Toddler and food question

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Forum -> Parenting our children -> Toddlers

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miami85

Thu, Aug 21 2014, 11:57 am

My 2 year-old keeps asking for "baba"s (bottles) all day. On occasion he'll ask for food and then just chew it/bite it and spit it out or dump it out of his bowl. It makes us not want to give him the food. I don't want to encourage this "game" but on the other hand he needs to eat and sometimes he does actually eat it.

Any advice or words of wisdom?

busydev

Thu, Aug 21 2014, 12:11 pm

cut down on the bottles.

decide a few set times a day he can have them (my DS had them after he woke in the morning and before nap and bed-not in his crib tho) At all other times offer him water or other drinks in a cup and food. If hes getting full on milk then it makes sense he doesnt eat much else.

When he asks for a bottle say now is not bottle time. after a few days he will learn.

Also you should probably work on stopping the bottles. its not that great for their teeth and jaw. I stopped my DS when he was a little over 2 and sick with sores in his mouth that hurt when he drank milk. I told him the dr said bottles will give him boo-boos so no more bottles and he stopped asking for them by 3-4 days later.

(at 12 mo the same DS started eating a decent amount of food after I night weaned him and he had less milk in his diet.)

miami85

Thu, Aug 21 2014, 12:17 pm

Oh believe me we are trying to cut down the bottles--it's been a fight! But when he's in "Baba" mode, he fights tooth and nail.

We have noticed that he has a sensitive stomach--though we're not sure to what (and he has been to a GI), so that could be why he's resisitant to food. We know that the milk isn't helping, but he hasn't gotten that message yet.

At the same time we've been trying to get him to cut down on milk, he hasn't necessarily been eating more or better. We offer him food and want to give him food, but when he's just making a mess with it, it gets frustrating.

busydev

Thu, Aug 21 2014, 12:36 pm

so maybe its time for a rapid extinction of bottles. hide or throw them out and say there are no more bottles. he will be upset. but he will also get over it. give him regular cups or sippy cups with straws so they dont have the same bottle feel (tho he cant drink it lying down)

Did the GI have anything to say about his sensitivities?

Also some kids are not great eaters ever. my DS is not the worst eater- but even once he started eating more then he did before he still is not a big eater and pretty picky, esp compared with his younger brother who will often out eat him.

suzyq

Thu, Aug 21 2014, 2:37 pm

I have a similar issue with my son - he would prefer drinking milk all day long to eating anything. I have limited him to 3 bottles a day. (We had actually gotten rid of the bottles altogether at one point, but then he absolutely refused to drink anything, which opened up a new set of problems.) He knows that he only gets those three bottles. The first few days were a battle, but now he's gotten used to it and knows that I'm serious. He's a poor eater, but now he'll eat something.

I'm not sure what kind of milk you are giving him, but another thing to try might be to water down his milk or switch to skim - that was he won't be as filled up and might want to eat more.

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