11mth old and food dramas

Ok get ready for long moan..........

Help ladies!!!, My nearly 11mth old and I are having food batttles every meal, he has know started taking food out of his mouth if i spoonfeed him ( apart from yogurt but still protests!).

This evening I had had enough and put a piece of fish finger a couple of roast pototoes and a handful of peas on his highchair, he probably ate a couple of mouthfuls but threw the rest or played with it.. I then gave him a yogurt

So what do I do??????

Our day looks like this, so what am I doing wrong/ right

7ish - Muesli ( cup and a half) and fruit ( spoonfeed with protest but does eat it) and milk to drink about 50-100mls after food.

Has sleep midmorning then if up early some rice crackers and cheese that he plays with rather than eats and couple of sips of milk

11.30ish - Mushed up food ( a cup or 2)which he takes the big bits out of his mouth and protests heaps and then yogurt and water/juice with a bit of finger food - cheese etc

Sleep

Few sips of milk and offered fruit when he wakes

4.30ish - Tea was mushed up food (a cup) now adult food that he throws around

6.30ish - porridge with hot milk ( a cup) and milk (50mls)with lots of protest

7- Bed

Is this about right???????????????


Help......................

what about giving him a spoon (as well as you). also, how long has it been going on? sometimes they just aren't into food.

I think you might be feeding him too much. Here's my guess at how much to feed him. It will hopefully make organising it a bit simpler too.


7ish - Muesli (half cup), no fruit if that's what he's protesting about. Milk to drink about 50-100mls after food.

Morning tea - if he seems hungry (I'm not sure if he is?), offer some fruit or rice crackers or cheese, no milk but water if he's thirsty.

11.30ish - Mushed up food (about a cup) with water/juice

Sleep

Milk or fruit when he wakes - again, only if he seems hungry.

If you keep afternoon tea in, then delay dinner until 5pm.
Or 4.30ish - Adult food, offer less than what he had at lunchtime (that seems to be the way with 1yos)

6.30ish - yoghurt if hungry, or just milk (50mls)

Hey emmaohara, this sounds JUST like a post I put up when Emma Rose was about the same age! She went through a phase where she would only eat yoghurt, raisins and arrowroot biscuits, then she went through a phase where she'd biff every single thing I gave her over the side of her highchair (thankfully, we have a dog, who, unfortunately, is now getting very fat because of this).

I was worried too, until I started reading that kids sometimes go through this Food Critic stage. It can be for so many reasons -- teething, learning about independence, taste buds developing more, awareness of the world around them. They will eventually get over it, but until they do, they'll drive you insane. And then once you think you have them back on track, they start it all over again.

That's probably not much consolation, but I'd say that you're doing things just fine, and you can't force him to eat. Also, babies' growth starts to slow between 1 and 2 years, at the same time that their energy ramps up even more than usual, so his body might be preparing for that. I read that if they grew at the same rate from age 1 to 2 as they did from birth to 12 months, they'd be the size of a 5-year-old by the time they were 2. Creepy!

Hang in there...

I live by a very similar philosophy to Maree - basically, it is the parent's responsibility to provide the food, the child's responsibility to eat it.
Since a plunket nurse gave me that advice (yeah, plunket being helpful - strange I know!) I have felt much better about not pandering to my little toad's food fussiness. And she doesn't seem to be suffering for it!

Good luck.

So good to read all this and know i'm not the only one!, thanks girls!

I posted something about toddler nutrition and how much they should eat about 2 weeks ago. Will go check what the link is. Spoon that out and you might find that he is eating more than enough.

Isn't it so frustrating when they spit out the food with bits in it Joshua was doing that up until very recently and it drove me bonkers! I hope things are getting a bit better for you now Emma, I also agree that perhaps the portion sizes were just a bit big for right now. Joshua's diet goes a little something like this:

6.30am - 150ml bottle
7.30am - 1/2 cup baby muesli, 1/4 of a banana and water
9-10.30am - sleep
10.30am - 150ml bottle
12.00pm - sandwiches (variety of fillings incl. pate, marmite, cheese, jam, ham, luncheon), a cheerio or some cold meat and a vege patties (mashed veges dry fried into a wee ball)
1-2pm - sleep - drink of water after sleep
3pm - snack - incl. rice crackers, left over sammies, fruit
5pm - mashed up food (stew, veges, pasta bolognese), fish finger or chicken nugget (or both!), pudding (custard or yoghurt) and fruit (1/4 of a peach or 1/2 a plum or some apple or whatever).
7pm - 150ml bottle then bed