DS refusing to eat

Does anyone have experience with a BF 15 month old who won't eat much
food? He picks at stuff and will eat a bit of what he normally eats,
but no where near the miniscule amount he usually has. Yup, we try
finger foods, spooning it in, TV, everything.

He never ate much in the first place, but seriously, today he had 3
flakes of mueslie, 3 spoons of yoghurt, a few peas and a cracker. He
is BF much more often though.

I think he might be getting his canine tooth on the bottom, but his
intake has declined steadily over the last 2 weeks. He is still small
- under 9kg I think. I don't like trying to force the issue, but it
worries and frustrates me...

Many people are telling me to stop BF him so he gets hungry enough to
eat, but I was always under the impression that it's time for solids
when they are looking for more food after a BF... well, that hasn't
happened! I am reluctant to give him water instead of BF over night
for example, because of his size. I'm worried that he still won't eat
and he won't even care!!

Help!



Jo

--
Woman, Wife, Mother, Midwife

"Notchalk" wrote in message
Many people are telling me to stop BF him so he gets hungry enough to
eat, but I was always under the impression that it's time for solids
when they are looking for more food after a BF... well, that hasn't
happened! I am reluctant to give him water instead of BF over night
for example, because of his size. I'm worried that he still won't eat
and he won't even care!!

I personally would decrease the amount of breastfeeds to see if he gets
hungier, but that's me. There are some kids that your assumption above is
not true for them.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)

If he LIKES other foods, I'd try feeding him solids before nursing him,
although I wouldn't refuse to nurse him if he was upset by this.

OTOH, if he doesn't eat because he just hasn't taken to solids yet,
nursing is a godsend to keep him from being malnourished. You'll know
best which of these scenarios describes him!

My William would not eat solids period at that age, so he was mostly bf
until, honestly, he was close to two! He still doesn't like many
foods.

Leslie

"Notchalk" wrote in message
...
Does anyone have experience with a BF 15 month old who won't eat much
food? He picks at stuff and will eat a bit of what he normally eats, but
no where near the miniscule amount he usually has. Yup, we try finger
foods, spooning it in, TV, everything.

My first son was very much like you describe. He often refused to eat
solids if he didn't get to breastfeed first because bfing is what he wanted
to do. He was big though so I didn't have any concerns from a
nutrition/growth standpoint. I got pregnant at 15mos and he was weaned by
20mos and I will say that his solids intake increased markedly when my milk
supply tanked due to pregnancy.

If a child is drinking their calories, they won't eat as much. I'm not sure
that is a problem or how to change it though. I suppose it depends a lot on
the kid.

--
Nikki, mama to
Hunter 4/99
Luke 4/01
Brock 4/06
Ben 4/06

"Notchalk" wrote in message
...
snip
Many people are telling me to stop BF him so he gets hungry enough to eat,
but I was always under the impression that it's time for solids when they
are looking for more food after a BF... well, that hasn't happened! I am
reluctant to give him water instead of BF over night for example, because
of his size. I'm worried that he still won't eat and he won't even care!!

As Leslie said, maybe try offering solids before a breastfeed. Another thing
you can try is to delay solids by half an hour to an hour after the
breastfeed rather than looking for the cue of "looking for more" immediately
afterwards. If your son is filling up on milk, it is unlikely that he will
look for more unless your milk supply starts dropping off for some reason!
Then after a while, once he is more accepting of solids and starts eating at
least a couple of solid feeds a day, you can maybe switch to solids before
milk.

Don't take those people's advice who are telling you to stop breastfeeding.
Just make sure that your son is hungry or at least willing to accept more
food when you offer solids - so either before a milk feed or with a good
break afterwards.

Engram

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Matthew 21 June 2005
DD EDD 06 Oct 2006

Check out our family at
http://www.geocities.com/engram_au/

Thanks everyone. I don't tend to BF him at meal times. He has an
early morning BF then we play for about an hour before breakfast -
which he never eats. I've even tried not feeding him for HOURS before
breakfast. The only time he BF during the day is upon waking from
naps. Lunch time is usually at least 2 hours after a BF, and dinner is
usually at least 3 hours after a BF. He will have about 3 overnight
(one side per feed).

I guess he is getting enough from just the milk or he'd be whinging all
day every day (even when not teething) from hunger and grab any food
he could.

Anyway, I'llkeep reading

Jo

Thanks everyone. I don't tend to BF him at meal times. He has an early
morning BF then we play for about an hour before breakfast - which he
never eats. I've even tried not feeding him for HOURS before breakfast.
The only time he BF during the day is upon waking from naps. Lunch time
is usually at least 2 hours after a BF, and dinner is usually at least 3
hours after a BF. He will have about 3 overnight (one side per feed).


hmm, having read other replies and now more details from you, I would
consider the night weaning option, the aiming being to switch his calories
from evenly spread over 24hrs as they are now to having a break overnight
where not much is consumed. I know that you may not feel comfortable with
this and if he truely needs those calories, then he will be resistant to any
attempts to night wean him. The reason I suggest this is because we ended up
night weaning out first just after his first birthday, not because he wasn't
eating much solids, but because I was just too exhausted to do anything
else, but the knock on effect was that he did eat more solids and looking at
pictures of him from the few months following that, he looks the healthiest
he has ever looked.

We used the controlled crying method, which turned out to be surprisingly
painless and overall I'd say less painless than an overtired baby, both for
him and for me!

Anne

On 2006-08-29 17:23:35 +0800, "Anne Rogers" said:

Thanks everyone. I don't tend to BF him at meal times. He has an
early morning BF then we play for about an hour before breakfast -
which he never eats. I've even tried not feeding him for HOURS before
breakfast. The only time he BF during the day is upon waking from naps.
Lunch time is usually at least 2 hours after a BF, and dinner is
usually at least 3 hours after a BF. He will have about 3 overnight
(one side per feed).


hmm, having read other replies and now more details from you, I would
consider the night weaning option, the aiming being to switch his
calories from evenly spread over 24hrs as they are now to having a
break overnight where not much is consumed. I know that you may not
feel comfortable with this and if he truely needs those calories, then
he will be resistant to any attempts to night wean him. The reason I
suggest this is because we ended up night weaning out first just after
his first birthday, not because he wasn't eating much solids, but
because I was just too exhausted to do anything else, but the knock on
effect was that he did eat more solids and looking at pictures of him
from the few months following that, he looks the healthiest he has ever
looked.

We used the controlled crying method, which turned out to be
surprisingly painless and overall I'd say less painless than an
overtired baby, both for him and for me!

Anne

I am contemplating this... but not the controlled crying method. He
seems to go to sleep fairly well with just DH while I work late on
Friday nights, so perhaps I could just not be in the room at all on a
friday night, and see how he goes with DH settling him. He is still in
our room in a cot/co-sleeping so I might have to spend the night on the
couch

I'm still undecided tho. Thanks!

Jo

--
Woman, Wife, Mother, Midwife

Notchalk wrote:
On 2006-08-29 17:23:35 +0800, "Anne Rogers" said:

Thanks everyone. I don't tend to BF him at meal times. He has an
early morning BF then we play for about an hour before breakfast -
which he never eats. I've even tried not feeding him for HOURS before
breakfast. The only time he BF during the day is upon waking from naps.
Lunch time is usually at least 2 hours after a BF, and dinner is
usually at least 3 hours after a BF. He will have about 3 overnight
(one side per feed).


hmm, having read other replies and now more details from you, I would
consider the night weaning option, the aiming being to switch his
calories from evenly spread over 24hrs as they are now to having a
break overnight where not much is consumed. I know that you may not
feel comfortable with this and if he truely needs those calories, then
he will be resistant to any attempts to night wean him. The reason I
suggest this is because we ended up night weaning out first just after
his first birthday, not because he wasn't eating much solids, but
because I was just too exhausted to do anything else, but the knock on
effect was that he did eat more solids and looking at pictures of him
from the few months following that, he looks the healthiest he has ever
looked.

We used the controlled crying method, which turned out to be
surprisingly painless and overall I'd say less painless than an
overtired baby, both for him and for me!

Anne

I am contemplating this... but not the controlled crying method. He
seems to go to sleep fairly well with just DH while I work late on
Friday nights, so perhaps I could just not be in the room at all on a
friday night, and see how he goes with DH settling him. He is still in
our room in a cot/co-sleeping so I might have to spend the night on the
couch

I'm still undecided tho. Thanks!

We have certainly noticed that ds is more likely to go back to sleep
after his 5am wake if his daddy goes to him. We found out that if I do
it he will stay awake until I feed him, whereas he knows daddy doesn't
do that so no point in staying awake. It's not as if he is particularly
hungry, otherwise he wouldn't go back to sleep (trust me!) and he only
feeds for a couple of minutes. We are down to one morning feed now. On
holiday he was too excited to feed at bedtime as we shared a room with
him (and too excited to sleep!), and has refused it ever since we
returned. Still, we have a nice pre-bed cuddle instead.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Jeni