Muffins Are On Today’s “Yum” List
Hmm…Muffins!, originally uploaded by Yano.
It’s been a challenge lately to get Ben to eat. He had croup a couple weeks ago, and he’s still got a pretty bad cough. Even before he was sick, he was a very picky eater. One day he’d like chicken nuggets, the next day he hated them. 
One day he loves apples, the next they’re being thrown across the room. I’ve finally opened my Deceptively Delicious that I got for Christmas and this weekend will try some recipes. If you haven’t heard of the book yet, it basically shows you how to hide vegetables in “regular”, tasty food. I’ll let you know how the recipes go, but the dishes seem pretty tasty. Friday I’ll try out the spinach/carrot brownies!
I’m paranoid that even though he’s been having his daily gummy vitamin, he isn’t getting enough nourishment. Sometimes I feel like a baby skeleton is walking around my house. Fine, not that bad, but he’s almost 2 years old and he still needs to hit the 24lb mark. The doctor has said it’s nothing to be alarmed about, that even though he’s in the 15% percentile it’s still in the OK range. But as a mom, I can’t help but worry. I’ve broke a little and bought some cookies and ice cream, just to get some food in him (and I admit, I like it too!) but hopefully he gets some of what little appetite he had back.
Being a mom of a toddler myself I often had similar worries. A few moms recommended the following book to me, Preventing Childhood Eating Problems: A Practical, Positive Approach to Raising Children Free of Food & Weight Conflicts by Jane R Hirschmann, C.S.W. and Lela Zaphiropoulos, C.S.W. It is an older book but I believe it really touches on how to help your child be comfortable with food and it talks about teaches your child self-demand feeding. Basically this means your child eats when he is hungry and decides what he wants to eat. You honor this and your child grows up not bingeing on special foods because they were not forbidden or ever treated differently the vegetables. It talks about if you did a diary of your child’s eating for 2 weeks in self-demand eating. He would eat a balanced meal over the course of time AND eat the same amount of calories each day. That your child body knows what it needs. I’ve been reading it and applying it to Emma and well us too - and it is working well!
So yes it is normal for toddlers to like one food one day and not the other. It is because their bodies crave what they need. Emma will eat dairy one day, protein the next, grains after that, and so on. We give her choices and let her pick and always ask if she is hungry (even though she is not really sure what that means yet!)
I highly recommend the book. I have heard lots about the cookbook you got as well. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet. Mostly because it isn’t teaching my child to grow up with good eating habits, it is just tricking them. Just my opinion though!
By the way, Ben looks healthy and happy in the picture and that should be the most important factor in his growth. Those charts are only guidelines!
Thanks, Amy! I’ll look up that book…
don’t worry honey, i went through the SAME thing! especially since ayden was a preemie, he’s always been in the lower percentage for height/weight gain. as long as he’s always gaining, even if it’s a little bit, he’ll be fine. mykel always tells me that ayden will never want for food, so not to worry. i try not to force him to eat anything or eat too much, but it’s really hard sometimes since he’s a skinny minnie too. he’s also very active, so that’s another thing to keep in mind. =)
by the way…i took ayden to the doctor last wednesday, and he weighs a whopping 30 lbs. and he’s almost three…so don’t fret…we just have active kids. and with the rise of obesity in america, our little guys are just fine!
Take Ben to Super Dawg….
You need to keep genetics in mind also.