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.
