As seen here, Lillian has developed the pincer grasp and can feed herself. The day this happened, she said no thank you to being fed. Goodbye applesauce and yogurt. Hello puffs.
The problem was that she was never hungry enough to eat, so I stopped breastfeeding her so much. Then she got a cold, which threw everything out of whack, and she wanted to nurse all the time and never ever eat solid foods (yogurt or otherwise).
Now, mealtimes are extremely distressing. We've gone back to less breastfeeding in an effort to get her to eat more solids. But, as you can see, it's not going well. Everything makes her cry. We tried these eggs only after trying two different types of crackers, applesauce, yogurt, bananas, and the chicken casserole that we were eating for dinner.
This is Lillian spitting out the scrambled eggs, like she spit out countless foods before. I think the problem is that she doesn't realize that solid foods will make her full when she is hungry; it has heretofore been more of a game for her. However, my efforts to make it more of a serious affair, by forcing her to be hungry at mealtime, are just making her distressed, so she refuses to eat.
I'm not sure what to do. Any ideas?
3 comments:
I read the BEST book for exactly this type of problem. It is called "Just Two More Bites! Helping Picky Eaters Say Yes to Food". I found it at the library and eventually ended up buying it. This book covers feeding issues from birth to 3 years. Archer received occupational therapy for 18 months for his feeding issues, and we still aren't caught up. This book not only tells you what is normal and what isn't, it also tells you the do's and don't s of feeding and gives you strategies to help encourage your child. I briefly talked to Tyler's OT when we were at Amy's house about Archer's eating. We sit at the dinner table trying to get him to eat for an hour and a half sometimes. There is lots of begging, crying, yelling, force-feeding, bribing, etc. going on and it is literally h-e-double hockey sticks. She simply suggested patience. Great. So maybe read this book and get some ideas of what is normal and what isn't and how to handle it. It is amazing how quickly they learn to get what they want!
You know I have done this twice, and I swear I can't remember any of it. I have noticed that Mia is interested in what we eat, so she might be ready. I know I never gave my kids yogurt. I think I just started right in on the rice cereal and fruit. But I always gave them rice crispys and other cereals. Does she like those? My kids are like Allisons in they don't ever like what I made. They like pasta a lot. They do have baby food with pasta in it. You could try that. And did you try the rice cakes?
I don't really have any advice as I am in this for the first time also. I do think that this is an amazingly adorable photo of Lilian though. Ashby doesn't have a problem eating solids, nursing or staring longingly at our food. She like to eat...in fact if she was a Bum on the streets her sign would read "Will Crawl for Food!" hehe,see ya
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