baby not eating as well

[wandasmart]

my 9month old has always loved her solids and was taking anything i fed her. but the past few days she's been so picky and just eating only a few spoonfuls to half of what she used to. wasn't too worried the first 2-3 days but now am getting a little concerned.

am not sure which approach to take, do i say "ok you don't want to eat, then let's stop and not feed her anything until the next scheduled meal" or do i try to coax her into it? i do not want to feed her bread or other snacks which will fill her up and her not eat the next meal because of this.

has anyone else been through this and found a way?

 

[joannek]

my baby started to become picky eater around 9 mths. i tried everything from "ok you don't want to eat, then let's stop and not feed her anything until the next scheduled meal" to "do i try to coax her into it". i even had helpers singing & dancing around to keep her entertained. when we tried the 1st method, she's eat, but it was several hours later & she ended up not having enough food during the day & keep waking up at night for feeds. so what i'm doing now is, give her healthy finger foods (soft steamed carrots sticks, brocolli, banana, avocado, bread, cookies, steamed pork, omelette, etc) every hour. ut it has to be sth she likes. everytime she eats, she's be on her high chair though. (except for cookies & bread). i just make sure that throughout the day, she keeps eating healthy nutritious food, to make up for what she needs.

 

[joannek]

oh, & btw, my baby is 16mths old. so i've tried everything during the past 6 mths. i found this method to be best for both parties. once she doesn't want anymore food (started to shake her head, spit out food) i let her down RIGHT AWAY. now i don't have of make meal time a power struggle. she's happy & gets her nutrition.

 

[barbwong_130]

I think this reducing the amount they eat around nine or ten months is very common in babies. All four of mine did it and so have most of my friends? children. In fact my third child only put on 0.1 kg in the three months from 9 months old to one year. The doctor, however, told me that it was nothing to worry about because he was large to begin with and health in every other aspect.

One of the things which worked for our family was having a tray of goodies at his level that he could slowly eat throughout the day when he wanted it. It was like a toddler?s h'orderve tray, we had small cubes of cheese, grated carrots, grated apples (they go brown quickly but he didn?t seem to mind), a few raisins, avocado cubes (his favourite), etc.

The other thing we did was rather than have his own plate just let him eat off our plates. This seems to take the stress out of the situation because I wasn?t so aware of how much he ate and so didn?t worry about it that much.

Best wishes,
Barb

 

[LLL_Sarah]

I too think this is very common. At our last LLL meeting almost every mother who had a baby around the one year mark was complaining about their babies not eating as much as before.

One thing to remember is that a toddler?s meal is actually quite small. The usual estimate for a meal is one tablespoon for each year of life. Thus a nine month old?s meal can be as little as two teaspoons.

Best wishes,
SARAH

 

[nanzbier]

Mine is ten months old and she also doesn't eat as much as she used to. She, too, was a large baby. I found that in the past 3 months, she hasn't gained much weight at all. It is a constant battle with her to eat now. She doesn't eat in her highchair...she has to watch Baby Einstein or play with some toys. At this point, anything is fine as long as she eats. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one! =) My daughter has also gone on hunger strikes twice. She will go on the strike for about 5 days...absolutely no solids just breastmilk. I noticed it's always when she's teething. Anyone else get this?

 

[joannek]

rest assure, nanzbier. if she's taking bm, then it's not a hunger strike. she gets quite some good nutrients from your milk. =) my baby used to do the same when she was sick.

 

[nanzbier]

Thanks Joannek...I'm glad to know that...She doesn't take formula...what do I do when I've weaned her and she goes on a hunger strike???

 

[joannek]

is your baby taking a bottle yet?? i started giving my baby bm in a bottle when she was very small (so daddy can also feed her), so she doesnt resist the bottle (i.e. only if i'm not around) if u need to strat introducing a bottle i think it'll be a little tricky.

well, i started mixing feed her at 11 mths with hipp organic formula. i started with 1/2 bm & 1/2 formula in the bottle. & gradually adding the proportion of the formula. she loves hipp organic now so i have no problem giving her milk. but even if she's taking only formula for several days in a row i think it's ok. just try to sneak in a fruit in between. babies usually love fruits - banana, avocado, pear are some of the favorites.

 

[DTHY]

My little boy is now two years old. I breast fed him until he was 13 months and he never really used the bottle. He started using the (sippy) cup when he was 9 months old. I figured if he could use the cup and skip the bottle then there is one less thing to worry about when it's time to quit the bottle. I didn't want to feed him formula beacuse I find it too sweet. At around 10 months I started adding whole milk in his cereal and at 11 months I gave him whole milk to drink in small amount. The transition went really well, by 13 months he didn't want to bf anymore and was on whole milk.

About the food strike - my little boy didn't eat any solids for one week when his molars came out back when he was about 18 months old. He only had milk. It didn't seemed to bother him too much although his pot belly was noticeably smaller. He ate normally again after the molars cut through.