Problems - Help please!

After 12 months, my girl totally refuses spoon fed. But she doesnt feed herself enough. And she started walking up at 2 or 4 in the morning. It has been going on for weeks. Sometimes, she just sits there plays with her food then has 8-9 oz of milk 1 hr later. When she wakes up 2 or 4 AM, she doesnt go back to sleep until has a bottle like 4oz. I just give her what she wants because i am so exhausted and need sleep for work. Am i doing something wrong? should I do CIO at the time?

Another problem is that my kids dont eat veggies and fish anymore. They used to love veggies: green beans, peas, carrots, spinad,.. Now they dont. I also have been offering fish (baked, fried) My son took 1 bite then done. My daughter never ate it.They love sausage and cheese. Some days, If I dont offer sausage, they just sit there and wait and wait until i give them. My freezer is stocked with all sausages lol. They eat beef and saugages, no chicken, no turkey, some pork. They are so picky now. I am tired of feeding them cheese and sausages. I used to feed them baby mixed veggies food at the end. But now they dont let me spoon feed them. This is a big problem. We eat fish, rice, veggies, and some meat. We cant eat sausages all the time. So we have to cook their food seperatedly.

Im so desperated now. Please help!!!!!

 

:grouphug:
There's always something!
I know how you feel! One of mine has gotten a lot fussier whereas we call her sister 'Hoover' (She eats everything esp. off the floor. )
At least you spoon feed. We haven't even crossed that bridge yet. I feel so slack! My dd (now 5) was well and truly using a spoon by now.

 

Ours also went through a period where they went from eating anything and everything to being very picky eaters. I read somewhere that way back when, that was to protect themselves from wandering and eating anything poisonous. Now they are back to their old selves, gobbling up the veggies, eating all sorts of fish and meat, everything dairy we put under their noses.
Re: the spoons - patience and persistence. That's really all I can offer as far as advice goes. For some months, the boys did way better with forks, so maybe try that?
Best of luck!

 

My two got a handle on forks before they mastered spoons, so I agree with the PP to try forks with them. When you make dinner, is there a side dish that they like that you can include (potatoes, noodles, fruit?). I've always had a rule that I do not make separate dinners for us and the kids but if I know that they won't eat the fish, I will make a side dish and a veggie that I know they will most likely eat. At 12 months, I still supplemented some meats and veggies with baby food because the kids did not like the texture of some of the items . They were done with baby food completely by 15 months.
My two used to love sweet potatoes as infants and all the sudden when they turned 1, they wanted nothing more to do with them. To this day, they still will not eat sweet potatoes.

 

My kids refused to be spoon fed at 11.5 months... so we switched to finger foods. What you can try is giving her finger foods and try to sneak in some food on spoons between two bites. For the picky eating part... mine are over 3 now and I haven't figured out that part yet either. My kids started to refuse veggies once we stopped baby food... as long as they eat enough fruit though it's not such a big deal... try and give them some vitamins if you can. I would not give them only what they like all the time though. Offer 2/3 choices and make sure one of them is something they like, or they'll never try anything new. We've always offered a variety of foods and it's only recently that they started eating veggies again (as long as we have ranch dip!). We just serve what we're having and if they don't eat they're not getting anything else until breakfast. Toddlers only need 16oz of protein a day really, and it's pretty easy to get there, even if they don't eat much meat/fish.

For the waking part... we stopped giving bottles at night at 7 months. And we let them CIO. They've been really good sleepers since (most of the time).

 

This is pretty much exactly what happened with my boys, except that I got away with spoon feeding them a bit longer (probably 14 months). But after they wouldn't let us feed them anymore, they pretty much stopped eating veggies. Fruits are very similar nutritionally to vegetables, so keep offering veggies to get them used to them, but serve lots of fruit as well. :good: My guys have started to eat veggies again, but it's hit-or-miss a lot of days, and I have to bring a lot of patience to the table! :lol:

I also agree that you should serve several things, some of which you know they will like, and get them used to new foods. The Second Year is all about learning to eat like a "real" human, and it takes a lot of practice!


If your DD isn't getting enough food, she may be waking up hungry. But really all you can do is keep offering foods, and try to sneak in a few bites; you don't want to push food on her too hard or you could end up making mealtimes a battle, which isn't good for anyone! I definitely wouldn't give any food at night though. I know it's tough when you need to get up in the morning and your kids night-wake. Can you try giving her a brief cuddle, telling her it's night-time and she needs to go back to sleep, that Mama needs to go back to sleep, etc.? This might help.

Good luck!

 

Also try offering water at night if you have to, if she's supplementing her pickiness with nighttime snacking, it's going to backfire on you because she'll become dependent on that nighttime snacking again. Rather than give her milk, give her water, with a quick cuddle. I would personally do CIO, on a weekend so the worst of it is over before you go back to work on monday. Once you cut out the nighttime bottle again, she'll start eating more during the day. Around 1 yr you really have to take a step back, and start following their feeding cues. Don't force food, even veggies. You need to let them learn their own hunger cues, as well as their full cues. It's soooo hard, because you spend the first year worrying whether they are getting enough, or too much...and then suddenly you have to start following their lead. :hug: Keep offering everything, but as others said, make sure there is 1 or 2 things you know they will eat on their plate as well. My 4 yr old dd has always hated fruit and veggies. I've talked to the dr several times about it, and he assured me, as long as she was eating fairly healthy, and not stocking up on snacks all day, she'd be fine. Now, finally, at 4 yrs old, she'll eat a few veggies (creamed corn and broccoli for sure), and she's finally starting to enjoy fruit! It's been a battle!

 

What you are describing is basically your rite of passage from infancy into toddlerhood! My two did exactly the same thing and are still very picky. My DS has not touched a vegetable since before he was one, except to throw it on the floor! Mostly, I just make sure they get a lot of fruit but sometimes if I make something like pasta I will sneak pureed veggies into the sauce. Once they hit 12 months and decided they were independent, they wanted nothing to do with being fed. I had to switch to all finger foods or letting them try with the spoon and fork. This meant that they only got things that used a spoon for the last meal of the day and only on bath day!

I am not the best example for family meals, but I actually feed my kids separately and then we eat our dinner once they are in bed. I know that will eventually have to change but for now it works for us and it allows us to just give them hot dogs or chicken nuggets if they are having a particularly picky day.

The night waking is most likely behavioral as kids that age are constantly learning new things and that disturbs sleep. I agree with the water at night. About this age I started brushing their teeth before bed and my rule was that after the teeth are brushed, nothing but water goes in the mouth. When is their last meal/snack of the day? I make sure my kids get a snack right before we go upstairs to get ready for bed so that they are not hungry at night.

You mention she plays with her food and then drinks the bottle an hour later...I would try to limit the between meal bottles to see if you can get her to eat more at the next meal. She will learn that if she doesn't eat much at one meal she should eat more at the next. What worked for me was to switch them to sippies and offer the sippy at the meals or snacks. This way they didn't fill up on milk in between meals.

All this said, I thought that 12-15 months were the absolute hardest for feeding. They are just learning how to transition to more advanced textures and flavors. I would also encourage you to cook as you normally would and keep offering foods that they refuse. My son wouldn't eat fish until I made it with Indian spices, and then he loved it. He wouldn't eat most meats until I introduced him to ketchup and now as long as he is allowed to dip he will eat almost anything (still won't eat veggies though, even in ketchup!) Just keep experimenting, keep trying. All kids rate of growth slows at this age to accomodate the transition so don't worry about their intake too much. They will never grow as rapidly as they did in the first year, so they don't need the same amounts of calories per oz of body weight as they used to.

 

Thank you so much Ladies for all your replies!
We do offer many kinds of food each meal. But we always offer cheese and sausages after we offer them veggies and new food at lunch and dinner. They do eat lot of fruit: banana, water melon, papaya (my son can eat 1/4 of a big papaya all by himself at 1 sitting), blue berries, oranges,..So I guess I dont have to worry that you dont eat veggies . We showed them how to use folks. But instead of putting food into their mouths, they just play with it. So its not going so well yet...The only foods I can spoon feed them some tiny bites are fried rice (for both) and yogurt (only my son). They still take their multivitamin now. Im not worried that they dont get enough nutrition... IS it bad if I give them half and half????? they love it. they drink it with meal. each gets like 6oz/day.

They do drink milk out of opened cups with their meal but only 2oz/each meal. I try to make them drink more from cups but so far they dont. I will take away bottles completely at the end of this month (12 months adjusted). I hope they will do OK

Suddenly, my girl stopped waking up at night lol. So I hope it stays that way heheh.

I was too naive to think second year was all about fun hehe.