Why do I get so MAD at him?!

[Anonymous]

Nate is just about 1 year old, and overall doing soooo sooo sooo much better with eating solids willingly. There is a limited array of foods he will eat: yogurt, raisin toast w/ cream cheese, French toast, a few pureed fruits (prunes, bananas, apples, peach cobbler), grilled cheese, Ritz dinasour crackers

We do try new things, but he either totally refuses, or sometimes will eat something just one time and then never again. He also recently dropped a bunch of foods that he had eaten when he got the stomach flu (chicken, mac & cheese, cheerios) but won’t go near anymore.

Anyway, tonight I tried chicken nuggets and baked french fries. You’d think I was trying to poison him. I did get him to take a couple of bites (like 2-3 tiny pieces) but it was a major struggle. As soon as I opened a jar of Peach Cobbler, he gobbled it right up so I know it wasn’t that he wasn’t hungry.

I don’t know why but I get so MAD at him when he refuses food like this. I mean, what kid doesn’t like chicken nuggets? And honestly, I know that we don’t have it nearly as tough as many of you on this board, and overall he’s so much better, but I can’t help but feeling mad at him sometimes.

My mom says I should just give him what I know he likes, but I feel like a crummy mother giving him the same foods every day, no variety and basically no vitamins.

Anyone BTDT? Any suggestions? Please!?

nate’s_mom2006-2-18 21:33:36

[Anonymous]

don’t feel bad , My 6 year old is like that, he eats a very limited diet….same things over and over..he has been this way since he was little…he’d go on little “food obsessions” as I call them and refuse to eat anything but like 4 or 5 different things…As long as he was eating I wasn’t bothered by it. Like I said he’s 6 and has a list of like 10 things he’ll eat. AND he is totally healthy, weight normal, smart little guy. I just decided that as long as he WAS eating I would not make food a big issue..b/c every time I did things got worse.. Oh, Austin does not have reflux, just eating issues. Sometimes it also helps to just plunk them in the highchair with food directly on the tray…let them play in it sometimes they’ll accidently get some in their mouths and find they like it!!! ( I did that with bananas and applesauce when my son was little ,I also did peas..let him make food art..it was messy though).Good luck!!!

[Anonymous]

The best advice I can give is to give him what he likes to eat for now and try not to stress. Always have something ready that you know for sure he’ll eat – like the cobbler. One day he will surprise you and will gobble up something he refused the week before. This is toddlerhood. It’s all about them being in control of what they eat. The sooner you relax about it, the better he’ll eat. Sounds harsh but I’ve gone through basically the same things. They come around eventually. Our job as parents is to offer good nutritious foods – their job is to eat it!

[Anonymous]

I agree. I know it’s hard to say, but try to stress over it too much and give him what he likes. My older daughter was super fussy with what she’d eat when she was Nate’s age and it was so frustrating…she had an array of about 6 items and that was it. What we did was we would prepare our meal, and always be sure to include 1-2 choices that were sure things for her (that meant shredded cheese, cottage cheese, applesauce or bread basically), and we would let her eat as much or as little as she wanted of everything. Now at 2.5 years old, she has quite a good repetoire of foods (or at least she used to before starting her “no way, mummy” stage) and even will eat boiled spinach. And as for the chicken nuggets- she used to HATE them, and now she’ll eat 8-9 in one sitting! Hang in there, I know it’s tough (and I can only imagine how bad it is when it’s a refluxer with limited choices…OMG if Hailey ever does eat I can only imagine what’s in store…but try to hang in there. It will get better.

[Anonymous]

I know that this is what the future holds for me and my daughter! My older daughter used to do the typical picky toddler behavior during meals. We didn’t really bother with it until she was alittle bit older around 2, then we started making “happy plates”. She had to take 2 bites of every food on her plate because you get new taste buds every day. It really works! Just something to think about as he grows. Heard refluxers are always going to be picky, especially with texture, my step daughter is 15 and she is still like that!

[Anonymous]

My Nate, although not a refluxer, went through a stage like that right
after he turned one and I truly believe it was to show me that he was
in control of his eating. In fact, sometimes he wouldn’t even
come close to mac and cheese for me but if he was at my parents’ house,
he would eat a whole plate! Then
he would go through the stage of eating anything and everything in
sight and about 6 months later back to him wanting to be in
control. He’s now 3 1/2 and we still have days that he will
totally refuse peanut butter and jelly when that’s all he wanted to eat
for the past week!! Hang in there but I truly believe it’s just a
part of toddlerhood that will not pass any too quickly. Hopefully
he’ll eat like a champ soon!

[Anonymous]

Kaelyn goes through stages like this. It is really frustrating! Like several others have said, we just give her several choices and hope that she will eat something. Some meals we’ve gone through 7 or 8 things before she’ll start eating. Most of the time she only needs a couple of options. She’ll also make us crazy by refusing to eat for us, but then eating like a champ at daycare.

[Anonymous]

We offer quite a few things too. Meals a lot of times are “do you want some of this, no? ok how about this?” – LOL! We do what we have to do that’s for sure!!!

[Anonymous]

I’ve also found that some foods can sit on her tray for the entire meal and then she’ll finally start eating them. It would be so much easier if we could predict what they were going to be willing to eat on any given day. I swear that lately it seems like we throw away as much food as she actually eats!

[Anonymous]

Grrrr, I just lost a huge post!!!

Anyway, thank you all for your support. I know I need to be patient with him, but it’s so hard to keep from getting frustrated. Tonight he even refused grilled cheese, and today had 3 containers of Yo Baby. Does that make me a bad mom?!

I honestly don’t know if it’s a control thing, or that he just has a negative association with eating. His worst time with reflux was 6-7 months, and since then I can’t get him to go near cereal, and only recently has he started accepting pureed fruits again.

The weird thing is that the week after he recovered from his tummy bug, he was eating like a champ, you wouldn’t believe how much. But once the residual diarrhea cleared up, he went back to being constipated and not eating well. So I guess it’s not surprising after all. It’s so hard to get his butt working right, even with Milk of Magnesia every day. Ughhhhh!!!!! Infant reflux and constipation just sucks.

[Anonymous]

My now two year old was like that for a long, long time. At her 18 month check up My doctor adivised me to try to wait until she was really hungry to feed her, rather than at scheduled times like I had been. Also, to just put different foods on her plate time and time again, that eventually she might just try something and like it. Waiting until she was really hungry helped ALOT. Within weeks she was eating different foods, even fruits and veggies which she always hated. She still goes through stages when she will only eat certain foods, but letting her be hungry enought at meals helps to get her eating again. Hope it helps.

[hellbennt]

any chance it’s the yogurt that’s making him constipated?

[Anonymous]

Well, today was another day of one eating battle after another. At dinner, I tried to give him some rotisserie (sp?) chicken, which he used to gobble up, and he kept freaking out. He’d throw the pieces on the floor, squirm in his chair, turn around so he didn’t have to look at it. Hmmm … maybe I should try to see the humor in this. Anyway, when I finally pulled out a container of Yo Baby, he got a big smile on his face and opened wide. He’s such a brat, lol

Laura – I know where you’re going with this … but I really don’t think so. He’s had issues with constipation since long before he started eating yogurt. I guess we’ll know for sure once I start him on milk. Will be discussing with his new pediatrician in a couple of weeks. FWIW, I really pray yogurt is not the cuprit, as now it’s the only thing he will eat besides toast, apples & prunes.

ndrose – That is definitely a good suggestion. My fear is that if he gets too hungry, he’ll just get mad. It’s happened before, but I’m willing to try again. I finally have him down to 3 bottles and 3 solid meals … and the 4th bottle (mid morning) was pretty easy to drop, so who knows.

[Anonymous]

Another thought on the constipation … Nate was always prone to it, but it didn’t become a chronic problem until he started the Zegerid. Our GI doc said it can most definitely be a s/e of the PPI.

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