Baby food help please.?

Question

Our daughter is 14 months old, healthy, 75th percentile in weight and height, but refuses most solid foods. She eats bread, cheeses, crackers, yogurt, cottege cheese, and the rest is baby food. We continuously offer her our food and she initially says yes, and then when she recieves it, tells us no. Should we just be patient and she will come around at her own time? Or us there another way to get her to eat more solids?
And yes, we have tried sneaking food into her baby food, and other things, none have worked.

Answer 1

Sometimes you have to offer a new food 5 times or so before they will try it, if not they eventually try new things, I like to pretend I am going to eat it and then most times they will try it. Oh it only gets better wait till they only want to eat food that is a certain color.

Answer 2

Hi,

Your daughter sounds healthy going by her weight and height percentile. This is a stage that most children go through starting at 12 months or a little over and can last throughout childhood. However, most children get over this phase by age three. I would be patient about this for now. Have you tried giving your daughter less milk or juice and more water? Your daughter will still need 4-5 cups of milk per day but often times young children will fill up on liquids (other than water) and will lose their appetite for food. Also, your daughter is probably going to be more fussy over different textures and with trying new foods at this age. I recommend staying away from Stir-Fry's or meals that combine everything together. If she will eat bread, cheeses, crackers, yogurt, cottage cheese and baby food than she should be okay. I would just try to incorporate peanut butter into her diet for protein or give her baby food meat. I recommend baby food meat and veggie combo as the meat does not taste as good. I would feed her baby food fruits and veggies as well. If this gets too bad than you can try Pedialyte but I would ask your daughter's Pediatrician first. A toddler's stomach is really small. So, several small meals per day is better to give versus three large meals. I would try to feed your daughter something once every three hours.

Answer 3

Some babies are quite sensitive to textures of foods. Some need quite a bit of time before adjusting to eating mostly table food. She is not too old yet to be very concerned, especially if she is healthy and her weight and height are good. Don't play games with her food such as trying to sneak stuff into her baby food. This will develop a distrust and you don't want that. I suggest that at meals, offer her a plate or bowl of what you are eating, cut up into small pieces. Give her a baby fork and spoon, too. She'll likely eat with one hand while the other holds the fork, but she'll learn that the utensils go with the food. Include some of her favorites on the plate and let her choose what she wants to eat. Follow that with some baby food if she wants it. She will begin to eat more table food as you offer her more. Don't ask her if she wants it, just put it before her and let her eat it if she wants. Don't make it a really big deal if she doesn't. It is often hard, but try not to beg, plead, or encourage "just one bite". A baby will not starve, but she will learn early that she can manipulate you with food if you let her. My experience has shown that the best method is prepare healthy food choices, offer them at consistent meals and planned snacks and kids will eat what they want when they are hungry.

Answer 4

I'd say stop giving her baby food, she's old enough to chew some foods. So if you stop giving her baby food and just keep being persistent in offering her different foods, she'll come around. I've found my daughter is independent and preferred to feed herself over us feeding her. So try letting her eat by herself, sure she'll make a mess but if she eats it that's all that matters. Try giving her little pieces of bananas, french fries (not healthy I know but most kids will eat those if nothing else lol), cooked carrots, green beans, those Gerber Graduates foods, like the little meat sticks and pick up pastas. My daughter really loved those Gerber Fruit Puffs and Vegetable Puffs. They're made of grains and fruits or vegetables and look like cereal but they melt in their mouth so if your little one don't have many teeth it's okay b/c althought they look like they need chewed, they get soft in their mouth. Anything soft and easy for them to pick up would be the best things to start her on feeding herself. Also get her some baby silverwear so she can start learning to use them. Hope this was helpful.

Also don't worry if she doesn't eat much. As long as she's drinking milk and juice, she's getting vitamins and they say not to worry. Some kids go through stages where they just don't eat much of anything for a while, mine has a couple times and she's perfectly healthy.

Answer 5

My son goes through phases were he likes things then doesn't. Your child might be experiencing a little of this. Maybe if you take out the "baby food" and just give her the foods you say she is not eating she might eventually start eating them.

Don't give your daughter peanut butter like someone above said. It is dangerous for babies. Second I wouldn't suggest pedilyte items, most children will eat them yes, but then you can not get them to eat or drink anything else.

Answer 6

Give her time she is still young. I wouldn't worry about the number of solid foods shes eating until about 18 months, as long as she is taking some.

Answer 7

I bought a KidCo baby food grinder, and it's helped a lot. It grinds whatever you're eating into baby mush, but thicker and with more texture than jarred baby purees. It's helped my son make the transition from baby food to regular food, and it's super easy to use.

Answer 8

Companies like Gerber make "toddler food" for a reason.

She's just over a year old and like the baby food. Toddler food is designed to give her the right amount of calories etc., so I'd be really please to have a baby stay on that as her "main meal" or as two out of three main meals.

Since she eats bread and crackers you know she doesn't have a developmental problem when it comes to solid food. Young children often don't care much about a lot of food.

If she gets most of nutrition from milk and baby food, and if you give her things like Cheerio's or peas, which she can pick up and eat herself (as well as keep herself busy with such foods) I don't see an issue.

Babies often just don't like "fancier" foods. In the 75% percentile she's on the big-baby side, as you know. They tend to like the basics like diced carrotts, peas, cheese cubes, diced peaches, sliced banana - the simple, easy-to-eat stuff.

My opinion is you should, if you don't already, give her something like a little healthy cereal and milk or toast and cottage cheese for breakfast. Maybe add a little sliced banana. Let her have her baby food for lunch and/or dinner, and offer her a nice selection of diced fruits, cubed cheeses, dry Cheerio's or other decent cereal, or a few crackers for snacks.

If you haven't already done so, you could put some soft peas or soft diced carrotts in a little dish with her lunch or dinner. Babies often don't like the hard fresh or frozen vegetables (particularly if they have molars still coming in). You can find no-salt-added canned vegetables until she's older (if you don't like the idea of canned vegetables).

Also, there are the little snack bowls (Dole Fruit Bowls, snack-pak applesauce with no sugar added, applesauce with other fruit flavoring and no sugar added). Most babies and small children love these.

If she gets milk, peas and carrotts a couple of times a day, and snacks on fruits and cheese and Cheerio's and then gets baby-food meals a couple of times a day she'd get quite a bit of nutrition without a lot of extra carbohydrates.

When it comes to meat (if you eat it at all) and fish, babies aren't supposed to have fish, and they can't eat much in terms of meat. Its all kind of too "big" and hard to chew. Babies do tend to favor tiny, shredded bits of boiled chicken; vienna sausages (slice them so she won't "inhale" the whole thing and choke on it), and a small amount of scrambled hamburg.

They also often like fluffy scrambled egg that they can eat with their fingers. (Add a lot of milk to it to make it fluffy enough to appeal to a baby.)

Those are my ideas on things you may want to try. At her age, its pretty normal that she likes the baby food. They've designed it for babies her age. Usually if you let them rely on toddler food while offering them "regular" food on the side by the time they get two years old they're no longer eating baby food.

Many children younger than six years old don't care a whole lot about food. If they're not kids who have been "trained" to eat for entertainment they eat surprisingly little. I relied heavily on the cheese chunks, snack fruits, Cheerio's and milk to know my small children were getting at least that much nutrition.

Answer 9

most children will refuse to begin with - just keep offering a wide variety of foods and include finger foods - (give finger foods on highchair first and praise when she eats - and then top her up with a meal)
just be patient - if she is growing well there are no initial concerns - but speak to your health visitor for further advice

Answer 10

She can't have what you don't offer. You need to just quit giving her baby food altogether. No more!

Offer her only solids. If she doesn't eat at first then fine..she'll come around. She'll eventually give in and eat what you give her. It's not going to kill her to skip a meal when she refuses to eat what you give her. Later, she'll realize how hungry she is and she'll give in and eat the solid foods.