14 mo old not eating well

amother

Sun, Sep 25 2011, 1:58 pm

my 14 mo old baby is still nursing on demand, usually every 4 hrs by day, and 6 hrs by night.
I feel she nurses too much, and doesnt eat enough real food. however every time I try to feed her food she refuses it. she eats 1/2 cup plain high fat yogurt in the morning, and the rest of the day I am trying to push things into her mouth. she could be really hungry, hasnt nursed in a while and will reject everything I offer her. I think she is a picky eater and doesnt like the tastes of most foods. occasonally after pushing away food after food, I'll hit on one food that she likes, and she'll devour it. so I know she's hungry, just doesnt like what I'm offering her.
the problem is that she isnt consistent. one day she'll eat cottage cheese, the next day she'll hate it. she usually likes peanut butter on bread, but then she'll refuse it.
the only thing she always likes is the yogurt she gets every day (at least that) and pretzels. and bananas.

is it bad that I let her nurse as much as she wants, so at least she gets something? how should I get her to eat more foods? she hates fish, any kind. used to eat chicken occasionally, and now wont ever. meat is pretty much half/half. vegetable soup she used to eat, and now wont.

at her age, 14 mo, how important is the real food in her diet?

AlwaysGrateful

Sun, Sep 25 2011, 9:08 pm

Just to note that it's not strange for kids to start eating a LOT less at this age. Their bodies need less, because they're not growing as quickly as they once were. It's also not strange for a kid to refuse all chicken, most meat, everything else you mentioned. So your child is normal, and it is probably not caused by the nursing (although four hours is very often! could you stretch it a bit? Not offer, not decline?)

I will say that my personal parenting preference is not to offer food after food, ever. It makes kids think "I could eat that, but maybe if I hold out longer, I could get something better." And yes, causes them to refuse foods that they liked before. It becomes almost a power struggle, especially when they see how desperate you are to have them eat.

What I do is I will offer them ONE thing (or two, from the start), that I know they have eaten happily in the recent past. If they refuse it, I say ok, but that's for snack/dinner/lunch. They may tantrum at first, but if they're really hungry, they'll eat it. If not, so they miss a meal, and I make sure to offer them something else (not instead of, but as a "snack" or whatever) an hour later so that I'm not actually starving the child, just teaching them a lesson.

My ds2 is almost 18 months now, and he learned relatively quickly several months ago. It took me longer to figure this out with my first ds, so it took him longer to adjust. But it was so much less stressful afterwards. Yes, my kids are still somewhat picky. But I know what they like, and they know that if they refuse it, that's all that's being offered. They only refuse food now when they're sick or truly not hungry (or if it's something they actually don't like). It's no longer a power struggle.

And I will add that I still offer them things I'm not sure they'll like, at times, but I offer them ALONG with foods that I know they'll eat. That way they don't get used to the fact that if they say that they don't like the food, they get new food, but I also know I'm not starving them just because they didn't like a specific food.