loved the other night, black beans, some new-to-her fruits like canteloupe, etc., and so forth).

She's a good eater so I'm lucky; now I just need to expand her horizons a little. We do tend to give her some of whatever we're having but, when she doesn't like it is when I need to be sure to have dependable back ups on hand. However, now I realize that those dependable back ups may have a 'shelf life' in terms of her suddenly not caring for them.

Again, thank you all--you're a tremendous asset and help!

[AV]

Joline, so right about whose job is whose when it comes to eating.

This book is great for parents of babies and kids: My Child Won't Eat! (Carlos Gonzalez)

[Katie]

For Dee-
I did not read all the other suggestions so sorry if this is a repeat...
The October issue of Parents (page 161 wonderful layout) has 52 fingerfood options for your child's (and mine) age. I personally made of grocery list to get these foods in my house. I hope you find it helpful.

[liz]

I haven't yet met a kid who doesn't like pesto once they've gotten a taste of it, and it goes on everything.

Muffin Man loves salmon sashimi, which he first tried off my plate at about three. I kept telling him, "That's a really grown-up food, I'm not sure you're ready for it." That line gets him every time. He loves soft-shelled crab too. And brussels sprouts. If it's on my plate and not on his initially, he wants to try it. So...let your kids taste things off your plate.

[Melis]

We have been blessed with the kid-who-eats-damn-near-anything so I can't really suggest much for getting a little one to eat, but I thought I'd throw something into the ring that we tried this week and was a big hit: Morningstar veggie bites! They have broccoli cheddar bites and spinach artichoke bites that are out of this world. They are baked but have that sort of fried flavor to them so the little man thinks he's having something extra special (I can't eat fried food anymore so I use these to satisfy the cravings). They are completely vegetarian and pretty healthy little nuggets of veggie goodness.

[joline]

I was thinking about this today how my kids will just eat bread at my MIL's house but will eat a ton of fruits and veggies at home. But I remembered that if I do offer something like a bread or cracker of some sort with a meal, that is what the kids eat first, and want more of without touching anything else. Now when I was a child every meal had some type of bread or biscuit so I think this is normal for some generations. Anyway I guess I trick my kids into eating their fruits and veggies by not offering something "tried and true" at the same time. For example, just dinner tonight, I didnt cook so it was a lazy night, I I sliced up a cucumber and a red bell pepper, gave them a couple of baby carrots and some cheddar cheese and black beans. And they gobbled it all up. But if I had offered a tortilla with the beans and cheese, they would have eaten the tortilla and left the nutritous food behind. So most meals, we go with fruits and veggies and protein, and save the carbs for snacks where they arent competing for more nutritious foods.
I guess sometimes we get so used to our "tricks" we forget that they are tricks at all!

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