A Thread About Food

[mkrupar]

How are your kiddos doing with solids?

I have found myself with the pickiest of picky eaters. He basically doesn't like anything with texture, and trying to get him to eat anything other than purees is a lesson in torture.

Things he will eat with texture:

Gerber little bits
Peas (whole)
Cut up blueberries
Cut up macaroni (this was new as of last night)
I can trick him in to eating teething biscuits if I put puree on it and treat it like a spoon. After a few mouthfuls of puree he'll bite the biscuit. Rinse and repeat until the biscuit is gone.

He's a hard no on eggs, any meat, rice, bits of soft bread even.

Won't even try them. If you try and put it in his mouth he clamps down and won't open. If you manage to get something in he just spits it back out.

I think this is messing with his sleep because he's not consuming enough calories during the day, so he's up 1-2 (mostly 2) times a night these days wanting a bottle. Almost like he's reversed cycled in order to make sure he's getting enough.

Still waking twice a night at almost a year old is slowly killing me. DS was STTN at this point, and OMG I just want sleep.

That's partly why I'm MIA. I work long hours, then I'm up and exhausted all the time, so I'm in bed whenever I get the chance because I know it's only going to be for 3-4 hour stints.

Anywho wanted to see how everyone else is doing on the food front.

[mkrupar]

We did begin the milk transition since he'll be one soon, and he's fine with that. Doesn't seem to phase him. He's also drinking out of spouted cups more than bottles, so we should be able to drop those at one or shortly after.

[mommabakes]

S eats basically everything and we're still up every hour or two, so... Who knows? I hope you're able to get some sleep soon!!

[mkrupar]

Aug 29, 2018 4:21:27 GMT -6 mommabakes said:

S eats basically everything and we're still up every hour or two, so... Who knows? I hope you're able to get some sleep soon!!

I though E was going to be like that. He showed signs early of being interested in food, but he's been harder to get on solid than DD, and that was a challenge itself.

[cythe]

My kid doesn't do anything else besides eat so I'm going to brag up in this thread since I can't anywhere else.

E will eat any and all food. Some pouches shes not a fan of but will eat the solid counterpart. Also, spicy food is a no go. I gave her a pickle when we were out the other day and it had a slight kick to it. That was a no go.

[cythe]

Oh and we are also up 1-2 times a night. E is definitely habit or just wanting to comfort nurse because she really doesn't eat motn, just sucks.

I've just had to play hard ball with her. I refuse to feed her 2x a night, I'll do 1 because I'm a softy. In a perfect world, she would sleep until ~4am, feed, back to sleep until 6:40/7. Sometimes she wakes at 2 am and then I have to decide if I want a screaming match now or if I just feed her and possibly have a screaming match at 5 am.

I have no clue what I'm doing over here. theres no baby sleep book about what to do when your kid wont do any of the things the books say they should do. Mostly I'm just exhausted to the point of "throw her in the crib and let her scream until she sleeps with 0 regard for how long shes screaming". Wakes at 5 am? Welp kid, I'm getting up at 6:30 so see you then.

[doodlemommy]

DS also loves basically all food. He is fine with spicy (well moderately spicy anyways). The only food I’ve found that he doesn’t like is cucumbers. Which of course are one of DD’s favorites/staples.

My only advice is keep trying foods and in different ways. I can’t remember what the research says but basically some kids need repeated food presentation and different forms/ways before they will accept something new. DS ate broccoli fine when he first started eating, then refused to eat it for like 3 months. We kept giving it to him and then last night he randomly accepted that it was fine again and ate it.

[doodlemommy]

Oh, DS is still up once a night too. But he self weaned to 4 feedings a day (of course he couldn’t drop the motn one 🙄) so I’m hesitant to cut it out for now

[Taitai]

mkrupar Have you tried feeding your kid fish? Like, really soft fish from the inside of a fish stick even? DS1 didn’t like solids AT ALL, but what got him going on non-puréed meat was giving him cooked white fish - nice and soft. He loved it - I think the texture was so soft and the taste wasn’t strong, so it was a good stepping point to other meats.

LO eats just about anything, but he particularly likes chicken, pasta, and Cheerios. Oh, and pumpkin. We had jajangmyeong (Korean noodle dish) last night, and he really went to town on the ground pork in that.

We’re lazy - so we still do like 3 pouches a day, plus cut up parts of whatever we happen to be eating. He only drinks from the ikea sippy - still will not take a bottle, and at this point, I doubt he ever will.

[CoachTsWife]

mkrupar, we are in the same boat. Except our list of foods is smaller. He'll eat purees (any variety I offer), yogurt, and the tiniest bits of avocado. That is it so far. Sometimes we can get a whole jar/pouch of puree in him in one day (over 2-3 sessions) but sometimes not. He just isn't interested. If I put any food on his tray, he picks it up and drops it on the floor. If I use a spoon, he accepts the food but then spits it out if it isn't puree. I've tried mashed cauliflower (DS1 staple) and even that is not accepted, I guess it is still too thick...?

Besides the purees, he gets breastmilk. He's up to eat around 12-2 am and again around 5-6 am. I feel you. I stressed about this so much from 8-10 months that I'm just going with it now (he's 11 months) and telling myself he'll eat real food when he's ready. I offer him bits of whatever we're having to keep the exposure going.

Hugs.

[danvers]

DD1 was like that. Exactly like that.

This is not to scare you or anything - just some info IF you want to do anything with it. When DD1 started EI for speech therapy at like 14 or 15 months (we had precisely zero words whatsoever) we added food/eating therapy services with an OT as well.

Some things the OT had us do (no idea what actually helped):

- messy foods, like pudding or spaghetti sauce on the tray. If for no other reason then to play in. There was a lot of “playing with our food”. A lot. It was a really messy time in our house. If some made it in her mouth than all the better but it was more about a sensory thing and developing a tolerance for textures.

- we touched it with our fingers. We smelled it. We kissed it. We licked it. Sometimes we tasted it. In that order. For a lot of food. Dinner took for.ev.er.

- having a mirror in front of DD1 while we fed her or she fed herself at lunch (couldn’t bring myself to have it there all the time). There was some sort of science about seeing yourself eating or something.

- expect to offer the same foods 20-30 times or more (no joke) before even touch/kissing/licking/tasting/etc... this was not an exaggeration on the OTs part. 😳

- no pressure at meals whatsoever. It was to be a happy time with nary a whine or beg from H or I about food.

- “food chaining” - basically like finding foods that are similar enough in color and/or texture that your baby will eat them. So DD1 loved peas and we could get her to eat freeze dried peas and green beans. 🤷‍♀️ Eventually she ate real green beans. Eventually was a lot later though.

- we did things to work on the gag reflex. Like teeth brushing and slowly making food “lumpier”.

** I have no idea if any of that stuff we did even helped. DD1 was fed purees at daycare till she was 15 months. At 3.5 she now she eats a lot of food and talks your ear off. She’s picky but no more picky than anyone else toddler. It just took like 2.5 years for her for food and chewing and everything else to “click”. I have been there and it’s tough.. And can suck... and it’s tiring... . It’s even tougher because you have an older one already and not enough time in the day to commit to doing all the stuff anyway. Hugs. It’s hard.

[duskymonkey]

mkrupar, good to see you back here! How is DD doing? I have a goldilocks here. Too chunky or too thick he'll complain. We're still eating purees and basically mashed up food. We are still toothless so it's kinda limiting. I've been slowly making the purees chunkier though and stopped putting them through a food mill except corn and in the beginning he was complaining a lot but the last couple of days he's been more receptive. He basically is eating whatever we eat protein wise. I minced it up with a knife. I am going to try to start making congee this weekend and see how that would go. I like Taitai, suggestion about fish. It's actually a really great protein. We eat a lot of cod and it's mercury levels are low and we steam it so it's soft. I was having lil fella eat puffs a while back but it gave him diarrhea. Anyways so yeah we're still eating mashes over here.

[mkrupar]

Aug 29, 2018 7:48:21 GMT -6 Taitai said:

mkrupar Have you tried feeding your kid fish? Like, really soft fish from the inside of a fish stick even? DS1 didn’t like solids AT ALL, but what got him going on non-puréed meat was giving him cooked white fish - nice and soft. He loved it - I think the texture was so soft and the taste wasn’t strong, so it was a good stepping point to other meats.

LO eats just about anything, but he particularly likes chicken, pasta, and Cheerios. Oh, and pumpkin. We had jajangmyeong (Korean noodle dish) last night, and he really went to town on the ground pork in that.

We’re lazy - so we still do like 3 pouches a day, plus cut up parts of whatever we happen to be eating. He only drinks from the ikea sippy - still will not take a bottle, and at this point, I doubt he ever will.

I'm going to have to try fish. We haven't done that yet. We dont keep much in the house because my H doesnt eat it. I'll pick up some cod fillets.

[thechickencoop]

cythe, we're in the same boat. I just, like over the last 2 weeks, weaned DS off of that second night feed, because he was just comfort nursing anyways. So he's up usually around 1 am (+/- an hour) I nurse, then he wakes up again around 4 and I eaither let him cio or go in a rock for.a few. I'm....tired.

[Taitai]

Sept 1, 2018 7:21:35 GMT -6 mkrupar said:

Aug 29, 2018 7:48:21 GMT -6 Taitai said:

mkrupar Have you tried feeding your kid fish? Like, really soft fish from the inside of a fish stick even? DS1 didn’t like solids AT ALL, but what got him going on non-puréed meat was giving him cooked white fish - nice and soft. He loved it - I think the texture was so soft and the taste wasn’t strong, so it was a good stepping point to other meats.

LO eats just about anything, but he particularly likes chicken, pasta, and Cheerios. Oh, and pumpkin. We had jajangmyeong (Korean noodle dish) last night, and he really went to town on the ground pork in that.

We’re lazy - so we still do like 3 pouches a day, plus cut up parts of whatever we happen to be eating. He only drinks from the ikea sippy - still will not take a bottle, and at this point, I doubt he ever will.

I'm going to have to try fish. We haven't done that yet. We dont keep much in the house because my H doesnt eat it. I'll pick up some cod fillets.

Cod filets are LO’s fav - they are nice and soft when cooked and the flavor isn’t too strong. LO isn’t so keen on salmon, but DS1 loves it. Hoping LO ends up loving teriyaki salmon some day, because that is kind of a staple meal in our house.

[mkrupar]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I think what's stressing me out is day care. He's moved up to the toddler room, and they have an eating schedule, and provide snacks, 95% of which he won't eat.

I already knew we had to provide lunches, and we've been giving them food for months, he just doesn't always eat it, and they stressed me out on Friday talking about how they dont want him to be hungry.

Neither do I! When I find something he likes I send it to day care with instructions on how he likes to eat it.

I did get him to eat bits of waffle yesterday by tearing them up small and adding them to spoonfuls of peanut butter.

What I notice is, he's more likely to eat something if it's on a spoon, than just put in his mouth. Something about the smoothness of the spoon vs the texture of the food. Like the waffles and peanut butter for example. He was perfectly happy eating the peanut butter with a piece of waffle on top from a spoon, but if I tried to give him a piece of waffle with peanut butter on it directly, he would spit it out or not even take it in his mouth.

[bootsorhearts1]

Baby is a good eater overall. We did some purées early on but the last month or so she’s started to shake her head NO at them. She mostly just likes to suck them straight out of he packet. We had a babysitter feed her like that at 6 months and we were like “WT.....actually that makes a lot of sense!”

We do mostly BLW but she already had an interest in real food so that was easy She was grabbing handfuls of my salad and stuffing it her mouth at 5.5 months.

Currently she eats pretty much whatever we are eating minus the spicy parts. She particularly loves chicken sausage, corn flakes with almond milk, spaghetti, fish sticks, any kind of fruit, green beans, corn, and peas. Oh and vegan Mac and cheese which smells like ass to me. 🤷‍♀️ Because we do BLW we don’t cut or mash anything so it makes it easy, though messy. So messy. I do cut grapes in half because I’m a bit paranoid about round things.

For those with picky eaters, does it help to have them sit in your lap while you eat? Just an idea.