Young Toddlers Eating Issues and Ideas

S

Shenzhennifer

Registered User
I find that my 16 month old is in a kind of difficult (annoying) transitional phase for eating. Any ideas or experiences are welcome:)

First, his consumption has gone down to nearly 50% of what it was before. He eats like a bird for breakfast (yogurt and fruit puree only and I practically have to force him), and I'm happy if he just eats half of what I give him for lunch and dinner. Sometimes he just totally refuses, though if I give him a toy at the table he might let me shove in a few mouthfuls till he's had enough and starts spitting it out.

I also find this age a bit fussy in what he can eat. I know technically he CAN eat anything and I would let him, but he still prefers most things that are completely soft, saucy and easy to chew, even though he's got 8 teeth and CAN use them. But harder to chew stuff he will often spit out if it's too much work. For this reason, I'm still sometimes giving him baby jars as at least they are providing him with good nutrients and he can swallow them easily. It's getting more and more challenging to find good nutritious food for him to eat that he WILL eat.

Can you experienced mothers help me out here? What kinds of foods did you give your young toddler and in what kind of portion?

I'm in a food rut and annoyed half the time with what my son actually ingests.

Thanks~
 
Finger foods all the way! Try small fruit like grapes or berries, muesli bars, pasta is a big hit for my girl, she's always asking for "macagigi" (macaroni) - you can mix the pasta with a bit of sauce and cheese for a bit extra vitamins...

I try to have "healthy" stuff for meals and then she gets snacks like cookies etc in between.

I try to give her more "healthy" stuff that I know she likes - like berries - more than the "unhealthier" options like cookies and all that... And I don't really stress too much about it - even though I know she could be eating better than what she is... Could be worse too ;) ;)
 
yup they are real fussy. i just try not to sweat about it and breathe heh heh. with my son i try to let him do the "adult" stuff like spreading his own bread, stirring warm soup, with supervision of course. it also helps us greatly when we bring him to do groceries and all the excitement of seeing fish jump and selecting them, makes him want to eat them at dinner. dun ask me why... i also wonder why :)

breakfast
different fruits for different days with oat cheerios and cornflakes.(he doesnt like the sweetened ones) with a bowl/cup of cold fresh milk at the side for him to dip or pour. the milk part, keeps him very happy and in control.

fruit + milk smoothie with added oat bran. with half a slice of toast with cream cheese + 1/4 cup cheerios.

a slice of french loaf with cream cheese with mushroom soup to dip and drink. spreads his own butter and cream cheese. the ability to spread his own toast keeps him very happy and in control. cold milk on the side.

mango/ strawberry toasties with cheese. with cheerios and a cup of horlicks with added oat bran. baked beans on the side.

lunch
sandwich + fruit + juice

noodle/ spaghetti + fruit + drink (once he learns to slurp the noodle or spahetti, this is a favourite)
very rarely rice. somehow he doesnt like them for lunch.

dinner
soup. he feeds himself soup. enjoys stirring warm soup to cool and makes him happy. a plate of fruit. he eats whatever we eat.
 
I'd agree with nicolejoy, finger food for sure, put him in control and let him discover on his own what he does and doesn't like texture and tastewise. He'll chuck some over the side but he'll try other things and decided he likes them.

While he's learning maybe you can offer him finger foods at snacktimes when you won't be as worried about the quantity he's eating and he can have plenty of time to explore each different food and there's no stress associated with the experience.

Also, I know it's easy for me to say and you're understandably stressed about it, babies and young children aren't inclined to starve themselves, some just aren't big eaters, one of my nieces is a bit older than your son and eats like a bird most days too - that's just the way she is and she's perfectly lively and healthy. If I were you I'd try and take a step back and not get too stressed about it if he's healthy and energetic otherwise?

Best of luck

Oh, and specific foods wise, definitely pasta, ricecakes with peanut butter, berries, grapes cut in half, steamed carrot sticks, broccoli florets or roasted sweet potato wedges, orange segments, omelette, cheese.
 
Hi Shenzhennifer,

How about try making food more fun for kids like these:

Bread cutter-
Rakuten - Bread cutter exciting Disney Winnie the Pooh characters - valve - the valve Deco '] [skater

Vegetable cutter-
Rakuten - Winnie the Pooh ? ? vegetable cutter

So your little one gets a taste of harder texture food.

When your little one gets elder, perhaps can also try these:

Pancakes maker -
Rakuten - Anpanman pancake pan (skillet) 05P18Aug09 '05P28may10

Donut maker-
Rakuten - Donattsumeka MCE-3308

Food processer set (little car)-
Rakuten - Tomica ? ? Character set of valves 06

This is a very good online shopping site, bought a few things from it recently, all made from Japan.

Alternatively some large department stores like Apita also have these products.

:)
 
Same problem here. My 16 mth is refusing his usual fav food. Only eat yoghurt and fruits. Last night we ate early so we can eat with him and he sampled a bit of all our dishes and I made some hummus sandwich for him. We put bits of food on his plate and he ate with his fingers. He also doesn't like to chew hard food. So running out of ideas soon as what we eat is not often suitable for him (eg greasy or spicy Chinese food with strong sauce, meat with bones, deep dried stuff).
 
at that age and even now (son is 29 months),their taste buds are still maturing and developing. my son goes through waves of loving certain foods and then the next week hating them. it's totally normal. like many have said above, we did lots of finger foods and would leave lots of healthy snacks around the house if i felt he wasn't eating enough during meals...also, on the other hand, you could extend time between meals so by the time a meal comes around, he should be starving.

my son never fell for the cute cut-out shapes of food and was actually most interested in our food that we ate at night. sometimes i would trick him by eating his dinner and then he would just end up eating his own food.....
 
Thanks for the replies.
Today's breakfast fell very flat. I made him a delicious berry smoothie, which he hated, and cream cheese and jam toast, which he spat out. Let's see what other food I can waste today...

Pixelelf - sounds like your son eats some nice breakfasts, and eats a lot of it too. I'm envious;) Sounds like he is a little bit older though?

I can't wait for my little dude to like sandwiches. So far, nope. Also hates peanut butter, doesn't care about grilled cheese, thinks jam is yucky.
I have been giving him finger foods since before he was 1, but even with them it's limited in terms of texture and taste. Most cooked veg finger food he's not into (except for broccoli), seems to like rice cakes dry but then it's hard to eat a lot, loves fruit, occasionally cheese if he's really hungry...pasta is not a finger food for him unfortunately as he needs it cooked very very very wekk before he will consider touching it:(

Fisona - I'm familiar with Rakuten because of my hubbie. I like the Pooh sandwich cutter. Might try to pick on e up next time we go to Japan and hope my little one starts liking sandwiches.

Baffely - what is your hummous recipe? Sounds yummy.

Anyway, onwards with a New Foods Crusade!
Thanks for all your suggestions~
 
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 :)
 
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!
 
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.
 
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.
 
does he like soup? maybe you could cook some pasta in chicken soup...easy to eat....use the smallest alphabet pasta....
 
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.
 
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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