DS is super picky about solids - help

KittyKatMom

DS will be 11 months on Sunday and hardly eats any table food. The only "solids" he will eat are Cheerios, Kix, puffs, yogurt melts, arrowroot cookies, and Goldfish (or almost any other type of cracker). He seems to only like crispy foods. He won't touch meat, or pasta, or cheese, or fruit. Well, he'll touch it, but once he feels it squish between his fingers, he wrinkles up his nose and wants nothing to do with it.

He was doing well with purees up until a few weeks ago. He liked a wide variety of foods, but if I try giving him anything even slightly chunky, he refuses it after a few bites. And now that he's working on his 1-year molars, he won't even eat much of the purees. I think he likes the hard, crispy foods because they feel good to bite down on.

Should I be concerned? He nurses about 5 times a day, and 2-3 times throughout the night, unless he is having a really bad night and then it is more frequent. I feel like I need to keep offering the foods he doesn't like, but I also hate wasting food when I know he's not going to eat it. Any advice?

cmrand4

I could have written this post almost exactly.  You're nursing so I would worry one single bit.  I worried so much and didn't understand why my little guy didn't love food the way other mothers described their babies. I cannot even tell you how much $$ I wasted on pureed foods for months on end before I gave up.  We ended up going straight from nursing exclusively to table foods. For my DS, getting teeth was the major obstacle to enjoying food.  Now that he's through getting his molars, he's finally starting to enjoy foods.  He just started really eating in the last 6 weeks.  there was a post recently that helped put my heart at ease a lot more...it was something to the effect of...as a parent, it's your job to provide healthy food, set expectations for behavior at the table, and time meals.  How much your child eats is entirely up to them.  It's so hard to sit there thinking they must be hungry but if they're hungry, then they'll eat.  Hang in there! It will get better!! Now that DS is nearly  1 1/2 years, he's finally eating! You kiddo will too! GL! 

Here are some foods (some surprisingly) that we had some level of success with during the especially difficult periods:

Dr. Preggers Spinach pancakes

carrot and zucchini muffins--I added shredded veggies to a whole wheat muffin recipe. Freeze a big batch and take out one or two a day. Easy way to get some veggies down the hatch.  I'd smother them with butter to get some more calories in.

toast with cream cheese

full fat yogurts

fried potato pancakes

Kersbear

I would just keep on trying and give it time.  Even if it's something he's refused 5 times.  Sure there are some foods that some kids always refuse, but also many times it takes 10 times or more of exposing a child to a food before they will eat it. 

Also, I would not even have any of the foods he prefers in his sight during meals/snacks until you try the other food at that meal/snack, then after you tried (or maybe even after he ate the new food) give him those afterwards.