Hunger Strike
The girls will not eat.
It started during our recent trip to California. Althea started refusing most nursings, but ate like a horse during regular meals. Elise, on the other hand, started losing interest in solids. I figured it was just the trip, the foreign environment, the change in climate, etc.
When we got home, Elise went to an almost complete refusal of solids. She’ll eat yogurt and these natural fig bars I get from the crunchy section of the grocery store. She’ll eat Gerber yogurt melts. Today, she ate some turkey neck meat (????). Other than that, she spits the food out, drops it on the floor, or outright turns her head and refuses it.
Upon our return to Florida, Althea went back to nursing four times a day and continued eating table food like crazy. But over the past two days, she’s rejecting solid food more and more. Like Elise, she spits out or refuses most anything I offer aside from yogurt and melon.
Elise had a bad bout with her stomach this week. Althea had a fever for a day. But even outside of those factors, no dice.
I constantly remind and promise myself to be patient, calm and content with my kids. I usually try not to make a big deal of anything so that they don’t act out based on my response.
But man, I’m getting FRUSTRATED. More than frustrated, I’m getting annoyed and resentful. I’m feeling angry and hurt. I’m dealing with one year olds who are learning a desire for control but can’t communicate in any way that doesn’t involve defiance or tantrums.
And of course, I’m worried. I already have it in my head that my girls are “small.” And now I can’t get them to eat at all? I’ll probably be put in jail.
I’ve tried every food in the house that I can think of — pasta, vegetables, a variety of fruits and meats, breads, cookies, crackers, drinks, sweets, savories, finger foods, baby food, cold food, hot food, food with sauce, food without sauce, spoon feeding, self-feeding.
I’ve tried letting them eat out of the high chairs — free-range baby feeding.
I tried putting a variety of foods in a muffin tin and letting them eat as they pleased. Althea turned the tin upside down, dumped all the food out, and the girls proceeded to smoosh the food into the tile and their hair.
A quick consultation with Dr. Google revealed that this is super, super normal. I was a very picky eater growing up, too. But this is something beyond picky. This is an straight-up “Screw you, I’m not eating.”
My next step is to try smoothies — yogurt, milk and some other stuff with nutritional value. Do they make broccoli and liver ice cream?
7 comments
Maybe the girls are getting there molars? Gavin was very picky and not a heppy a baby when he got his first molar.
Both of my kids go on little food kicks…they will eat everything and anything in sight for a week or month or for a long time….then for just as long they will survive on nibbles for the entire day. Like the entire food consumption for the DAY can be counted by teaspoons or tablespoons……
They are both somewhere around 30-40 percentile in weight but look a bit round.
Your girls are probably doing fine…….in a couple of weeks they will eat so much your grocery bill will almost triple…
Its the age, sometimes they all get bored of this stuff and some resort to just taking milk, others get maybe 3 bites in all day, they won’t starve. Thad who is going on three can go a whole day without eating more than a few bites, but he drinks his milk and juice and some junk so he is getting something, its definately frustrating, but part of the territory. Thankfully Heathman doesn’t have any issue and could eat until the cows come home..at least for now
Hope you had a great hoilday…btw, Turkey was all Thad ate besides Candy for 2 days lol.
Regarding their “littleness,” (which doesn’t come across in photos, btw), I have a friend whose 3-year-old is in the size/weight percentage range of a normal 1.5-year-old. Their pediatrician isn’t a bit worried because everything else (cognitive/social) is proceeding as normal. One thing I love about our pediatrician is that she thinks growth charts are less reliable than horoscopes.
Your girls’ stats reassure me, actually, because they’re similar to E’s, and I look at how beautifully they’re doing and figure he’s going to be fine, too.
I do so hate mealtimes. So I hear what you’re saying, I feel your pain. And I have no solutions to offer. Lexi is still a horrible eater at 2+.
G&C are still fussy at age 4. It hit us around age 2. But, they each have a few protein items they like and a couple veggies/fruits… so I continue to cook and offer new foods, but do serve favs, too. I stopped stressing over it a while ago. They are fading away to nothing.
I read that historically, it stems back to times when toddlers who became mobile could now pick up anything and everything to eat and many things were dangerous… so biologically, I guess, this is nature’s way of keeping toddlers “safe” from I don’t know – cavemen and poisonous berries, I guess. (It doesn’t really make me feel better knowing that as I dump plates of uneaten food into the garbage.)
Happy 2010! I don’t always respond, but I read regularly and I’m enjoying watching the girls grow up!
-JILL
oops – I meant they are NOT fading away. I really oughta proof read better.
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