Three Questions: Doctors, Chatrooms and Toddler Who Won't Eat.

Forum/Chatroom recommendation:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions/

& several articles on nourishing your toddler:
http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/food/food...

& extended breastfeeding:
http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/breastfeeding/...

I would try offering more nutrient dense foods: dried fruit has more iron and fiber than fresh fruit. Quinoa (a grain found at co-ops and health food stores) offers a complete protein. I cook the quinoa in pineapple juice to make it more appetizing to my 1 year old.
Make sure you are eating as optimally as possible to give your milk the best composition as you can.

I am still very actively breastfeeding my 1 year old. I offer her food at every meal/snack I eat, and breastfeed after if she's interested - and in between as she requests. She goes through phases where she'll eat more solid foods, or she'll breastfeed more often.

Good luck, and congratulations on your choice to extend breastfeeding into toddlerhood.

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Hi E.,

Nice to meet another mom committed to attachment parenting:)
I can't help you with the chat room or pediatrician question...but have you looked into a pediatric naturopathic Dr? Probably would have more luck finding a Dr in alternative medicine who supports your philosophy of parenting than an MD....but there are plenty of compassionate and open MD's as well...good luck with your search.
As far as your nutrition inquiry. I nursed my youngest until 3 yrs old and she was just never a big food eater. Like your son, her chubbiness disappeared as she grew taller and she has tons of energy. But I was also concerned about her weight since she wasn't - and still isn't at 3 1/2 yrs- eating as much as her older siblings. Here is what I have learned. Her weight is fine. She eats when she's hungry and stops when she's full. When she was nursing, she preferred that over food any time. She is healthy. Sound like your son? I don't feel like you need to do anything to correct anything. There isn't anything to correct. As long as he is eating a variety of foods, nursing, sleeping well, and is healthy and happy I'm sure he is fine. He just has a different appetite and is very attached to your abundance of breast milk:) You can start being concerned if or when he really doesn't have an appetite AT ALL, he's lethargic and isn't acting like himself...then you will know something needs to change and you need to seek medical attention. What does your inner wise mamma think and feel right now?
Sometimes as a new mom we forget to listen to ourselves and our child, and it's not that we are really concerned about "the situation", as much as we are concerned about how others are viewing our parenting style or our kiddos. It's normal. You seem very solid in the way you want to raise your family, so now you have to ask YOURSELF..."should I be worried?" You'll know your answer.

Much beautiful energy to you and your transplanted Aussie family.

In peace,
A.
mom of 4, Birth and Parenting Mentor
www.birthingfromwithin.com

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Hello E..
Offer foods first when it's time to eat and breastfeeding only afterwards. Most children his age ought to be consuming 1000 calories per day in food and whole milk, but as long as he is growing at each pediatric visit, don't stress it too much. I'm very proud of you! Congratulations on continued breastfeeding and willingness to do so. My son is 3 still co-sleeps part of the night (I won't put Spiderman sheets on my bed, so he has a preference), and is still breastfed. It takes a great deal of strength, so Kudos to you. Good luck.
K.

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Did you find a pediatrician yet? I use Dr Honebrink. I drive down from the Phoenix area to take my kids to her. She is wonderful. We even cried together when she asked about how my marriage was doing through all the medical complications our son has. I wish I could have breastfed longer, I dried up with my daughter long before I was ready and my son is now on a feeding tube. I'm not sure of directions of the area, but she's in Oro valley, Oro Valley Pediatrics off of Oracle. Hope this helps.

L.

1 mom found this helpful

About your toddler eating, I have a 16 month old that was breastfed only as well, I weaned him 2 months ago and the food has not been a problem since. He has a lot of food allergies that he's outgrowing, but I don't see why you shouldn't wean your son. I don't give my son anything other than water and milk to drink. No vegi juice or fruit juice. Good luck I hope he starts eating. :)

As far as food, I would think your toddler is ok. I know someone on a local forum who exclusively breastfed for 2 years. I had to start cutting conner down a bit and adding in more food only because I was pregnant and my milk was not as rich. I just encouraged him to eat snacks/food when we did. When he asked for milk, I'd offer a snack and/or drink from a sippy cup first (he LOVES the safe sippy cup. It's BPA free but also the top looks a bit nipple-ish, and he likes it a lot!). I also bought him a mulit-vitamin with iron and a calcium vitamin (chewable, but not the gummy bear kind) from sprouts to help make sure he was getting what he needed. It will happen in time. I really wouldn't worry too much :).

Here are some good places that are pro-AP that you can go :).

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AP_Moms_of_NorthPhoenix/
http://www.mothering.com/discussions/
http://www.askdrsears.com/forum/default.asp

Also, I love www.amomshideout.com It's not just for AP parents, but has a lot of AP, cloth diapering, etc... parents on it. I'm 'jveprek' there :).

Good luck!
www.ask

Your toddler will eat when he is hungry. As long as he is growing and gaining weight he is fine. I nursed my daughter until she was 19 months. I stopped because I was pregnant. She still seats like a bird. She is happy and healthy.

Just an observation I had with my skinny little boy who's in 1st grade now. I had been letting him snack whenever he was hungry, cuz he was so skinny and I was worried about his eating adequate amounts of food. But he'd never be hungry enough to eat more than a bite or two of dinner. So finally we said ok, NO snacks for at least an hour before dinner & meals and that helped to make him eat "real" dinners. We didn't start this till he was probably 3 or 4 years old tho.

As for weight and health and all that, speaking as a mom of a boy who was WELL past one year old and STILL under 20 lbs before I turned his car seat around to be forward facing (and yes, I must still feel some guilt about that HAHA) As long as he is healthy, active, learning, engaged, doing well, not losing weight for unexplained reasons (growing & being active is an explained reason, that's ok.) then don't worry. There are too many fat kids out there and besides your arm/shoulder will thank you when you have to lift him up.

And this is just my personal thought: Protein shakes and smoothies aren't made for children. They are quite filling (especially to little tummies) and he would feel content and full with just a little bit and not learn to or be interested in eating meals. I'd go easy on the protein shakes and stuff, and focus on getting natural foods (fruits, vegs, etc)

He may or may not like veggies/fruits but most little kids love dips and will try something they've refused to eat if they can have dips & sauces. My son would never eat salad until he had salad dressing, probably about your son's age. From that point on, he loved salads. So give him dippers (salad dressing, ketchup, maybe mixed with mayo, whatever) to tempt him to eat various veggies.
For fruits, sour cream mixed with sugar makes a great "sauce" or dipper for strawberries & other cut up fruits. Or yogurt, or other things like that.

And I have a friend whos married to an Aussie in the SW part of the greater Phx area :-)

Hi E.,
I'm going through a similar situation. My son is 16 mo. and still breastfeeding. At his last doc appt the doc was concerned about his weight because my son is in the 90% for height and the 10% for weight. Although I'm a strong believer in child lead weining, I'm trying my best to encourage my son to wein himself. I've cut back on nursing him to only 3-4 times in a 24 hour period. My son is a very finicky eater and I have trouble getting him to eat more than a few bites of anything. I've found that he eats solid foods much better 1-1.5 hours after he nurses. I think this is because if I wait too long he is so hungry that all he wants is the boob. But after only an hour his stomach is empty enough that he can eat a nice sized meal. I also only offer him the high protien foods first because once he sees carbs he won't anything else. My son doesn't like to drink cows milk but I've found a smoothie drink that he loves and is high in both fat and protien (plus it's organic). It is called Pro Bugs- Whole milk Kefir. It is sold at Sprouts near the milk and it comes in packs of 4. My son loves these so much that he will throw a fit in the store when he sees me put them into the cart until I give him one to drink. I hope this helps.
I have a question for you as well. You said that you give your son a protein-boost. What is that? My doc wants me to really push the proteins with my son to aid in his weight gain and I've been looking for things that my son will actually eat.

My youngest is 18 months also and still nursing. It seems some days that is her main source of food as she hardly eats. Your son's loss of weight would be a concern for me. Did he actually lose weight or just drop in percentile because he didn't gain and got taller at the same time? To me those would be two different issues, the weight loss being important, the other not so much. I would try to expand his variety and make sure he has plenty around to eat on his terms. They are very busy little creatures at this age, so maybe leaving some food out for him to visit and snack on, like some cheese cubes, pasta etc. You can add calories to his food by buttering his noodles or cooking it with olive oil and then pulling the noodles out of the pot rather than straining it, that way the oil stays more on the noodles. When our toddler is on one of her no eating kicks, we just make sure that the options she does have are healthy and dense in calories. She is our fourth and we have discovered that at this age they tend to eat more if you let them graze and share food with you. Right now our baby will make the rounds at the dinner table, borrowing off of each of the siblings plates. They all think it is funny to see where she will go next and we figured as long as they don't mind, it realy isn't hurting anything, she will learn to sit down and eat eventually, right now it is just too hard to sit still! I have also found that she generally does well with eating a bedtime snack, like some yogurt which we usually mix a little baby cereal into, some left over brown rice, string cheese etc. Congrats on your decision to cosleep and nurse beyond a year. I know it is hard sometimes when so many people around you are not supportive or feel they have to tell you the real way to do things. Our oldest son slept in our bed until he was about 4 years old, and nursed until he was 27 months, weaning because I was pg with twins. Now our fourth is still cosleeping at 18 months and shows no signs of weaning, much to the disgust of my mother in law :)

A response from another pro attachment mom on ? 3. My daughter did not eat a lot of solid food for the first 2 years...but to lose weight even if growing taller would trigger an alarm in me too.
I would probably have food in sight (out on a tray or such) to remind a busy toddler of food's availability and give him the power to get it on his own. I think they get so busy playing they forget to eat...and when really hungry...liquid (breast milk) is a comforting and fast fix. faster than chewing something.
Keep looking for ideas...I am sure they are out there!
Remember sunlight is a great source of vit D...under valued up until recently.

I don't know what pro-attachment parenting is, but I breast fed for 2 years and 4 months with my first and will probably do that with my second son, too.

I found with my first that he would go through spells of eating a lot and then not. I worried, people told me not to and he's fine. I gave protein shakes to balance out his diet, too. I added vegetable powder (super food-type stuff), omega fish oil, acidophilus, etc. to his shakes which helped me not to worry so much. He typically nursed more if he was teething or not feeling well. I forget, but do they get molars as late as 18 mos? That was the only thought I had about nursing more except that I'm sure it's fine. What's better than mama's milk?
B.

I agree 100 percent with Erin. My son was breastfed until he was 2 and half, and he wouldn't eat a thing. He was always super super skinny, to the point that doctors were concerned, so even more so when he wouldn't eat. He would try a little (and I mean little) after nursing, probably because he wasn't so starving then. And I would try and make it a game, like building a tower with crackers, or fingerpainting with pudding.
I also wouldn't get too worried about it - he's not going to be nursing still when he's in high school, so he obviously will learn to eat solids somewhere along the line!

First of all, good for you!! For all that you are doing for your baby!!
I'm not sure about nutrients, I know that your body will produce what your baby needs according to his age. But I hear what you're saying about the fiber. I would check with your local La Leche League leader and group to see what their suggestions are. Got to www.llli.org to find the local leader. They are a great resource not just for breastfeeding, but also about the whole nutrition when moving to solids factor, and the group members may have some helpful hints to getting your toddler to eat more foods. :)
If you're in the Cottonwood area, I would love to get together with you! So hard to find AP parents out here!
Cheers,
E. :)

If it s hard for him to poo, then he isn't getting enough fiber. If he is full of energy (hence one reason all kids at that age lose their chubbies) then he is most likely getting adequate nutrition. I think you are doing great in that department and doing great by offering him other foods. Your son is getting all nutrients rom breats milk. If he seems sleepy all the time, then maybe you can have his iron levels checked, other than that, I think you have nothing in that department to worry about!

Hi! I am a nurse and breast fed both my children One until 18 months when I stopped because I was losing too much weight and the second until 2years. I would be concerned about the lack of nutrition also. It seems like the breast is a comfort to him and is easier to nurse than to eat. At this age, they need a higher fat diet to help their brains grow. Your breast milk has high fat, but after the first year, or some say six months, they need a higher fat than the breast can produce for their growing brains and bodies. The weight loss is not good, but you did not mention how much he lost either. Dr Steven Kirwin @ the U of A is excellent, if you can get in to see him. He is family practice. Dr. George Hobeich North side of town, is very good too, and firm in his beliefs. Dr Stephen Cohen is awesome, he is on the East side. He is also a family practiioner. There are many good ones but, I am not sure who else to suggest. You may have to ween your son from the breast to get him to start eating more nutritious food. Call your local La Leche League also, and speak with a lactation specialist. Good luck and I am sure he will end up doing just fine.

There is nothing wrong with breastfeeding your child, however, he does need to eat more solids at his age because he is growing super fast right now you need to encourage that. Tofu and soy are NOT good for children-you can see more info about that on www.mercola.com. As a mom of 3, my youngest is 14 mos, all of my kids wanted to eat solids at an early age, and didnt care for the baby foods on the market. Perhaps you would do better to offer your son a sippy cup during the day with your breast milk in it as well as other beverages like water and maybe whole milk. He will have a hard time with that to begin with, but you can continue an evening feeding at night before bed when he can snuggle and all that good stuff with you. I am co-sleeping with my 14 month old, but have found it to be difficult to be able to walk out of the room, etc without her freaking out. I am planning to start getting her used to her own little bed and bedtime here in the next couple of months. Its hard on me because she is my last baby.:)

As you probably know your breast milk isnt a full source of nutritional value any longer. He needs food to sustain that. Maybe you should try day feeding less and encourage him to eat and drink from sippy. If it makes you more comfortable try pumping and putting your milk into a cup for him that way he is still getting your milk and you are encouraging good nutrition at the same time.