Two questions.... eating and book

It may be a stage - Dan went through a stage a few months ago where his favourite foods were evil and nothing met his standards. I can understand why it's stressful for you though. How's he going with his weight and stuff? Could he handle a couple of days of you doing tough love - ie him not getting what he wants - and him not really eating much (if that works?)

Our rule is what's on offer is what's on offer.   If he doesn't eat breakfast, it stays on the table and he get no morning tea till he eats it. It's always gone within an hour or two. I "start" over again at lunchtime. At dinner, I am a bit more lax b/c I want him to sleep through the night so if he doesn't eat dinner, I'll try and find something that might bulk him up for dessert.

Spitting is SO annoying, we went through a bad phase of it, it mainly happens now when he is full, so he is happily eating then all of a sudden that last bite too much.

So for us it was a phase, we did the same as above stuck to foods we know he likes, he is not very adventurous now, loves eggs, quiche, macaroni cheese, but I just hide veg and meat in stuff sometimes it works.

We are trying to limit snacks and even if that means I distract him with cartoons or something to buy us more time so he is more hungry it can help.

Finley barely feeds himself either, if I give him a spoon he does a spoonful or two but then seems to get bored and just waits for me to do it, he's ok with finger food but even gets distracted with that and will sit there and open his mouth and let me do it - terrible but well I guess he'll grow out of it at sometime.

It does sound like very normal behaviour with food, most my ante natal group all of which had no issues with food pre 12 months some days cannot get a thing into them now.

Thanks guys. I have just come home from a stupidly long day at work (conference) and about to go straight to bed. I'll give you an update tomorrow - slight breakthrough tonight while JJ was being babysat.

In the meantime - any good toddler books?

:-) xxx

Thanks Fliss.

Well, Susiec (from OB) babysat JJ last night and she sent me a text saying he had fed himself all of his dinner. Wow! So, this is the push we've been waiting for and now we'll start encouraging him to feed himself.

I had my first attempt tonight. I gave JJ his bowl and a spoon and then I fed him with a second spoon, and it seemed to work pretty well. He made one helluva mess though.... I hate mess and this is taking me right out of my comfort zone, but I guess I'll just have to learn to get used to it!

Tonight he ate 3/4 can of the Watties orange cans (ravioli, which we'd never tried before), 3/4 pottle of yoghurt (the rest is on his bib), 2 little shortbread bikkies and 2 Ritz crackers. I am pretty proud of that effort!

That is really great Laurie, that is one big dinner. I used to dislike the mess but now I just try really hard to ignore it and clean up when we are done, Sophia definitly eats better when feeeding herself, adn she is so much better and tidier eater than a month ago. Also Sophia just sits up with us now (we have barstools at the island) and she seems to eat better being 'part of the family!'

Bumpity bump

I read this great book, called toddler taming. best one I've read thus far. I didn't get to read it to the end (seriously libraries should let mums have an extra month to try finish their books! ) so didn't get to the feeding chapter, but will definitely be getting it again.

with the food: argh I hated the spitting food! as hard as it is, try not to get cross about it because it also might be a toddler power play thing- they pick up so quick on how to annoy mum and dad and food is more often than not a VERY good way of doing that.

With Charli-Rose, I offer her the choice of two foods. if she would spit them out of refuse to eat them, I would ignore it BUT refuse to give her anything else. she would not be allowed any other food in that meal til she finished one of these two things. When doing this, I made sure it was a food she did like rather than something new. During these years I count new foods as a bonus that they are trying them rather than a necessity!

The theory behind this was that a toddler can't starve themselves- if they are hungry, they will eat. and if only one or two foods are on offer, then when they are hungry enough they will eat, as long as they know mum or dad won't cave and give them something else. I felt to mean to insist on just one food at a time in case she really didn't like it, so thats why I'd offer her two.

at first it was hard work but after like a week she got the idea. once or twice a month she will revert to "yuck all food other than toast is eeeeeviiiiil!" phase, so we go back to the 'this or nothing' technique and she gets through it again

good luck, hope something helps with his eating soon