DS Will. Not. Eat. ANYTHING.

[elizabethkott]

HELP!!!!!
DS is taking picky eater to a new level. He's 28 months, and only weighs 28 lbs. His ped told us to totally get rid of the bottle, even though that was the ONLY way he would drink milk, and that he "should then start eating". Well, that was three months ago, and not so much. Now he's not eating AND not drinking milk. It's like the kid subsists on air!
Occasionally I will get him to eat a chicken nugget or two. We offer him anything and everything we eat, and for a time he loved broccoli, but that was short lived.
I'm at my wits end! How the heck do I get this kid to eat?!
Oh, and he won't do pediasure, ensure, milkshakes, ice cream, or yogurt. GAH!!!!!

[GlindaGoodWitch]

I feel your pain. One quickie that I have is to add powdered milk or heavy cream to his regular milk. Of course he has to drink it in the first place...

[Tondi G]

my pediatrician said "you control the quality, they control the quantity". Keep offering him a variety of foods.... maybe get a tray with different sections... put out some cheese, sliced turkey/chicken (or chicken nuggets or hotdog), some fruit cut up etc and let him graze. Is he losing weight? if so then you might want to get your ped involved. Other than that I can only say from other friends experiences... try not to make it an issue or a battle... the more my friends did the more their children resisted.

He doesn't need milk. He needs calcium and vitamin D. Does he take a vitamin supplement?

[egoldber]

Amy is similar. She weighed 24 pounds at 30 months. She has always been tiny. But she is healthy and active and the ped is not at all worried. If he's growing (taller) and meeting milestones I would try not to worry.

ETA: I do give her a multivitamin and recently started a fish oil supplement.

[hollybloom24]

There is a book called "How To Get Your Child To Eat... But Not Too Much." You might want to order it or see if you can get it at your local library!

[billysmommy]

Is he losing weight while not eating?

Ds2 will be 3 next week and he just hit 28 pounds this month. One thing we've found with him is that he is a grazer ~ he tends to eat lots of small meals throughout the day. We have a drawer in the fridge and a shelf in the pantry that are his ~ he can reach them and have what he wants. (fridge has small yogurts, cheese sticks, little tupperware of cut up fruit, half sandwiches (cheese, pb&j, turkey, etc) and the pantry has Brothers fruit crisps, some crackers, etc) We just got tired of him always asking to eat so we made it that he can get his own stuff and it's all pre-made/cut up healthy stuff for him. If we make sandwiches, each half gets wrapped separately and he can choose what he wants to eat. We've found that this has made a big difference in his eating habits and now that he can pick what he wants from these choices he is eating more. I think a big part of it is now he is in control!! Dinner he sits with us and has some of whatever we've made for dinner ~ he'll try anything and if he doesn't like it, he'll go pick something from his shelf. This may not work for everyone but it's really helped us.

We also do multi-vitamins and fish oil

Our ped told us not to look at what he eats in just one day but look over the course of a week ~ if he's getting everything he needs in that week he's doing fine

[jillc]

Hi,

Only have a minute, but wanted to write a quick response. My DS is a month older than your DS, and he weighs 24 lbs. Sometimes he eats lots, and other times he is just not interested. We also have days where it seems that he's existing on air!

I was stressing about how to get him to eat more/consume more calories, and remembered that my sister has a friend who is a dietician. Her words of advice for me were that the more you try to get a toddler to eat, the more they seem to resist. She recommended a book by Ellyn Satter, "Your Child's Weight; Helping Without Harming". I LOVE this book!!! I read this one, and the other Satter one that was recommended in an above response. This one was my favorite. It gave very practical, helpful information.

Kids fighting. Must go. This is a must read! http://www.ellynsatter.com/commerce/product.jsp?prodId=1&catId=1

[WatchingThemGrow]

IIRC, Ellyn Satter (author reference by a PP) says that you decide what and when to serve, and they decide whether and how much. Just keep offering healthy meals (I cringe when they go to waste), eating together, and acting normally.

We've found that bringing out new/different sippy/straw cups has really helped our non-drinker. DH will often recline DS in the high chair, stick the milk cup in his mouth, and entertain DS while he drinks with an iTouch slideshow, a cell phone, keys, etc. I don't feel the need to go that far, but it works for them.

oh, and something like a new chair at the table may help too - new plates, utensils, etc...

[niccig]

Will he refuse milk because it's not in a bottle? DS did the same, so nurse at peds office told us to give him water in sippy cup and then 1 tablsp. of milk and every few days add more milk. It took a few weeks but he adjusted to the sippy of milk.

As for the food, all you can do is give options and not stress...unless you want to force food in his mouth, which is what my parents did to me as a kid....

[brittone2]

In the absence of anything else concerning (possible allergies? Sensory stuff/textural aversions?), I'd just go for the Ellyn Satter type of advice as well.

Both of my kids are smallish. DD is 28 months and is 25ish lbs. IIRC she was roughly 25%tile for height and weight based on our recent well baby. There were absolutely no concerns voiced by our doctor. She's proportional, eats a wide variety of foods, and still nurses. She just eats smallish quantities.

My DS went through a spurt from maybe 2.5-3.5 where weight gain was really slow I think. All I know is every time I weighed him, he was the same weight for what seemed like forever! He's 5 and weighs 40 lbs. He's proportional and again, no concerns from anyone.

Both kids eat a wide variety. Some days they will eat a LOT, some days almost nothing. We offer, we make healthy snacks available and we don't worry about the rest.

Any gagging? Any textural aversions? (like strong preference for crunchy but nothing smooth, or dislike of "mixed" textures like something smooth with chunks in it?). If you think there could be anything like that going on, I'd request an OT eval to see if there's a sensory component.

If you aren't noticing any signs of allergy or GI problems, I'd probably just let it go and serve healthy food and feel assured that kids generally will eat when hungry. Worrying too much or placing too much importance on eating seems to just fuel the problem for many kids.

There's a good thread on MDC about a "snack tray" that you might want to investigate too. A *very* lengthy thread but a good one (lots of toddler friendly snack ideas that can be put in muffin cups, ice cube tray, etc. with one "item" per cup).

[rwiklendt]

We add Carnation Instant Breakfast to our little guys soy milk... he is also tiny, but does like his 'cocoa milk' in a sippy before bed and/or for breakfast.

[elizabethkott]

Thanks for all the responses! I will have to check out both of those books - thanks for the recs!
It's somewhat comforting to know that my child isn't the only one who exists on air!!!
The suggestion about the water in the sippy and adding a little bit of milk... GENIUS. Pure GENIUS. Will have to try that!!!
He doesn't seem to have any allergies or food aversions. He's just very, VERY picky. I like the suggestion about the choosing from the bottom shelf in the fridge.
I think part of it is that DH has to stop bringing cr@p into the house in the form of chips, candy, cheetos... the kiddo suckers DH into giving him the "good" stuff, and thus DS doesn't eat any of the REAL "good" stuff. Hm.
But thanks again to all who have responded! Keep the ideas and suggestions going!!!! PLEASE!!!

[dcmom2b3]

Hugs, Liz. No advice -- Bunny is the same way, and despite my best efforts, she goes for days at a time living on air. (While her mom is eating Girl Scout cookies straight from the freezer. . . .) She's been like this for a year, at least, and is growing and meeting milestones, so I've decided to just let it go.

[brittone2]

Thanks for all the responses! I will have to check out both of those books - thanks for the recs!
It's somewhat comforting to know that my child isn't the only one who exists on air!!!
The suggestion about the water in the sippy and adding a little bit of milk... GENIUS. Pure GENIUS. Will have to try that!!!
He doesn't seem to have any allergies or food aversions. He's just very, VERY picky. I like the suggestion about the choosing from the bottom shelf in the fridge.
I think part of it is that DH has to stop bringing cr@p into the house in the form of chips, candy, cheetos... the kiddo suckers DH into giving him the "good" stuff, and thus DS doesn't eat any of the REAL "good" stuff. Hm.
But thanks again to all who have responded! Keep the ideas and suggestions going!!!! PLEASE!!!

Yep, the first thing I'd do is cut the crap food out or at least keep it out of sight to be eaten after he's in bed ;)

If you are okay w/ him accessing the fridge, you could try a snack tray on the bottom shelf. Or a special drawer/cabinet with acceptable snacks perhaps? Seriously, the MDC thread on the toddler snack tray is a great one.

[maestramommy]

Thanks for all the responses! I will have to check out both of those books - thanks for the recs!
It's somewhat comforting to know that my child isn't the only one who exists on air!!!
The suggestion about the water in the sippy and adding a little bit of milk... GENIUS. Pure GENIUS. Will have to try that!!!
He doesn't seem to have any allergies or food aversions. He's just very, VERY picky. I like the suggestion about the choosing from the bottom shelf in the fridge.
I think part of it is that DH has to stop bringing cr@p into the house in the form of chips, candy, cheetos... the kiddo suckers DH into giving him the "good" stuff, and thus DS doesn't eat any of the REAL "good" stuff. Hm.
But thanks again to all who have responded! Keep the ideas and suggestions going!!!! PLEASE!!!

Both of my kids are peanuts, but Dora is 3.5 and finally broke 29 lbs at her last appt this month. She is usually a good eater, but she goes through picky phases. What I do a lot is hold out the "good" stuff as an incentive to her finishing her meal. For example, I give her a little bit of everything, and she has to finish it if she wants dessert, which could be anything from goldfish, to cookies, to pie. Your DS is between Arywn and Dora in age, so I'm not sure what his comprehension regarding this would be, but Arwyn is starting to clearly understand that she has to finish X and Y to get Z. Pisses her off too :p

Dora gave up milk at the end of last year, so I finally broke down and started giving her a multivitamin and OJ with calcium and D. Other than that, sometimes either of the girls will leave the table without eating a single bite, and I won't blink. My reasoning is they know if they aren't hungry. In the absence of food and sensory issues (they don't have any), it's worked well.

[goldenpig]

My daughter has been dropping off the charts since she was a few months old. We figured out she has reflux and she's been on medication since 7 months, but still gaining weight very slowly and eating very little. Now she is 20 months old and developmentally fine, but has been in the 18 lb range for the last 5 months (less than 1 percentile) and at the last checkup she had actually lost weight, so the pediatrician said "she might need to start night-time tube feeds if she doesn't gain weight". OK that scared me into trying harder (I've been trying not to force her to eat, similar to what Ellyn Satter advises, but when your kid has medical issues the "they'll eat when they're hungry" doesn't always work).

So the last week I've started letting her watch her favorite cartoon on Youtube and spoonfeeding her yogurt or pudding while she watches. She doesn't seem to mind because she is distracted (no wonder kids get fat when they eat while watching TV!). I use Swiss Miss chocolate pudding (160 cal/4 oz) and La Creme strawberry yogurt (140 cal/4 oz) and she's been eating a container of each almost every day. I also am putting a supplement called Duocal in her foods, which is an unflavored powder that adds 25 cal per scoop. I've been trying Carnation Instant Breakfast too although she doesn't like cow's milk--still nursing a lot (she sometimes drinks a little bit of kefir yogurt drink though). And we just started a medicine called Periactin which is an antihistamine that has a side effect of stimulating the appetite and it seems like she is eating a lot more since we started it last week.

So I weighed her and she's now 20 lb--gained over a pound in a week--amazing!!! Still way below the growth curve, but I'm at least I'm not as worried now. Your son looks like he is in the 30th percentile range so he may not need any of these "extreme" measures but you can talk to your pediatrician if you are concerned, and you can ask to see a pediatric GI specialist. A pediatric nutritionist can evaluate his caloric intake and recommend high calorie foods (my daughter likes things like avocado, mac n cheese, olives, fried rice, buttered spaghetti, french fries and ice cream Dibs. I was also told to put butter or olive oil on everything). A pediatric occupational feeding therapist can also evaluate to see if there are any sensory issues involved. Hope this helps, but hopefully your son is just fine as is.