Constant food refusal
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He refuses to be spoon fed so its all him feeding himself (he never took to a spoon from the begining of weaning so we did blw from then)
Ah that sounds tough. Do you eat in front of your little one? I find eating with mine makes her want to eat more. I also talk about the food and how I made it and she copies the gestures of cutting for example. I do a mix of spoon feeding and letting use her hands or the spoon to feed herself. How much milk is your one having? At what time are they eating after they've woken up from nap? Have you tried pushing the feeding time a bit later? I know everyone says it's a phase for food refusal, but it is anxiety inducing when you know they haven't ate much!
My son genuinely has never eaten a full meal. I’ve spoken to health visitors, gps, relatives, baby groups - basically anyone who will listen! They all just say I need to stop breastfeeding but even when I reduce milk he still refuses food and then is in an even worse mood because he’s hungry for milk. A cycle that I’m not entertaining anymore because I trust that my son knows what his body needs. As counterintuitive as it sounds, I have made peace with the fact that my baby is not a foodie and I think that has helped us start to enjoy mealtimes together. I offer him food at the dining table & with me at every meal time but I know go into it knowing that he will not eat any of it. If he does try food, I remain completely neutral and continue eating my food. Sometimes he’ll keep eating it, more often than not he won’t. But I count tasting something new as a win. I offer new foods but always have at least one ‘safe’ food that I know he likes to snack on (like grated cheese).
Be kind to yourself, it’s so hard when everyone seems to have these toddlers that devour every meal or when relatives question you on what he does/doesn’t eat. Reach out to your HV for reassurance and also trust that this is probably a phase and your baby knows their body 😊
Do you feed him from a spoon? Or do you let him feed himself. I find some days my little boy will happily take food from the spoon others he refuses but if I put the same dish of food on his highchair and give him the fork and spoon he'll get hands in and make attempts with the fork and spoon on his own and eat what he refused a few minutes before.