While chatting with Pei Sze this morning, I took the idea of blog about how picky Charlotte is when comes to food. The intention of the chat was to find out which are the good play schools to send Charlotte to before Brenda goes home at the end of year 2008. Somehow, we touched on food and our chat went on...
When it comes to food, Charlotte is way far behind other kids around her age. I always pray that Charlotte would be soon like Hin Lerk, Bryan and even young little Ethan and Ching Ern every time I read their mommy blog about food they enjoyed and self-feeding skill they have developed.
I don't know where to start about this, maybe I should begin with Charlotte's milk consumption. Her milk intake was never more than 6oz. Most of the time (maybe 90% of the time) she only finished 4oz. I still make 6oz for her every time hoping for that 10% chance.
Charlotte stopped taking porridge around her 14th or 15th month, she prefers rice. Not only porridge, she doesn't like cereal, oatmeal, or any kind of food that is semi-solid including papaya! We started to feed her rice for lunch and dinner, with another meat and soup as side dish. She doesn't like fish and used to throw-up each time we feed her fish. Also, she refuses the same dish/soup at dinner if we already feed her at lunch. This is also applicable for her favorite food and vitamins, don't think that I can keep repeating it day after day, it is not even meal after meal. I bought a bottle of multi-vits for her from my recent US trip. It is Gummy Bear multi-vits for children. Prior to this, I bought the multi-vits from Amway. Charlotte took for 1 week and totally refused it after that. Then I bought the Appeton multi-vits, it also lasted for only 1 week. She loves the gummy bear multi-vits and I thought bingo! Now (after1 month), she will still ask for it but she only chew for fun and spit it out.
I tried all sorts, pastas, noodles, steam egg, fried egg, steam fish, fried fish, cheese, crackers, yogurt, grapes, apples, cantaloupe ...If she accepts the food, I can get her to finish it with a lot of patience and run around. She takes average 1hour to finish 1 small bowl of rice. Sometimes, she even decides no solid for the day but only milk!
Once I thought, maybe it's my cooking! Then again, she behaves the same way with her grandma's cooking, restaurants, hotels, kopi tiam...I also thought if I let her explore feeding herself maybe she will find fun in it and eat more! Bad idea, she hardly put anything in her mouth but only played with the food and made a lot of mess!!!
Patience, patience and more patience is the only way to get her eat. My only worried now is what to do when she goes to school...
Wow, I thought if she only take milk, she might takes at least 6oz per feeding but 4oz? What is the lag then? Have you tried Milo? But don't let her suck from bottle, use straw by cup becuase some children might reject milk from bottle after they had Milo from bottle. Milo is a bit heaty.
ReplyDeleteAnd I blend banana+milk+ice (banana smooties) for Hin Lerk sometimes when the weather is hot. Maybe can tried it out, especially when she rejects solid, you can substitute with other fruits if you want to.
Check with other mothers and see what are thier toddlers favourite and you might want to try on Charlotte.
I don't realise that she is that picky from our chat. Hope that you can find solution soon, at least some food to get her opens her mouth and swallows.
Smoothies sounds like a good idea! I remember she loves it when we bought one from the New Zealand ice-cream stall at Q-mall. But I don't think i want to give her milo because she only poo-poo once in every 4-5 days (not constipation though).
ReplyDeleteThanks Pei Sze, thanks for the great suggestions!
Have you tried yogurt or yogurt drinks? That bodes well with most kids.
ReplyDeleteTried both yogurt and yogurt drinks. She used to love yogurt and now she only finish 1/3 of the usual amount (sigh!)
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