My 16 month old son will not eat solids. What should I do?

Question

He will eat gerber food up to stage 3, but he eats between 3 - 4 tubs or 2 jars of baby food per sitting. That's roughly 9 tubs of food a day, plus milk, juice, water and breast milk before bed and when he wakes at night night. He is getting expensive, but I can't seem to get him to eat grown up food at all. Anything I put on his tray he throws over the side. I even used one of those suction plates and he still threw that over. What should I do?

he has 16 teeth, but 2 of the teeth are just breaking through.

Answer 1

This is a hard one.... Best answer is always to ask your pediatrician. My daughter (14 months) is sometimes the same way. I had to find foods that she liked, it seems like her only vegetable group is from ministronie and V8.
It is important that you do not let him know that you are bothered by it. If he throws his food let him, just dont act upset. This may instill a stressful feeling when he eats.
Does he feed himself? How many teeth does he have?
Have you tried other soft like foods such as yogart, rice, cereal?
I have found that I can add my daughters favorite foods to other things she doesnt eat and she will eat them. For example, dipping broccoli in yogart - it seems gross, but she eats it. Maybe you can add other foods to his gerber foods.
Good luck

Answer 2

First, you can make your own baby food to save money. Things like pasta and sauce are obviously pretty easy, but whatever he likes in a jar, just make some and then put it in the blender or a food mill. Try foods that seem a lot like baby food such as cottage cheese, yogurt, applesauce, etc.

I would definitely talk to your doctor about this. I have a friend and her little boy had an aversion to a lot of textures in his mouth. They ended up doing some occuptional therapy for him and now at age three he is fine and eats everything in sight!

At some point, you will have to call his bluff. If he throws food, you can say "Ok, meal time is over if you throw your food". And then end the meal. If he complains, say "throwing food is not good. We can try again later" He is getting old enough to understand things like that!

Answer 3

If your son came into my care, I would a) not tolerate throwing food over the side. I would smack his hand every time he did it.
b) offer him only the food I wanted him to eat, and if he didn't want it, shrug, take him out of the high chair, and try again at the next meal. I would not feed him any more baby food, ever. Most kids are feeding themselves with a spoon, not just fingers, at his age. Hunger is the best motivator. c) Let him cry when he wakes up and night. ANY ATTENTION AT ALL reinforces his bad habit of waking in the night. He must be ignored if you want it to stop.

Answer 4

keep offering solids and he will eventually eat it and the next time he goes to the doctor ask his doctor what else you can do

Answer 5

wait till he grows teeth it shouldnt be that long