Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Won't eat

Over the past several weeks, it seems that Will's appetite has been dwindling rather than increasing. And lately, it's been hard to get him to eat anything. It is starting to get to me. In the past, he would be finicky about eating every once and a while... we'd just give him an extra spoon to play with while we were feeding him and everything was fine. Then one day he took a special interest in the bowl that the food was in and started grabbing for that instead of eating. So I just gave him an extra bowl to play with, and we were fine again. Now that doesn't even work. Every bite of food I manage to get into his mouth takes enormous effort. I basically have to "trick" him (i.e., distract him) to get him to open his mouth and eat. He does somewhat better with the finger foods, and I thought, well maybe he's reached the stage where he just wants to feed himself. But that doesn't work so great either. He'll eat a few little bits of something I put on the tray and then lose interest. He actually seems to prefer to take little bits of food out of my hand rather than the tray. It makes our mealtimes go on forever. Seriously, I think I spent an hour trying to get any dinner in him tonight. Whenever I try to put the spoon to his face, he whips his head away from me and puts his hand up, in a very "talk to the hand" manner. Ugh, I don't like this. I'm so afraid that it is because I was so sick while I was pregnant. There is very little research on children of hyperemetic women (something I hope to remedy if I can ever get my career going), but anecdotal evidence suggests that HG babies tend to have more problems eating, food aversions, etc than non-HG babies. Some HG babies have really awful problems with food. I hope that's not what's happening. I hope that it's just a phase... something normal that every 10-month old baby goes through for a little while and then snaps out of. I don't want to look it up in a book or on the internet, because if there isn't anybody out there who says it's normal, then that will just make me worry all the more.

Hoping for better luck at breakfast in the morning.

4 comments:

Krysten said...

Hey Melissa - my daughter, Sadie - has always been an excellent eater. But, in the past week, she has wanted nothing to eat and only wants to drink a bottle. She's 21 months now, so she's on 2% milk at this point. I was a little concerned myself, but the doctor said it wasn't that unusual and as long as she's "drinking" her nutrition I shouldn't worry about it! So, I'm trying not to! I think the heat sometimes make food unappetizing - I know that's certainly the case for me! :) Hang in there!

Suellen said...

Melissa - My daughter, Parker went on a hunger strike around 10 months and wouldn't eat any solid food (really) for 2 months straight. I think she was just really frustrated that she couldn't eat all the big people food we were. She's not a great eater now, but is in the 90 something percentile for both height and weight, so I think she's okay. It's REALLY frustrating though. I dreaded meal time. Hang in there.

Cathy said...

I think every kid goes on a bit of a hunger strike, as they transition from baby food to table food. As long as he's still nursing ok, he's not going to waste away. The most important thing is that he keeps growing on a curve! If he's not gaining weight THEN you might have something to worry about. Both my boys wouldn't take bottles and weren't too keen on eating, but they seem to do better if they are eating what we eat. Then again, both my boys have had problems, so maybe I'm not the one to give advice. I will say, Go with your Gut. If you suspect this isn't just a hunger strike, or teething, but a new trend in habits,

Cathy said...

then perhaps contact First Steps or your pediatrician to have him assessed. They can always say he's Fine, and that you're just being a worrywort.