Hello everyone...I am just writing as I am having some problems with my 16 month old. He used to be such a good eater but now he just won't eat savoury foods. What can I do? I can't force feed him,and he is still too young to completely understand that he needs to eat his tea - ie, I give him fruit as a last resort as I don't want him to starve!!!! He only accepts sweet stuff (hence lots of fruit) or tinned/pre-made savoury stuff - I want him to eat fresh, savoury foods. I do give in and give him the ready toddler foods but feel like a failure, plus it costs a fortune! I want him to be getting fresh vegetables and meat inside himself. Has anyne got any ideas? Could this just be a phase? Thanks x

hi ya my son is still on the jar as he wont touch our meal ie fresh and he can b really funny with too lumpy food ive een to many hv and doctors but they all say he will grow out of it but like you its costing a bomb every week on jars he will eat bread sticks, yogurts,jaffa cakes , and stuff but not meals that i prepare it goes in and he spits it out i was told once to stop giving jars to him and only offer our food so we did this for 3 days but went though hell as he never ate anything so was up all nite cos he was hungry so im doing it my way he is eating well with the jars so thats wot he has one day he will like us but there is no rush . sorry i cant b of any more help x

I've got the same thing and it's driving me mad, especially when OH moans about buying jars, he rarely feeds him or comes up with any suggestions so I just tell him to sod off! Ethan will eat tinned or baby spag bol but not mine and tinned stuff usually has too much salt. I just can't seem to get him off baby food either.

Only thing I could think of is mixing savoury and sweet together, things like pear and avocado or just sweet veg like b.nut squash or sweet potato chunks.

My friend did the same as sarahaston29 and it worked for her, like her hv said - they won't starve! I'm not sure though as my lo is really skinny and needs to put weight on so I might wait til I try that idea.
At the end of the day they won't go to school eating baby food so you might just have to wait it out, unless he is very stubborn?! How old is he?

i had a slightly different problem but basically my son would never eat his tea because he was too tired/ said he wasn't hungry. we'd end up giving him a jam sandwich which obviously isn't ideal but we wanted him to be able to sleep at night. i started giving him more of a main meal at lunch time to make sure he was getting a proper meal and then if he didn't want it he would not get anything else which in the day time isn't as much of a big deal but normally he would eat ok in the day. i think it was mainly a tired issue with him. its also not ideal to give him his main meal in the day if we are out or if its his day at the childminder!
also i know this sounds stupid but if i offer to feed him then he will eat it whereas if he has to do it himself he can't be bothered. (not helped by a spoon fed baby in the house)
he also finds chewing quite tiresome. (he must just be really lazy!) if i cut up savoury things like meat into tiny pieces and mix it in a sauce or a gravy he finds it a lot easier. he will also have pretty much anything if we put it in bread and make it into a sandwich. he is a bit strange. cottage pie sandwich anyone? yes it actually works. sigh.
also he gets hungry at the wrong times so i'll often give him his lunch at 10 in the morning rather than filling him up on snacks.
i think they do go through stages of being hungry and filling up and not really needing anything. since i've weaned my youngest i've noticed that he eats easily lots more than the three year old! the hv said it was normal because at the rates they 're each growing.

I'm really sorry i'm not more help - i would say though defiantely don't force feed him. no child will starve themselves and you don't want more of an issue of this. my son quickly clicked on to the fact that it would really get our attention if he didn't eat his tea so now we try not to react too much! easier said than done i know.
good luck!

My heart goes out to you. I don't have this problem so this is only a suggestion not a tried and tested plan.... could you try mixing some fresh stuff in with the jars? Maybe start with some carrot diced into small chunks, Its sweet and fairly soft. Maybe your lo won't notice. It should bulk out your jars and make them go further.
Good Luck.

hia hun, what works for us is that in asda they do steam bags for £2 i put a few chopped veg in with a bit of butter some mint or a wee bit of honey and pop it in the micro for 4 mins and all the veg comes out super soft, sweet and flavoured with the butter and stuff, if i give ella boiled veg she just plays with it but if i make it taste of something she likes it, also i blend up veg into a puree and mix it with pasta sauce she dont know its there lol

loopylas its so hard aint it i spoke to hv again other day and she said again to stop jars and never go back and he should at his age b eating our food ans she said only offer him wot we r having if he dont want it then take it away and offer nothing else eventually he will gt the picture and eat it but i just cant bring myself to do it .if ya wanna chat i have msn and bubub i tghink im gonna try your idea of steamed in micorwave with bit of honey on it see how we go

I had simiar proble with Niini a while ago and time to time she comes back to that attitude. She wouldn,t eat anything fresh or rather which needed chewing but we kep on trying. Initially I put fresh stuff with baby food she liked and also tried to cook food with similar taste e.g. Veg medley, pasta and bean pot. She is gradually coming round to the idea of having food cooked by me but still not ready to chew things like chapati and not even boiled vegetable. I come back from work around the time when she is very tired and usually not very welcoming to teh idea of having honmemade food so still give her ready food sometime but whenever possible I cook fresh food for her and mash it to make it easy to swallow just to put some healthy stuff in her stomach also choose time like when her favorite 'in the night garden' 'little cook big cook' is on TV so she is distracted and have some food in confusion. The downside is it takes hours to feed her and when both me and my husband in hurry ( morning) and tired ( evening) it becomes frustrating but we don't give up and definitely feed her with some of the fresh food if not all.

Hope this gives you some courage to cope

Hi Sara, you know i don't think i'm going to do it, the 'just giving em what we eat' and nothing else. I go back to uni next week and I can't expect my friend who looks after him to keep cooking things and wasting them.

I've got a gut feeling it's just not right to expect him to change and get used to it in a day or 2, like you said you did it for 3 days and it didn't work. Also especially not while he's so skinny and i'm trying put weight on him (did you see my other post? He's on 91st centile for length and under 25th for weight and only put 3 oz on in 4 months so he's having cream in everything!)

He was eating a Dairylea sandwich last night which is a breakthrough and he eats yorkshire puddings and chips now which should fatten him up but he just loves fruit, not chocolate (wish I was the same lol!)

I'm still gonna try though. He can have his jars for his tea about 4:30 but no pudding and when we have ours later he can try some of that. That way I won't get as stressed out because it's not like I made it specially for him and he can have a pudding if he doesn't like it? The main problem for me is that he has to be playing with a toy while he eats and he's getting harder to distract as he gets older. If i let him do it himself he just messes with it unless it's fruit or crisps.

I suppose he's not always going to be on jars. The whole point of eating is to eat a variety of healthy foods and that's what he does, we should try not to get annoyed but it does drive me mad!

Let me know if you come up with any ideas you want to share,
Clair
xx

hi ya well tyler too needs alot of distraction with his feed times i put vt on and give him toys and get girls to play with him but like you it is getting harder and he is even refusing jars at mo but he is now having a sandwich im giviong it one by one and he seems to b eating it which is great cos normaly he wont he squashes it and plays with it i to thinking of giving him his dinner and then when we sit down give him a little of wot we have and see how it goes.

i have tries spagetti hoops but he just looked at them then they went on the flor he did put coupl in his mouth so i might try again every other day

he also ate nestle cookie crisp breakfast today the whole bowl which he never has done i normally have to do ready brek so i was well impresed with him . im sure we will get there soon so will you