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Our Daughter Won't Eat

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Our daughter is 31 months old and she weighs 23.5 lbs and is 34.5' tall. She has always been in the 1 to 2 percentile on the growth and BMI chart. She has number of problems related to eating. First of all she does not want to eat ever. If we ask her if she wants to eat, she would never say yes. We have been always spoon feeding her because of that. Feeding times are nightmares for us. She does not like to chew foods so she hates solids. All she likes is semi-solid mashed foods. She does not like any kind of fluids, not even milk. She does not like cookies, chocolates or ice cream either. We occassionally give her cyproheptadin (an anti-allergy medicine which has a side effect of improved hunger in young kids) so that she gets hungry but still she would bite a piece of cookie twice and she will run away. In her 2.5 years of age she has done forceful projectile vomits at the avg rate of 2 times per week throughout (i.e. total of 250 times). Some times she vomited even 4 times in a day. No medicines have worked against her vomiting problem. We have consulted so many specialists and have done so many tests on her including barium test and endoscopy but outcome was always normal. Doctors and other family members suggested that if she self-feeds her she will eat exactly how much she needs and will probably stop vomiting. We have started doing that for past 2 weeks. Now we do not ask her if she wants to eat. If we are eating she shows interest in knowing what we are eating but then she doest not show interest in eating with us. Even if she does that, upon giving her the food she eats one or two bites and then starts playing with it or stops swallowing. She used to take 2 hrs in finishing 8 oz of milk when we were spoon-feeding her. But now after we stopped doing that, she does not even finish 4 oz in 3 hrs. In the whole day today she just drank 6 oz of milk and 1/2 bread and 6-7 french fries. She looks skinnier day-by-day and we are getting more and more worried. We do not understand what is going on. Why does not she appreciate food and why does not she feel hungry? I would really appreciate if someone please give some suggestions about how we should get her to eat.
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replied June 30th, 2009
I saw your post, hoping for some answers. My 15 month old will not eat either. He just refuses all the time. Feeding time is terrible. We have tried everything to no avail. I was hoping to hear some miracle from your post...no such luck. Good luck and God bless. I hope both of our children learn that it is important to eat soon!
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replied June 30th, 2009
Experienced User
Im sorry.. I know thats frusterating.. I dont know how much this will help but i would suggest just letting her eat HEALTHY snack foods on the run..Try small foods she can run around and eat several times a day..Mb just having smalls meals freguently wont make her vomit so much.. Also, have you tried any pediasure? Hope this helps.. If you wanna talk more you can pm me..
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replied June 30th, 2009
Supporter
Hi Junglejenny, I'm going to post this for you since the original post was from 2007. Babies and toddlers love to drive us crazy. If you pay too much attention to their eating habits they will soon learn to stop eating just for the attention. It's kind of fun for them to watch mom and dad fusing and stressing over their food. My advice to you is to give the child their food at mealtime, eat your own food, and don't fuss so much with them. Trust me, they won't starve to death. They will eat when they get hungry enough and realize that you're not playing the game with them anymore. I think there was something else going on with the original poster but in your case, don't give so much attention to the food. Give your child access to healthy snacks and at mealtime just put it in front of them and don't even watch. Let me know if it works.
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replied November 2nd, 2010
my daughter wont eat
My daughter is 16 months old and wont eat either, it has nothing to do with attention seeking or playinig up, she just seems to totally hate food, she was on the 75% line when she was born and up to 9 months when she went onto solids,she has totally rejected food of all types and it is so worrying!
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