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babies, child development, childern, family, kids, mom, mommy, motherhood, parenting, toddlers
I don’t usually go asking for “mommy advice.” This being my 4th child, I am usually not surprised by much, but as he’s gotten older, and now toward the toddler stage, Thor seems to be determined to be a horse of a different color, even more so than he has been all along.
To clarify, my son is very much a creature of habit, he has never, since birth, been a big fan of change. This extends not only to his routine, but other things like his toys, what music he finds comforting, and other things. Maybe you get the picture.
When things upset his “routine” or he is feeling insecure it’s not a happy time around here until he is secure again. Usually the thing that upsets him the most in that regard, are his immunizations. Usually those can throw him for a loop, and it seems we get him settled down, only for it to soon be time for the next set.
Eating is where we are having a lot of the problems I haven’t run into before. He doesn’t seem to want to transition to table food, even though he has been plenty old enough for awhile now. The texture of table food seems to bother him. He absolutely refuses to eat anything that isn’t the consistency of “baby food. If something is thicker, or the least big chunky, he will flatly refuse to eat it. Not even mashed potatoes please him.
John and I always offer him bites of what we are eating, but it is rare that he will try one bite, if at all, even if he otherwise seems to be hungry. I know part of the issue may be that he still only has only his four front teeth, and even biting is a new thing for him.
The only table foods he doesn’t seem to mind so far are vanilla yogurt, plain hummus, pita bread and pita chips. I have no idea how to get him to eat a wider variety beyond what he is already eating table food wise, except offering him tastes of our dinner as we already are. Meanwhile we are still making sure he gets the baby foods he will eat, and making sure he gets a bit of formula every day along with the whole milk until he is eating enough to make sure he doesn’t get anemic. He’s not quite capable of chewing meat yet with just 4 teeth I think.
He’s not picky about food, except when it comes to texture. He eats almost anything jarred we sit in front of him, and so far only has one mild food allergy. (apples)
I am kind of stumped as to how to approach this. All of my older kids were off baby food and eating table food just fine by the first birthday. I have no idea what the hangup may be here, other than he seems to have far less teeth than they did at the same age.
Metal Angel 
Any issues with his taste buds? My son used to get smooth patches on his tongue, like his taste buds were all ganging up in one place, and it affected what he was willing to eat. It wasn’t a big deal; I can’t even remember how we treated it. But you might want to see if there’s something going on in his mouth that’s affecting his food choices. Other than that, I found that all the ways in which my second differed from my first, time took care of it with no additional help. Good luck!
He seems very healthy so far, the doctor seems pleased with his development other than he is also a little slow to start walking on his own. Thor is also unusually big for his age, well above the 90th percentile. She thinks it may take him a little longer to get the hang of coordination since he’s just so big. He’s 2T in clothes and Toddler size 6 shoe now at 14 months, and nearing 30 pounds.
Reblogged this on mommytrainingwheels and commented:
Anyone have some experience with a picky eater? This mama’s son will eat a wide variety of foods as long as they are given to him under the form of a smooth purée. Otherwise, he can’t stand the texture. If you have any experience/insight, please comment on her blog. Thanks!
Hum, all I can think is that it’s just a phase. It’s a good sign that he’ll eat a variety of foods, I suppose all you can do it continue to offer him morsels from your plates while you eat. Did you talk to his pediatrician about it? Reblogged on my blog, perhaps others will have different suggestions. Good luck!
Came to visit via mommytrainingwheels. Hope you’re having a nice Holiday season. When I read this, I thought of something called “oral aversion.” There are different spectrums and different reasons for it.
Here are a few quick links I Googled. These are not exhaustive. Just a fast search and linking. But at least maybe it gives you a lead to follow.
This one gives a nice differential of different reasons for it: http://www.thefeedingfamily.com/5/post/2011/3/what-is-oral-aversion.html
This one gives a few tips: http://arktherapeutic.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/sensory-strategies-to-help-decrease-texture-aversion-and-hypersensitive-gag/
Good luck! Take good care! I’m a mom of three with one more on the way–so I had to come check out what was bothering a well-seasoned mom!
I really do hope that this is a phase. All the doctor has suggested so far is to keep trying and working with him. They say if he’s still having difficulty after his next appointment they may look at referring him to a program like early intervention, where people can work with him to help him develop his motor skills.
We are looking at maybe finally moving in the next month to our own apartment. I am hoping a lot of things will improve after we have moved, and he will have a lot more room to move around the house independently.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you! I know your guy’s right up there in the percentiles; a friend of mine has an 18 month old who is in 98th percentile in everything. It took him a long time to crawl, walk and develop his motor skills. The doctor told her it was because of his size, perhaps it’s the same thing with Thor.
That’s great news that you may be able to move next month! I wish you the best of luck with that. 😀
Hey! Jaqueline left a comment for you on my blog about this. Here it is: My son also just turned one and was picky with his food. I ended up hiding table food in his baby food until he could tolerate the table food alone. I still do this with foods he doesn’t like as much. I’ll mix pees in yogurt or apple sauce. I know there are a lot of feeding philosophies out there that probably think this is deceptive and horrible, deception at such a young age! But, the kid had to eat! Good luck with the table food, I know it can be hard!
We went along the route of Baby Led Weaning with our son (there is lots about this online). He never had purees of any sort, just sticks of lightly steamed veg on the table in front of him to play with. And play he did – it got mashed, squished and swiped onto the floor. Some of it SOMETIMES made it into his mouth. But basically I just let him get on with it. He sat at the table when we had meals, and had food in front of him. If he had the motor skills to pick it up, he could eat it (e.g. peas took him a while, so by the time he was able to pick them up, he was able to deal with them in his mouth and not choke) I have a photo of him at ten months old eating into an apple.
And he didn’t have many teeth. Babies have very hard gums and can give any food a run for its money!
But until he was WELL over one, and probably more like 18 months, his primary source of nutrition was milk. He was breast fed on demand and thrived. And eventually got more and more of his nutrition from food.
Baby Led Weaning is just another approach that may work for you, or at least open up an option.
The oddest thing is, unlike most babies, Thor doesn’t try to put most things in his mouth. He will chew on his fingers, but never teething toys, no matter which kinds we have tried him on. He does try to put a spoon in his own mouth if it is handed to him.
As of yet he still only has 4 teeth (the very front ones) at 14 months old. He is trying to cut two more on top. This means he can bite, but still isn’t quite capable of chewing. In fact he is starting to rather enjoy biting. For some reason biting my bathrobe is now his favorite thing to do when I pick him up. We are hoping that if we keep offering him a little of what we are eating that he will get the idea eventually. We still had no luck with a chicken and noodle toddler dinner last night, but we keep trying to offer him new things every day to see if eventually he will try it.
Odd thing about that dinner was, he eats everything in it, in a smoother texture as baby food, but won’t eat the thicker, chunkier toddler version, so we still assume that it’s the texture he may not care for. Short of running everything through the blender for the rest of forever, we aren’t really sure what to do other than keep trying.
Well, the other option is to completely skip the blended toddler version and go for tough stuff. Truly, he will NOT choke – if my toothless 9 month old can chomp an apple then a 14 month old can deal with a bit of steamed carrot.
My boy’s first solid food was a spring onion (aka a scallion) (although this was not intentional on our part – we always gave him stuff to wave around while we ate and one day he just chomped on it. True love on Daddy’s part was biting off the warm fluffy end of a scallion so he could have a fresh bit to eat!) plus strips of melon complete with skin to hold on and bite against – plenty to chew on, lots of flavour but the little that actually comes off is quite soft.
Personally, I would skip the blending and just give him stuff straight off your plate – if he chews bathrobe, then maybe he will enjoy a strip of chewy meat like beef?