Beyond Eating Strike

My daughter went through something similiar like that, she started out at the 5th perecntile and stayed that way until she was 3 yrs old. What we found with her refusing to eat was that she was SO busy with her world that she thought is was just not neccessry for her part of the day. So we started feeding her when she would play, like let her have a cheese stick in hand , finger food. It seemed to help. She had to stay on formula until she was 18 months old. The doctor did not want her to loose what she had gained. But now she is a VERY active child. My boys sort of when through a similiar stage and were wuickly out of it. One thing is don't force the food. The more you force the less likely you will get him to eat, make it a game. Also see if he will feed himself. My guys started to want to feed themselves right around that age. Keep us posted

I certainly am not a professional but I have a son that isn't much of an eater, too. He wasn't losing weight, but has always been in the <5% percentile. My comments are based on when my son was at least 18 months; a newly turned one year old is still transitioning not only to new foods but to the idea of eating them at all.

We went to see a nutritionist last year and one thing she pointed out is how much liquid my son was consuming. She reviewed his typical day and pointed out that since I was giving him 8 oz. or so of milk first thing in the morning, he was too full from that to eat breakfast. Then, I would make him a smoothie for a snack, and it was pretty big, too. She saw that even though I wasn't putting as much liquid in the smoothie, it was still ending up as a large drink and that was filling him up so he'd refuse lunch. The pattern continued all day - he wouldn't eat, but would have a drink like milk with his snack/meal. That liquid filled him up too much and he was never really hungry, just topping off all day.

She had me limit him to 4 oz. of anything (except water - he can have as much of that as he wants any time!) at one sitting and to try to not give him the drink until after a meal had started. I measured what that would be in his sippy cups and it was way less than what I was typically serving. So I still stick with that rule now. He doesn't drink that much juice, but I did manage to find juice boxes that are only 4 oz instead of the normal 6 oz or 8 oz sizes.

She also told me to stick with set meal and snack times (3 of each) and to always have them at a table. No more grazing! No more wandering around with a snack and again topping off all day. He needed/needs to learn that eating isn't something you do when you're doing another thing - it IS the activity. I think that creates healthy eating habits, too.

I'll admit he still doesn't eat much but the rules really did help and I've learned to just not worry about it. But again, my guy started little and is still little; he's not losing like yours and my doctor has no concerns.

My daughter was not even on the growth chart when she was that age.....litterally 0%. She apparently liked breastfeeding (and so did her body) and when I quit doing that, she quit growing. We actually ended up putting her on "prescription supplements" that the pharmacy had to order. We started going to a speech therapist (because she didn't "baby talk" either). She heard my concerns and helped us tremendously with both her eating and "talking".

We had always been good at eating only at the table, but she suggested also to not have her eat by herself ever, so that she had a "role-model" (could even be an older sibling). We also tried to track her hunger times and work our meals around that. We started with 3 meals and 2-3 snacks/day, but found that she was not hungry enough by the next eating session. So, we had to cut out the snacks and just do the meals. Then, she actually started consuming more/day. So, long story short, we had to let her get hungry enough for her to want to eat enough.

The other thing we did was to make every calorie count. We never just gave her an apple (not enough calories in whole fruit, although they are really good for you), we gave her peanut butter to go with it. If we were buying low fat anything for us, we bought her her own container of the highest fat content available (she needed the fat at her age, plus it usually came with more calories, too). But, we had a list of all the calorie/nutrient dense foods and stuck with that! No junk food or empty calories! We also tried to let her pick what she wanted off that list, so it was her idea.

Try not to obsess over it........he will pick up on that and get stressed out about eating. Just be matter of fact about meal times and don't push. The more we push our kids to eat, the less they actually do (even now when they are older). Good luck! He will eventually figure it all out. ;)

i agree with the other posters about the liquids, and especially pediasure - have you ever drank one of those, they are SUPER filling, especially for that tiny body! i bet if you stopped giving those and watch his liquids you could get more food in him.

but since your dr is on top of it keep in contact with him. kids can live off those pediasure things if they have to, for awhile anyway - mine did. but he was seriously ill. if your ped wants him drinking those for the nutrients then you don't want to stop giving them. good luck mama.

I had trouble with weight gain with all three of my children. Ironically enough I breastfed all three of them too. So I don't know if it was me or what but as soon as I quit breastfeeding and they ate more food and drank whole milk they started gaining more weight. Just think of things that are higher in fat to give him to eat. That is, if he will eat it!! I usually give my kids shredded cheddar cheese, yogurt, baked beans. Since he is a year you can give him peanut butter on whole wheat toast or something. I even got my younger one to eat avocado which is high in the "good" fat.
I am still going through it with my younger son. He is 16 months old and only weighs about 17-18 lbs or so. Both my youngest son and middle son lost weight so I know exactly what you are going through!! It is very stressful trying to cram as much food as possible into them before the next weight check!! Good luck and I am sure everything will be fine. It sounds like developmentally he is doing just fine so that is a good thing.

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My son just turned 2 in June. He was diagnosed with a feeding (swallowing) disorder at 6 months of age. He was diagnosed by our children's hospital and was later sent to feeding therapy. Cincinnati Children's hospital has a GREAT interdisciplinary feeding team. You might ask your pediatrician to send you for a referral there or if there is a team closer in Cleveland maybe. It was the BEST thing we did for our son. He still goes to feeding therapy every month or two and our son (who'd dropped from the 90th percentile to below the 25th percentile in weight) has levelled off.

As for the pediasure, it's a bit of a double edged sword. He needs the calories, but it does fill them up. So, what we did about 1 year old is ONLY give our son pediasure before bed and whole milk 2x during the day and VERY watered down juice or water other times he was thirsty. This way, he wasn't filling up on liquids. We also restricted liquids during meal times (especially milk) until after he's eaten at least SOME food.

Feeding therapy is what I would recommend because they can give you LOTS of tips and suggestions on how to encourage eating and how to expand the list of things he's willing to eat in a way that is less stressful. I, like you, felt like EVERYTHING was a battle with him. Now, we still have to set boundries (like no, you aren't done with lunch after one bite) but it's MUCH MUCH better than it was because we were and are being given tools to assist in the "battle".

Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions whatsoever!!

Blessings,
Jenni

well- I know it is hard a have a now five year old that used to be really sensitive when it came to food coming anywhere near him.....i believe that he had some severe "sensory disorders" look this up,eating can not be the only symptom of this they can have issues with sensitive hearing etc. as my son did .it
did get better,although i did work with him. he is a big boy now and a terrific eater. the weird thing is on his 5 year check up today she was looking at his tongue and said did anyone ever bring to your attention that he is a little tongue tied and i said no and she said underneath his tongue well the white thing that is up under your tongue i guess atone time it made his tongue kinda like bent almost so that it was not thrusting when he would go to eat(kinda weird)but anyways i learned that might have also been a cause.kids with sensory issues are bothered by textures in food and will gag,can even gag by the smell. anyways,not sure if that is your issue or not but if so the mouth just has to get kinda used to feeling and tasting etc. the mouth has to train so to speak. just a thought,but do keep with the pediasure that was a gift from god for my son and his weight and growth....expensive i know but it was all i had to help when he was going through this.

If he wont eat real food would he take to your breast? If so then sounds like he likes what Mommy has to offer. He is 1 now so he could be one whole milk. You might want to see if you can mix some formula with whole milk so he is getting nutrient. my Daughter started walking by 10 months. She was down to the 20th % at 1 year but she was back up to the 50th by 15 months. Try getting someone else to feed him. Explore and see what he will like. I have always offered cheese slices, eggs (at 1 year) for dinner I chop up chicken or hot dogs, mac and cheese and veggies and I leave. I dont let the baby see me...anymore now I usually turn the tv on (I know that is bad) but she seemed to eat more when she would watch it.
Good luck

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A friend of mine recently went through your same situation. Her husband is even a pediatrician, but they couldn't figure out how to get her to eat, and she was barely on the weight scale.
LONG story short, they found that all the milk and pediastuff they were giving her throughout the day was a contributing factor. Once mom took away the milk grazing, the daughter slowly started eating at meals and now doesn't have an issue. This may or may not help your son.
Another suggestion is that, upon request, I can share more with you about a children's nutritional product that far supersedes pediasure and has helped numerous children in your son's situation.
Wish you the best!

I do believe that children know when they are hungry. I can only say that my experience of trying to get both my girls to gain weight was to make sure you are offering lots of high fat food to them, whole milk, and whole yogurt, avocados, cheese with full fat, full fat cottage cheese, yup, mashed potatoes, juice instead of water, go ahead and add butter to his veggies, put a little cream on diced fruit, etc. Not junk food but food that you and I would buy and eat the lowfat kind. Having said that both my girls are just skinny and although they did gain weight on this strategy not that much. Just double check that you aren't feeding him a "lowfat diet" at his age. They'll need that soon but not yet. And yep, keep offering him food. Good luck!