With the holiday weekend and the awesome weather we have been having, almost every night you can smell the tasty grill food everyone is cooking. And, maybe I have complained talked about Gianna’s extreme stubbornness when it comes to eating before? My little peanut has always been finicky about what she eats, even when we were feeding her baby food, it was clear what foods she liked and what foods she did not.
And now? She has the most limited diet of any 14 month old I have ever heard of, and while she is not going to starve to death, she is defiantly not getting all the vitamins/nutrients she needs. Or at least I don’t feel like she is.
Breakfast:
These are the usual suspects plus pancakes and french toast. Oh, and granola bars. Breakfast seems cool, we don’t have much issue there.
Lunch and dinner? Different story.
Usual suspects: PB&J, grilled cheese, chicken nuggets. Throw in any fruit on the planet and some Annie’s snacks/goldfish/gerber crunchies and that is her diet. She has eaten grilled chicken exactly two times, steak once and sometimes she will eat spinach quiche.
Not exaggerating. Not kidding. Incredibly frustrating.
It’s not for lack of trying, either. She is offered our usual dinner every single day. Hell, she is offered more kinds of food on a daily basis than I can count. What happens when she sees something on her plate she doesn’t like? She either moves it to a different compartment on her plate or ignores it completely. If you try to get her to eat it, she purses her lips together, turns her head from you, pushes you away, says “no no”. (yes, all of those!) If you manage, by some miracle, to get the food past her lips and near her tongue – 9.9/10x it never makes it past there and she spits it out. I can’t explain the amount of stress, frustration and wine drinking this has caused me.
The girl doesn’t even give food a chance!
Pasta? Forget it. Vegetables? Not a chance in hell. Meat? Laughable. Cheese? Don’t be ridiculous.
So? What is a mommy too do?
My current solution is to just keep giving her whatever is being cooked, pray she eats it and if when she doesn’t, she can have fruit. She usually just ends up eating fruit. Any advice, or wine recommendations, are welcome.
9 comments:
All I can say is like mother, like daughter ------ just give her what she wants and she'll grow up just like you. From this seat it is funny to see you now know EXACTLY what I went through !!!! I even took you to the doctor to make sure you weren't "starving" yourself! Now you know why the "box o wine" was always in the fridge! Love ya both!
AW! i think all kids are picky at one time or another. i was looking at your pics having a chuckle because those are all the same things gabe ate from 1-2 years old, and still does eat some of them! at one time i think he lived on only bananas lol. like, 5 a day?! aww your doing great!! to be honest i have seen pickier!!
oh wine recommendations lol...try crane lake if you havent already! merlot or cabernet are the best!! its like $4 a bottle and SOOO good, especially with white cheddar rice cakes :)
I have no advice. My kids are the same way. And the food choices you listed... that is more than what my girls will eat. It is BAD.
sadly it's nice to hear that there is another little one out there who is refusing variety - wish I had some advice, but my lil Roo eats maybe a dozen things
girl Emma does the EXACT same thing. and her diet pretty much matches G's- NO KIDDING! Emma will eat all the bananas in the world though and mac n cheese, and everything on G's list- but she's 21 mos and 20 lbs even. She is not eating enough and it bothers me b/c she's SO picky. Hitting milestones and everything but the dr recommended giving her a bottle or 2 of pediasure a day, which we have b/c she loves it. But only after she eats of course so it doesnt ruin her "appetite." The girl will be the death of me. My other 2 will eat anything you basically put in front of them.
Rach
No cheese????!!!! WOW! I am pretty sure my little L would be crawling up the stairs gripping the cheese package in her little fingers muttering "my precious" if I would let her.
I think most toddlers are just picky! And I've read that it is very normal for them to go through phases were they will only eat a handful of things. I haven't experienced that yet, but I am pretty confident we are in the minority. All you can do is go with her cues and trust that she'll eat when she's hungry. Keep it limited to as much "real" and fresh foods as possible and avoid packaged and processed things when you can and you're giving her the best start she could have.
Some ideas of other things you could try: Rice, black beans, baked beans (esp sweet ones might interest her), wheat toast with honey, scrambled eggs, hummus, baked sweet potato with brown sugar and cinammon... I often give my girl things to dip her food in and she LOVES that. Ketchup, ranch, etc. I know it isn't the most perfect solution, but it is a means to an end. If you can get a ketchup covered roasted red potato in her tummy? That'll do. Either way, just keep trying. She'll come around sooner or later!
Can you hide it? Like, in, under, around something she does like? Word on the streets is that it takes 3 times to try a new food before it will be accepted.
I've got nothing... sorry!
Ugh. it's def frustrating, I can tell you that. but like your mom, said it's lmld. I'm almost positive that God is just paying us back for being such pains in the asses when we were kids. My mom said that for probably 2 years of my life, every night for dinner, I ate a piece of bologna, a piece of cheese and a piece of bread. all seperate on the plate and cut into little squares. LOL and CLEARLY I didn't starve ;-)
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