Suddenly Finicky

[HelenD]

DD is 13 months old and has suddenly become finicky.

She was eating wonderfully, zipped back from the 30% to the 75% (she had a drop from 90% to 30% between 6 and 9 months), and now suddenly, she's decided that she wants NOTHING to do w/ what we are offering unless it's bread, raisin bread, and sometimes only buttered raisin bread! She does this swiping thing, clearing her tray of all food and will bat food away from her mouth as well.

Is this just a stage? Should I keep offering? How many foods do I offer before I call it a meal and put her down? I DEFINITELY don't want to have child that refuses to eat anything but a few specific things- or worse that won't eat what you put in front of her.

I know I'm in a DD food rut, but she refuses anything new I try, and she obviously sick of Yogurt, Fruits, Cheese, Sweet Potatoes w/ Meat mixed, Anne's Mac and Cheese, etc. Any ideas for food that your child like around this age that is somewhat healthy?

H.

[drsweetie]

Hi Helen! Welcome to 13 months old. My DD was the same way. I seriously freaked out about it until I got some help here and also read the book "Child of Mine" by Ellyn Satter.

Toddlers' eating habits are very erratic. Sometimes they go on "jags" where they'll only eat a few things for a week or more, and some days they seem to eat almost nothing, and other days they seem to have a hollow leg. The best thing to do is to go with it (which is hard for control freaks like me).

What we do is consistent with what Satter and our pediatrician recommended: We have three meals a day plus two snacks. At each meal, I try to provide one thing I'm pretty sure DD will eat (e.g., mac&cheese), one or two things that she might eat (e.g., green beans, which she'll eat some days but not others), and one thing I would like her to eat but have no guarantee that she will, either because it's new or because she hasn't liked it in the past (e.g., pork chop). And also bread and of course milk. If she eats all her green beans but refuses to touch anything else and still seems hungry, I give her more green beans, but I don't offer her anything different. I also don't make a big deal out of it to her as long as she's behaving appropriately and not throwing food on the floor or something like that. If she's just sitting there in her chair whining, I don't intervene.

The hardest part is not to offer something else when your child isn't eating. We actually went through that this morning: DD refused to eat her yogurt, which she normally likes, and kept asking for a banana. I did not give her one. That meant that she had a tantrum and went to daycare without any breakfast (although she gets a bigger breakfast there; what we give her at home is just an "appetizer"), but perhaps she'll learn from that. You don't want your child to get the idea that you're at her beck and call and that you'll offer her one thing after another in an effort to satisfy her. Your child has to learn to eat what's put in front of her and that she can't always have what she wants. That doesn't mean that you should give her a plate of hated foods and expect her to eat them -- as Satter says, that's just sadistic -- but if you put several things on her plate and have a reasonable expectation from previous experience that she'll eat at least one of them, then you've done your job. Whether or not she chooses to eat is up to her.

What this sometimes means is that our DD doesn't get a good meal and then becomes hungry before the next eating time (whether meal or snack). This is hard to manage, but again our pediatrician recommended that we be firm and not let her dictate when she eats. Sometimes this means that we have to have a distraction like going outside or for a walk. Sometimes this means that she has a tantrum until the next eating time. I don't mean that you should deprive a hungry child of food, but again you've got to be the one in charge, not her. (Some people recommend allowing toddlers to "graze" throughout the day, but our ped doesn't approve of that because he thinks it increases obesity and poor self-control. YMMV.)

Throwing food on the floor means that the food gets taken away. If it happens after she's eaten for a while, that's usually a sign that she's full and ready to get down. If it happens at the beginning of the meal, I take her plate off the tray and put it within her sight but not reach. Often after she settles down, she'll point at the plate and/or ask for something on it, in which case I give her that. If she settles down but doesn't seem interested, I wait a few minutes and then offer her something from the plate, but if she throws it on the floor, we start all over.

This can be really frustrating. Obviously, if your child doesn't eat ANYTHING for several days, or if you think her diet is seriously deficient in some way, check with your pediatrician. It might help to keep a log for a few days of what she eats, because then that'll give you a better idea of what she's actually doing.

Hang in there!

Ellen