Trouble with Food

Did you ever try one of those self feeders? (a mesh bag with handle sold at BabiesRUs, you can put solids in and the child chews on the bag and it comes out mush) It could be a happy medium or good transition between baby food and solid food.

Have you tried giving him some table foods that are already mushy? Like mashed potatoes, or even carrots? That's how I started my toddler on solids. Just on the simple mushy things so that way it was like the baby food then as he started to experiment with what else was out there he found that he liked what we were having. That would be my advice. Good luck!!

Hey K.
Try your food processor with things that are like baby food
like veggies and chicken noodle soup and maybe that may be a way to introduce people foods. You can use a blender as well if you dont have a food processor. Good luck!

My son is a picky eater too. He loves yogart most of all. I transitioned him to non-pureed vegetables/chicken by giving him Campbell's ABC soup. The veggies are really soft and tasty from the chicken broth. Then, when my son showed interest in tater tots, I gave him chicken nuggets told him that they are like tater tots. If he's going #2 often, try giving him more binding foods like bananas and carbs. Sometimes you have to offer it a bunch of times, before they realize that they like it.
I've often heard that you shouldn't struggle with your child over food and the potty. So, cold turkey off the baby food didn't work well for me. My son just cried and refused to get out of his highchair. Good luck!

K.,

Your best bet would be migrtion of foods from the jarred food to solids. What I mean by this is to slowly begin to add the like real foods into the jarred food, peas for peas, carrorts for carrots. Add very small amounts to begin with, then over time add a bit more untill you hve replaced the jarred food with real food. This is known as Classical Conditioning. What happens is that you begin to teach the child that real food can be and is as tasy as the jarred foods he likes. If this does not work be looking for developmental problems. It is very possible that your son has developed some type of personality/behavioral trait that is not allowing him to mature properly.

K.
my 2 year old is extremmly picky and wont eat very much either.he only eats baby jars of the apple and blueberries fruit. no fresh fruit at all. He does however love chicken nuggets and chicken fries. I get both from ALDIs they come in a bag and are around $3 and some change. they are able to be put in the oven or the microwave and taste good either way. we have tried other brands but he likes these best. you might want to talk to your peds dr .does he seem to have and aversion to textures. also try some fish stick and french fries. Its very hard we are trying multiple things with our son.his best meal is breakfast. he will eat oatmeal,waffles , toast. At lunch he eats yoplait dora the explorer yogurt and his baby food fruit. just keep trying different things .they say just keep offering the items and eventually they will eat it. I would like to know ,excatly when is eventually!!!!lol.
best of luck keep me posted if you come across anything interesting. from one picky eaters mom to another. M.

Hello, the best solution to your problem is to throw out all the jar food instantly. Cold turkey!! Tell him he is a big boy and there will be no more baby food. Regardless of what people think, he will eat when he is hungry. And he'll be hungry enough to eat the first thing you give him

If you throw out all of the baby food and explain to your child that the only thing that he can eat is "real" food, then he will have no choice. My doctor suggested that I do this with my son (when he was 12 months old) and it worked great. Eventually he will be hungry enough to eat the real stuff.

I rememer reading somewhere that it takes a child ten times at trying a particular new food before they develop a taste for it and like it.

I have taught my daughter that she has to take a bite. She doesn't have to eat anymore than 1 bite if she doesn't like it, but she has to try it.

I would suggest throwing away the baby food. When he gets hungry enough he will eat. I know that sounds harsh and it will be very difficult, but it may be only option.

hi there,
try talking to your pediatrician about silent acid reflux. my daughter had reflux as a baby and when i see one of her doctors he always asks me about her eating habits. apparently with silent reflux the child will prefer to eat only soft foods and reject all/most foods with lumps or solids. thankfully she doesn't have it, but it's worth checking out with your dr.

Start slow, rice, mashed potatoes, anything mushy, jello, applesauce, yogurt, etc. He's gotta get used to the texture. Try tossing him a meat stick/beef jerkey if his mouth hurts him.

Make your own baby food. Show him that you put peas in a blender and that makes pea mush. Slowly make it less mush and more chunky over time.

Try putting the food in the baby jar? Put some peas (or whatever) in a baby food jar and show him that you put your spoon in the jar and out comes peas? Maybe it's an association thing?

Hi K.!
Have you tried presenting food to him creatively? Like maybe putting a variety of different foods that he can eat with his fingers in a muffin tin--i.e. a pile of flash boiled frozen peas in one (very tasty, my kids both loved them!), little steamed carrot pieces (until soft--so they aren't a choking hazard)in another, even his cheerios in another. Some other ideas, small cubes of mango, banana, avocado, baked sweet potato, small cubes of cheese or strings of string cheese, tortolini (barilla has a GREAT cheese tortolini in a blue bag in the pasta aisle--i boil it up and either put spagetti sauce on it or just a little butter and parm cheese--yum). I find that whole foods are much more appealing to my kids.

one other idea would be maybe getting a food mill used for making baby food and making your own for a while to get him used to the taste of "real" food. You can just take the food you make for dinner and grind it up for him. then gradually increase the texture until he is able to stand solid food.

really, though, i wouldn't sweat it. other than the frequent bowel movements, be happy he's eating at all!

When you give him the baby food are you feeding him or is he feeding himself? Do you do the same with the "adult" food? If you are feeding him the baby food, but expecting him to feed himself the "adult" food, he might just want your undivided attention. Try feeding him the adult food for a while. Also, you might want to try to save some of your baby food jars and put the adult food in them & feed out of them. He might associate the jars with "his" food.
If the self feeding is the issue, start out each meal feeding him, then allow him to play with the food for a bit & try to feed himself. But keep interacting with him the whole time. THat way he gets his mommy time.

check out www.tk.mywildtree.com full flavor seasonings that healthy, quick and sure to please even the pickiest. I got my son to eat salad after 5 years of no veggies by using their salad dressing. He now will eat anything that has a Wildtree item in it. Have a blessed day!

I am dealing with a somewhat similar situation. My son is 21 months old and although he does eat better then he used he is still eating some jarred baby food. At 17 months, he probably wasn't as good as he is now but I started to try to find foods he liked and although I hate giving the same things all the time, he isn't very adventurous with new foods. I also tried to find just regular food things that he would eat rather than the baby food. So, for instance I started to buy regular applesauce and different flavored applesauces, oatmeal, etc. Breakfast and lunch he does very well, he loves waffles and pancakes for breakfast and then lunch is normally yogurt, chicken nuggets, bananas or pasta pick-ups. Dinner is where we have our biggest challenge, he won't eat regular meat or veggies, so I sometimes resort to using the jarred dinners or veggies just so he gets that into him. I've heard that you should get rid of all baby food and that he won't starve but at this point I haven't completely listened b/c I like knowing he's getting that nutrition. I also try new things all the time and end up throwing out alot of food, but I figure I'll just keep trying. My babysitter is actually better at getting him to try new things, so sometimes I'll ask her to try a few things too when he's over there. Just hang in there and slowly try to incorporate some new regular foods in place of the baby food. But like my Dr said, he'll grow out of it she said "you never see a 7 year old eating baby food right?"

what about mashed potatoes, yogurt, apple sauce, the softer foods? also my kids always loved soups becuase they could dip crackers or bread in them. good luck!

Two words: CREAMED CORN.

That is what helped graduate my oldest from jarred baby food to actual food. It looks and has a similar texture to baby food, but it's chunkier and requires more chewing.

After the creamed corn my husband and I just "smushed" his food a little bit to still keep it creamy, but we also left a lot of chunks in it. After about a month he started eating actual food.

I would also suggest letting your child play with any new food. We've done that with both of our kids and after the second or third time of presenting the new food to them, they ate it!

Hope these help...I know all kids are different, but my mother taught me these tricks because she said they worked on me. :)

It could just be the texture of the food and that she actually has to chew it. My cousin's little girl was the same way. She bought a little hand held baby food grinder from Baby's R Us ($12.99 I think), and started grinding people food and baby food together. Then she got used to the taste of real food and my cousin slowly added less and less of the baby food. If it is just the texture, you can try yogart, applesauce, pudding, chicken and stars soup. Rice crispies cereal in milk for breakfast is pretty soft. Grilled cheese was one of my daughter's favorites.

Hi K.-

Have you tried making your own baby food by blending or food processing some "real" food? Maybe you can even put it in the baby food jars until he gets used to it. After you get him to eat that, you can let him see you make it a few times and he might be willing to try the food before it's mashed up.

I have twin 18 month old boys. One's a picky eater, one's not. I think the best way to get him to stop eating baby food is to stop feeding it to him! He'll eat when he gets hungry. And if all he ate for a bit was fruit and cheerios, that would be okay.

I agree softer foods are good, but our pediatrician's advice is to not "dumb down" your food. Feed him what you're eating and he'll eat or not eat depending on if he's hungry. That's gotten our picky eater to eat Indian food, broccoli, peas, soup, other veggies.

Hope this helps. Hang in there!

sorry no advice....just a warning to stay away from peanut products until after they are 2. It can cause allergies later in life. I have a picky eater too so I am afraid to say I am not the oneto advise you there. I will be reading your responses though.... Good luck

I am a SAHM of 4 kids. My oldest is our picky eater, and he is also our only child who loved Gerber baby foods from a jar. I think that we were so concerned with good nutrition with him...that we let him get away with these picky habits. It was more of a behavioral situation. My other 3 children all ate table food....or whatever I prepared for dinner, because that is the only option we gave them really. To this day....my oldest, who is 16 now is still our pickiest eater, and would rather have no dinner at all than just eat what I have made for the family! I honestly think that if you would stop buying the jar baby foods and slowly phase them out, your son will eventually eat what you have made for him. He will not starve by any means. I see this now, so many years later, as a big power struggle over eating....I think that you should stand firm and don't give in, no matter how much your little guy fights you on this. Eventually, he will come around. Also....if it's any consolation, my picky guy started eating carrots and salad once he got into PreK because the other kids were eating it, I guess he was embarassed not to? Hang in there.....it will get easier!

I have an extremely picky eater who is now 4.5yo that started when he was very young. I stuck to the advice of my doctor who said to stop giving him the baby food and too much milk then he'll eat when he's hungry. It's amazing what they'll try (and like) when they are hungry enough. Your child will not starve. If this doesn't work, then maybe s/he has some underlying issue so talk to your doctor.