Help! My 18 month old (whom I nursed until 14 months and made ALL his baby food) will not eat anything new! He won't even put things in his mouth to try. Here's a list of the foods he eats (nothing new has gotten in in over two months): cheerios, baby cereal bars, pancakes, waffles, toast, any and all kinds of fruit, processed american cheese (won't eat the good stuff), pretzels, soy chips, vegetable chips, fruit chips, dried fruit, peas and corn (cooked and frozen solid), grilled cheese (sometimes), bagelfuls (only w/ strawberry cream cheese), strawberry cream cheese sandwiches, laughing cow cheese sandwiches (with strawberry cream cheese on the sides so he doesn't know it's not all cream cheese), sometimes PB and J, and soy yogurt. That's IT. I'm sick and tired of what he eats! It's boring and not entirely nutritious. He won't eat tofu and won't eat any meat. Won't try new veggies. He flings anything new or feeds it to the dogs. How can I at least get him to TRY new things? He loves to use his fork to play with new foods, but never puts them in his mouth. Any suggestions? I'm tired of bread with cream cheese, rolled up and sliced for meals!
Sounds like my 17-month-old. She's the pickiest thing. But it also sounds like he has a good range of stuff there. Try to keep his grains whole and keep out refined sugar and white flour, make sure he takes vitamin supplements, and as long as he's not losing weight, it sounds like he's doing well.
That's a lot more than what many 18 month olds eat. Just keep introducing it, and he eventually will try it. It helps for him to see other kids his age eat as well.
I wish my girls would eat that much. They are almost 20 months old, and very often they refuse to eat at all. The only things they will usually eat are cheese and fruit..
J.,
I know that it seems like he is limited, but actually I think this is pretty good variety. Around that age they really start getting picky. I have an 18 month old too, and I too made all of her baby food and nursed her until 17 months. She is definitely getting pickier and more "set in her ways" when it comes to food. Since I have 5 children I know that this is just a phase, and she will begin eating more eventually. I give my daughter a good multivitamin which really helps to round out her meals, and gives me peace of mind. I highly recommend that.
I know how awful it is to make the same thing meal after meal...my 3 year old is much pickier than my 18 month old, and she pretty much only eats a slice of cheese for dinner...except for the rare occasion when we have tacos or breakfast food with syrup...otherwise she literally screams and acts scared if I try to get her to eat what we are eating. Some kids are like that. I'm looking forward to the day when she eats better, but the doctor isn't worried...even though she is only in the 5th percentile for height and weight.
I think you are doing a great job! Try not to stress over it.
D.
Here's what worked for us at that age (only a few months ago):
Make him foods he can dip. When my son when through a bread ONLY phase I gave him tomato sauce to dip his bread in so he was getting some veggies. He has tried all different meats as long as he has ketchup or BBQ sauce. Then we moved on to veggies and dip. He'll try anything if there is dip involved. And then usually halfway through the meal he forgets the dip and is just eating the food.
Eventually he went through a phase where he wanted whatever we were eating, so if your son goes through that you are golden! Even if we were eating something he couldn't eat yet (steak) I would put his food on our plates and once he had some off our plate we would just scoop it onto his plate and he would eat fine.
And put new food on his plate next to his favorites. Just a little bit of something different each day, don't deny him what he likes.
It worked for me, maybe it will help - Good luck
