How to make baby eat

[autumn82]

i was planning not to give outside food till at least 2yr old too but now that she dont eat im not sure if i should give her.. cos they are more tasty than those food i make at home..

mummy to baby very, thanks for the tips. thats very encouraging. i feel if she likes the food, she can finish them in one session eg her dinner macaroni bolognese... i always cook a huge bowl for her n she can finish it all by herself... till these 2 nights she is taking only 1/2.. maybe she is sick of it lol. but to me, its still better than nothing of cos. for snacks as well.. she can easily finish 1 whole packet of snacks per time! i think she is just being fussy but thats so difficult for me as im not a good cook... for new food she always takes alot till she gets tired of it...

recently im giving her 100% pure fruit n veg juice bought in those baby shops to supplement her loss of nutrients from that group. but one whole day she only drinks 3/4 packet of it which is like 100ml.. im not too sure how much this amt can supplement her with.. i tried making her fruit shake n at first she loves it n can clear the cup but now she dont even take it! hai~

Slowly annie, I guess its' just a phase, she will get over it pretty soon~~ *pats*

 

[DodoTan]

My son's appetite also comes and goes. Sometimes he can finish a whole bowl of porridge but other times he'll have less than 2 tablespoons of it. I sometimes try feeding him with different spoons... find that he'll eat from my big spoon but not his own sometimes. But I do agree that they kinda like to self-feed. He loves it when I put some cornflakes or bits of bread or fruit in his small bowl and let him feed himself. But can't always do that, especially when we're outside cos you never know when he'll decide to play with them instead of eat them.

 

[annie]

i let her self feed a lot! but even so, if she is interested in the food she will eat, if not she will just play...

Dodo, my girl was almost like your son when she was younger. sometimes she dun even open her mouth. sometimes jsut tasted once and decided that she is not gonna take it. sometimes she can take a big bowl of food. but then i was not worried as she will at least takes 2 full meals a day n skip one meal or take only a few mouth for 1 meal..on good days she can clear all 3 meals plus her snacks at snack time! but now she seems to be only taking 1 full meal or even just half a meal for 1 whole day...

autumn,when u cook for iggy, do u always use only water or u use stock? do u mix all his veg n meat into his rice n porridge or u cook them seperately? do u add seasoning n all? do u give him any bb jr food? cos so far ive never added any seasoning to my girl's food n also only cook all her food in water.. maybe too bland.. i wonder if i should start to put in more effort for her food lol

shall try to give her just anything that i eat n see if she will take more.. like wat mummy to baby very says.. maybe i shall try giving her more small meals instead of insisting her to clear her big bowl of food per meals..

btw, when bb dun eat, do u all force feed or let them be? if u try to distract her with toys, tv or watever but fail, will u just throw away the food or force feed them??

 

[camom]

hmm.. im kinda worried bout my girl not taking food.. she have not been really eating since 1 your old.. always a few mouth...i think this whole month, she has only 'almost' cleared her bowl for lunch once? dinner has been quite ok. she will take 1/2-1 bowl of food. msotly 1 whole bowl.. breakfast is jsut few pcs of cornflakes... she dont eat any other things i try to make for her...

you didnt try to give him your food or outside food during that month? now he is still eating porridge/rice that you cook for him or taking what you eat n outside food?

Do you cook the same food everytime? She might be tired of the food, hence the grazing.

 

[autumn82]

i let her self feed a lot! but even so, if she is interested in the food she will eat, if not she will just play...

Dodo, my girl was almost like your son when she was younger. sometimes she dont even open her mouth. sometimes jsut tasted once and decided that she is not gonna take it. sometimes she can take a big bowl of food. but then i was not worried as she will at least takes 2 full meals a day n skip one meal or take only a few mouth for 1 meal..on good days she can clear all 3 meals plus her snacks at snack time! but now she seems to be only taking 1 full meal or even just half a meal for 1 whole day...

autumn,when you cook for iggy, do you always use only water or you use stock? do you mix all his veg n meat into his rice n porridge or you cook them seperately? do you add seasoning n all? do you give him any baby jr food? cos so far ive never added any seasoning to my girl's food n also only cook all her food in water.. maybe too bland.. i wonder if i should start to put in more effort for her food lol

shall try to give her just anything that i eat n see if she will take more.. like what mummy to baby very says.. maybe i shall try giving her more small meals instead of insisting her to clear her big bowl of food per meals..

btw, when baby dont eat, do you all force feed or let them be? if you try to distract her with toys, tv or watever but fail, will you just throw away the food or force feed them??

I stopped the stock in porridge coz he didn't like it, he prefers plain porridge with his veg and fish. :001_302: Sometimes, I will grill his cod fish w unsalted butter and I give 1 mouth plain porridge w veg & 1 mouth fish & fried egg. I don't use seasoning, nothing at all. Just natural foods taste.

Sometimes, I'll cook conpoy with porridge for him but he doesn't really like the taste at times but will still try his best to finish his food.

OR I will boil chicken soup w carrots, wolfberries, red dates & yuzhu w rice for him. Few days back, I boiled lotus roots soup for him too. Ya, he likes the lotus roots.. Heh. And he loves fried eggs. :001_302:

Has your gal started on rice yet? Tried making sushi rolls for her yet??

 

[annie]

i dun make same food for her every day. in fact i always change!

autumn, my girl same as iggy.. she didnt like me to cook her cereal with milk n also didnt like me to cook her porridge in stock.. she prefers me to cook them in plain water.. i also never add any seasoning... guess she is just being pickier than iggy hehe. i was wondering if its cos the food too bland..

the lotus soup or chicken soup u just mix with rice n feed or jsut give soup? i am planning to try to make her soup plus rice n see if she likes it too...she used to love fried egg but now think she got sick of it. i am giving her hard boiled eggs recently..lotus root so hard how to eat??

oh ya has started rice since 9mths old i think.. i make her rice balls with veg n meat inside n she love it at first but then slowly she got sick of it i guess though the ingredients inside is always different.. then i change to making her macaroni(only for dinner) n she love it too but recently she haven been taking alot. guess she is getting sick of it as well... picky little girl...daytime i still insist on making rice balls/porridge/rice for her but she still refuse to take them...

 

[Mummy to Baby V]

If your girl prefers porridge without stock, maybe the stock wasn't to her taste?
There are many combinations to cooking stock, so you may experiment a bit.
I like to use sweetcorn + other ingredients (carrot, celery, etc) as it makes the porridge very fragrant and sweet.

My son is a big eater so far, I stop when he is not interested in eating anymore.
I read that force-feedng may backfire and let the child associate negative attitudes to eating. Better not do that as it is very hard to reverse any adverse psychological effects after that.

 

[autumn82]

i dont make same food for her every day. in fact i always change!

autumn, my girl same as iggy.. she didnt like me to cook her cereal with milk n also didnt like me to cook her porridge in stock.. she prefers me to cook them in plain water.. i also never add any seasoning... guess she is just being pickier than iggy hehe. i was wondering if its cos the food too bland..

the lotus soup or chicken soup you just mix with rice n feed or jsut give soup? i am planning to try to make her soup plus rice n see if she likes it too...she used to love fried egg but now think she got sick of it. i am giving her hard boiled eggs recently..lotus root so hard how to eat??

oh ya has started rice since 9mths old i think.. i make her rice balls with veg n meat inside n she love it at first but then slowly she got sick of it i guess though the ingredients inside is always different.. then i change to making her macaroni(only for dinner) n she love it too but recently she have not been taking alot. guess she is getting sick of it as well... picky little girl...daytime i still insist on making rice balls/porridge/rice for her but she still refuse to take them...

If she's not exposed to outside food, she won't know bland or not. Rite? Hahahah. So don't worry..

I mixed the rice with soup so it's softer to eat. I shred the lotus roots with the shredder so its super thin and I'll scoop his share and use scissor to cut it further.

I guess at the end of the day, toddlers are just like adults, there are days when we really don't feel like eating.. *pats*

 

[annie]

thats wat i thought so lol. but these few days ive been giving her some outside food which i eat but she dosent seem to like them too(if she didnt eat her lunch or didnt take much, i will bring her out to take some of my food). in fact she seems to prefer the blend food lol. today dinner gave her some of my fried rice but then she only took a few tiny mouth n reject.. so came home n cook her macaroni bolognese n she took 3/4 bowl of it. BUT took 1.5hrs! faint..

yah there were days when she dun eat much n i feel ok with it since there are days she ate alot too but not this mth.. for the whole of dec she haven been taking her breakfast n lunch properly.. only few mouth of each meal..its been so long... sob..

 

[Juan]

Annie, maybe you can like autumm mummy, cook soup and feed the rice in the soup, then can fried/steam/grill fish and eat as side dish. Do not mix the fish/vege with the rice, try one spoon rice with soup, then fish/vege, then one spoon soup. My girl like the porridge cook with stock, so everytime Iwill cook stock, then use the stock to cook the porridge, 30 minutes before serve add in vege. My girl do not like the fish mix in her porridge and will eat till gag, so I follow shulyn matter, 1 spoon porridge, 1 spoon fish.

 

[annie]

thanks mummies for the advise. i will try to cook soup n mix with rice n give veg n fish seperately. hope she likes it. gonna buy ingredients later. hehe

 

[Ting]

good luck annie!

 

[annie]

she ate well today. phew! after sooooooooo long.. she finished her breakfast (i force fed the first few mouth cos she dun even wanna open her mouth..) n lunch but dinner only took about 1/3 of her bowl but im totally fine with it since she has taken 2 full meals at least today. very happy with that. hopefully it will continue n not just a one time off thing.. today i made porridge for her but then didnt add veg inside.. only put tofu n tuna n a teeny weeny bit of brocoli.. then i made brocoli with cheese but she spit out! breakfast i made oatmeal with melon but she reject the melon.. take only the oatmeal..but anyway she clear 1 packet of 100% pure fruit n veg juice today so still not tat bad...

 

[autumn82]

she ate well today. phew! after sooooooooo long.. she finished her breakfast (i force fed the first few mouth cos she dont even wanna open her mouth..) n lunch but dinner only took about 1/3 of her bowl but im totally fine with it since she has taken 2 full meals at least today. very happy with that. hopefully it will continue n not just a one time off thing.. today i made porridge for her but then didnt add veg inside.. only put tofu n tuna n a teeny weeny bit of brocoli.. then i made brocoli with cheese but she spit out! breakfast i made oatmeal with melon but she reject the melon.. take only the oatmeal..but anyway she clear 1 packet of 100% pure fruit n veg juice today so still not that bad...

congrats & good job~~ Jiayou~~

 

[annie]

dunno how she will fare for tmr.. anyway i keep feeling bad that i force fed her n keep worrying that she will have negative feeling towards eating or towards that particular food that i force fed her with but then seeing her not eating her breakfast n lunch at all for so long really worries me n i thought only via force feeding i can get some food into her body.. so vex.. dunno wat is the right thing to do.. i wanted to bring her to pd today n ask bout this force feeding thinggy but end up she took her lunch decently without any force feeding thus i didnt go pd..

 

[Juan]

Great to hear that Annie, jia you!

 

[Mummy to Baby V]

Kids are full of surprises. 加油!

 

[camom]

Annie,

Did you try giving your child a spoon to self feed (of course not really feed himself, but she might be more interested in the food with a spoon) while you feed her?

Make meal-time fun, eg. playing peekaboo and eat 1 mouth of food.
(I dont't prefer playing with toys though, as my nephew has this habit since young and he still eats very little and very slowly at 3+ years old. He's more interested in playing with toys than eating during meals.)

When my elder gal started eating slowly after she turned 4.5yo, I set the alarm clock for 30 min after I serve her. If she doesn't finish before the alarm rings, I clear all the food away. No food/snacks until next meal, only plain water. After 2-3 meals like that, she woke up her idea and ate much faster. The alarm clock is always lurking there during meal times lol

I don't advocate this for very young children, she got me at my wits' end.

 

[annie]

yes i do give her a spoon to play with when im feeding her. at first i give her the spoon with her bowl n put a bit of food in there for her to play with while i feed her with another. but she seems more interested in the bowl im holding so instead of a seperate bowl, now i put her bowl on the table n give her a spoon to play with while i feed her with another spoon via the same bowl n its always so messy! but then.. she gets sick of playing it after a while n ran off. she is not easy to 'cheat' into eating. even while she is playing, she will shake her head n push my hands off when i try to feed her n the food in my spoon always end up on the floor or carpet...i tried many many methods. she is just not easy to 'cheat'. she used to clear her bowl very fast (faster than i can blow her food!) in 5-10mins but now.. every feeding takes me about 1hr n sometimes 1hr is just for half a bowl of food! after that i dun continue anymore cos she dosent seem interested in it n i got really tired feeding her as well...

my mum keep asking me to try the jing feng san. i might try it if things dosent pick up. today's lunch again took me 1hr to feed half a bowl n she dosent really open her mouth. just take from the tip of the spoon a few grains at a time...so sick of feeding her...but at least i manage to get half a bowl of rice into her tummy. this makes me feels much better. most impt thing is the nutrients/food got into her n not the time to feed her..when she was eating very fast last time n suddenly got slow in eating, i got angry with her SO much and throw all the food away thinking that she is not interested in eating.. but now..as long as the food goes into her tummy.. im happy no matter how long it takes for her to eat.. as long as she can eat.. cos sometimes she dun even open her mouth no matter how i coax her to...

think hubby knows im really worried bout her food intake cos recently he tried to help me get her to eat without me asking his help lol. guess all my worries shows on my face..

 

[camom]

Correct me if I am wrong, but Jing Feng San is not meant for boosting appetites right? If you want to try TCM, why don't you bring her for a consultation with the sinseh and see what the sinseh say & prescribe? Probably she is a small eater to begin with? But I feel you need to relax too, don't get too tensed and stressed up about meal times. Your child will pick up your emotions.

Sharing with you my past experience - my gal is not really picky abt food but she is fussy abt the presentation. We noticed that when she was less than 1 yo. Porridge was a nightmare! She didn't like her food to be mixed together when served. When it came to food like porridge, she will eat really really slowly. However, if we were to serve the ingredients in separate dishes, she can eat up everything very quickly.

DS on the other hand, doesn't really care if it's all mixed up.