What Does Your 14 Mo Old Eat?

At 14 months, my children ate everything. They loved the independence and novelty of eating on their own. Anything we ate, I cut up in small pieces and gave to them. I bought those bags of frozen mixed vegatables (peas, corn, carrots, greenbeens) and would microwave them an then put them on the high chair. That kept my kids busy for 30 minutes - picking up those little things and putting them in their mouths.

My children gagged on the stage three food when I first introduced it, but once they got the hang of it, they were good to go.

I think that you should continue to offer a wide variety of foods and praise him if he tries them. Also let him see you eating the food and enjoying it.

We used to go to Whole Foods or Central Market and walk around and try all the samples. My kids LOVED that. Before we left, I would make up a little plate from the salad bar of all kinds of different foods - edamame, garbonza beans, fruit, beans, grains - I would try to get different food from what we normally ate at home and then I would give my babies a little on their trays for the next day or two.

All you can do is continue to offer the food - you cant cram it down the kids throat or get mad and yell at him if he doesnt eat it. You are right, he will eat when he is ready.

First off I would continue telling people to back off. He is your child not theirs so while an opinion or two is nice, nagging is not. What did stress ever fix anyway?

We have a 15 month old and he tries whatever we eat. We tend to eat very spicy so it can be a challenge not to burn his tongue off. If something is horribly inappropriate, we offer an alternative. Otherwise, I feed him whatever we are having (correct portion and size). He'll consistently eat eggs, bagels/any kind of bread/tortillas, any kind of noodle, broccoli, almost any kind of fruit, yogurt, cheeses, peanut butter, etc. He's not a huge fan of meat. He's also hit or miss on potatoes and rice. We keep offering things and sometimes he'll eat them and other times he'll hand it back. It surprises us what he'll grab off our plates - pickles, Chinese dumplings/potstickers, shrimp - so we make all efforts to feed him like we eat. I don't eat mac and cheese and chicken nuggets every night so I don't have that expectation for him. Besides our son has never been a big eater so I am hardly surprised he’s not a big eater now. By way of comparison I have a friend with an 18 month old and a three year old. The younger one is adventurous in terms of food (sauerkraut, sausage, gumbo, curry...) while the older one voluntarily goes to bed hungry if dinner is not to his liking. As a parent I offer the food and go from there. I can't make him eat so why create unnecessary battles? Also I am not always hungry so I keep in mind there are going to be days he won't eat a bunch. We notice days where our son doesn't eat very much and then there are days he's constantly hungry. Good luck and no worries I say.

As to the In-laws - I'll tell you exactly what I told my MIL this very weekend. "Not your kid".

I'm the parent, I welcome advice and observations, but I (and wife) are the SOLE decision makers, for better or worse.

As to the eating. Our son is just shy of 14m. He eats (all appropriately cut up):
bananas
grapes
PB&J
Grilled cheese
chicken nuggets
steak
potatoes (smashed or otherwise)
veggie chips
puffs
crackers
cookies
chicken
veggie corn dogs
turkey hot dogs
apples
squeezy fruit
eggs (any style)

I could go on...basically we offer him whatever we're eating at dinner. On the rare occassion he doesn't like it, we switch to whatever is handy.

We keep a couple rules in mind that we've picked up from others
1) picky eaters are made, not born.
2) offer a food up to 12 times before it can be said he doesn't like it (12 different meals)
3) When we offer him his own alternative, we ask if this is an exception to the rule (ok) or if the exception is becoming the rule (not ok).
4) Alternative offerings are temporary - i.e. as soon as he is mobile enough, if he doesn't like what we cook, he can get out a pb&j (we like those frozen ones ready to eat)
5) Alternate food offerings happen ONCE. We will not offer meal 1, alt 1, alt 2, alt 3. That is how picky eaters are created, knowing that they can complain and go down the list.
6) We try to make sure no one food is getting more attention. It's very tempting with chicken nuggets, for example. He loves them! But our family doesn't eat chicken nuggets everyday, and neither will he.

Hope that helps! :)

ETA - one quick observation that you didn't ask about - hold his milk until after he's started eating. Milk is pretty filling, and that *may* impact his appetite.

We used several tricks to get our son, now 18 months more interested in table food. 1. He's very interested in whatever we are eating, so even if we've only just fed him, he asks for a taste of whatever we are eating. We oblige him. 2. He routinely embarrassed us by seeming hungry whenever we went anywhere and food was being served. i.e. having only fed him dinner, we go over to my uncles for a ball game, and he's got a hearty appetite all over again. We make a point of feeding him then too.

So long as he is being introduced to more adult foods at these occassions, we think its for the best. As a result, he now eats bagels, lasagna, steak, olives, cashews, string beans, rice pilaf, spare ribs, and other foods. Maybe you can seize on this, or something similar with your son.

Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.

My daughter is now 15 months but refused to eat anything at all until 10 months. She did not like to be spoon-fed, and once I just gave her finger food she was fine. Now she eats almost anything.

For your son, follow your instinct. You know what's best for him. Other parents are giving you advice based on their kids. Your son may have some mild sensory issues. If you don't draw attention to it, he may, over time, work through it on his own. Just casually offer him stuff from time to time. If you start to worry, you can consult a dysphagia therapist so see if your son has any true concerns. Ultimately, follow your gut feelings, and don't let others make you doubt yourself.

We had this issue with my son as well. He still will not eat sandwiches, soups, stews, ect. He was always ok with snacks or plain fruit but it was only when he was 3 that he would eat pasta with sauce. Do not force him and try to distract him when introducing a food. My son did better when he wasn't anxious. I am not saying he has a food "issue" but for my son, it was related to a speech delay so just keep an eye out.

My favorite cook books for kids:

Baby and Toddler Meals for Dummies;

http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Baby-and-Toddler-Mea...

Complete Idiots Guide to Feeding your Baby and Toddler

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Feeding-Toddl...

When DS was 14 months he ate everything DH and I ate - just cut up or mashed depending upon the texture. We never used baby food so we did not have any transitioning issues. We just started with single ingredients mashed (steamed or raw depending upon what) and once he had the single ingredients we moved to the full meal. So if we he might have oatmeal, chopped peaches and milk for breakfast, hummus w/ brown rice cakes, steamed broccoli and strawberries for lunch, salmon with whole wheat pasta and peas for dinner. Occasionally he would attempt to eat ALL his food in 3 seconds flat which could lead to regurgitation (we learned closer monitoring from that). We did not do rewards, punishment or anything like that. We just put the food on his plate and he could see it was the same as the food on our plates.

Well all kids are different so it might just take awhile to see what he likes. You said he likes stage 3 baby food. So I'm guessing he likes to be fed from a spoon? My first would not feed her self for the longest time so we had food issues. She liked being fed with a spoon so she would only eat certain table foods. So I would just keep trying different things but to make it easier on him try other table foods that are a similar texter to his baby food and that can be fed from spoon. Like oatmeal or cream of wheat, soups, mashes potatoes, sweet potatoes, pudding, yogurt. Also with my kids sometimes they liked to eat things that we wouldn't really consider a meal. Like instead of trying to get him to eat a sandwich, give him some string cheese, a few crackers and some lunch meat on his plate. Or scrambled eggs for lunch etc. It's a hard transition but don't worry he won't eat baby food forever. LOl