Picky toddler - advice on new foods?

[emschwar]

Noah is 19 months old, and PICKY. He'll eat fruit, ikea meatballs (and only ikea meatballs), pasta, rice, chicken nuggets, oatmeal, soy yogurt and snacks (cookies, and crackers). I'm so sick of it. If we try something new, he looks at it and decides then that he doesn't like it. Won't taste it, and cries and won't eat anything if we try to make him eat it.

Our ped, at 15 months, suggested giving him what we're eating for dinner, and if he doesn't eat it, letting him go hungry until the next meal. Now, I'm all for that with an older child, but it seems a little extreme for a baby this age, especially one who has had issues with weight for most of his life. Am I wrong? Should I just do it?

Complicating matters further is a milk intolerance. He can tolerate some cooked dairy (for example, cookies made with milk are ok), and I think he's ok with cheese, but he won't eat it, so I can't know for sure.

Any ideas? I'm sick of only have 3 or 4 meals that I can rotate through. Thanks.

[kedss]

our DS really likes the healthy choice sausage--I think its the lower fat kielbasa something like that. Does he like vegies? We also have alot of soup, like the Progresso chicken dumpling, and the Beef barley.

I would try to at least get some vegies/fruit into him at night, esp since he's had issues with food. We also give our DS the cereal bars, esp the apple ones. I'm not sure about the dairy content of them.

HTH!

[ctmom]

is the pasta he eats with or without sauce? You can try tomato sauce with ground beef or turkey. You can also make a pasta primivera which you can make with a broth base, and put in different veggies that way. Like the pp said, soup is a great idea, my older dd will now eat the soup but for my younger dd I kind of strain it and give her the veggies and meat/chicken but it is too messy if she eats it like a soup. It is funny, for some reason my girls will eat what we are eating for breakfast and dinner but I usually make something different for lunch...

Mary
dd 2/01
dd 12/03

[emschwar]

It's pasta with marinara. Occasionally I can slip some finely chopped veggies in there, but he doesn't like his sauce chunky.

I'll have to try soup. If I eat something for days on end usually he'll decide to try it after a week or so. It worked with oatmeal at least. Maybe I'll just have soup for lunch for a while.