my son for about a month has been refusing meals. or just taking ONE bite and saying done. he is eating snacks. but not his meals that he onced loved. he was at the drs yesterday for a cold and he lost 5lbs which the dr didnt care about.
what are some different meal ideas that ur toddlers love???? any tips would be GREAT. need to pack the lbs back hes 25 instead of 30lbs now.
and all he does is bite his nails already. ur kids do this ?
If your son has lost 20% of his body weight and the pediatrician doesn't care, I'd find another pediatrician. That's a huge amount of weight for a child to lose.
As for getting more food into him, make sure his snacks are nutritious. Offer meal foods at snack time. Good luck!
A couple of thoughts -
The cold and snacks might be getting in the way of his appetite.
Be sure that the snacks you offer are foods that he ought to be eating, and foods that won't get in the way of an appetite (a handful of grapes is a lot less filling than a banana, either is preferable to a twinkie).
Or for a more stringent, no nonsense, lots of tears now but perhaps a permanent fix later, you can try my MIL's old school approach.
My MIL infamously decided that she wasn't going to be a short order chef. She offered the same scrambled egg (that he had asked for, and then refused) to my husband for 2+ days until he relented and ate it. From that point forward, he ate everything set before him without challenge.
Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.
My son is 22 mos & a couple higher caloric foods that he likes is fetticini w/ broccoli, bagels w/ cream cheese & jelly ( all fruit), & pizza made w/ bagels. I would also experiment w/ different meal times / how you allow him to eat the meal. Maybe right now , let him eat " on the go" somewhat . Table manners & routine meals may need to wait, to focus on intake.
thats a great deal of weight for a little kid, i;d get another doctor. also meals arent impt at that age if hes snacking non stop on the go, offer snacks likes fruits and veggies and crackers and cheese throughout the day and if hes not eating a good deal I'd go to another dr and check out possible gastro problems
For both my kids they just did not want to sit still very long at that age. They just didn't want to sit at the table to eat. Both are very active and just want to explore. My daughter who is almost 26 months now is starting to get better about sitting at the table. At 20 months I would have her sit and "eat" with me and try to distract her with a toy or book to try to get her to sit a little bit longer. Then after her "meal" I would sit down and feed her the rest of her food while she watched a cartoon or played. That way she still got the food into her. I am not worried about instilling bad habits bc her brother (who is now 7) did this exact same thing at this age and he sits and eats with us just fine now. Do you think you son does not like the food you are serving or do you think he just wants down from the table? My daughter will say she is all done or refuse food just bc she wants to get down. Her snacks are all healthy foods that I would feed at mealtimes (yogurt, fruit, avocados, peanut butter or cream cheese sandwich, pasta, veggies, cheese) and actually are often leftovers from our meals...so I know she is not filling up on not so healthy snacks.
