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Stressing out over fussy eaters?

Ever since I can remember, food has always been a big love of mine. Big!!! I don’t know if it was my first love, but it certainly came very high on my priority list. It was like air! Sight and smells of food would cause me heart palpitations and my pupils would dilate. Even at five! Naturally, my first daughter took after me seeing that we used to fight over Tim Tams since she was 2 years old but nothing prepared me for my 2nd daughter, who was just not into food. What happened? She can NOT be my daughter if she does not love food! And just for the record, her father is also a food lover like her mama, so what happened?

After 12 months of attempted ‘force’ feeding (meaning we tried REALLY hard till there wasn’t an ounce of energy left of us), I slowly began the journey of ACCEPTANCE that I had a fussy eater on my hands. Fussy with a capital F. Fussy, fussy, fussy……

My baby is now 13 months old.

At the age of 5 months, we’d started her on baby cereal upon doctors’ orders as she’d stopped gaining weight. She was an exclusively breastfed baby and for some reason, my breast milk stopped giving her enough nutrition to gain weight which was very worrying for the doctors, who in turned scared me. She was advised to start formula feeds but it took at least 4 months of perseverance before she took to the bottle and increasing amounts of formula. She would refuse formula by bottle, spoon, cup and the only way to get any formula into her was to mix it with cereal and so for a few months, she would only have 1 scoop of formula per day. Sometimes, I’d even add it to her Chinese Porridge – talk about fusion food! For 6 entire months, she had formula cereal for breakfast with some fruit thrown in and Chinese porridge for lunch and dinner. Sometimes, I’d make her a Western meal but she would mostly frown upon it and not eat. She loved her porridge and would only eat porridge so porridge daily it was. FOR SIX MONTHS!!! For all this time, she ate well (between 100-180ml portions per meal) but drank no formula and still put on very little weight (250g per month).

Towards her 1st birthday, she’d finally started taking a little formula (30ml at first, and boy did we celebrate!) and this amount increased gradually till now (600ml per day). She’s still putting on very little weight so I’ve accepted that she’s just a small baby with a very high metabolic rate. She is barely 8kg. The doctors had diagnosed her as Failure To Thrive as she was way below the growth charts, the breastfeeding growth charts at that. But developmentally, she was on track and bright as a shining star so really, we had nothing to worry about. They said.

We went to Australia after her 1st birthday and suddenly, baby girl decided that she had had enough of porridge. Despite bringing the whole shebang of porridge equipment which comprised a freezer bag, a dozen small baby tupperwares for freezing and a hot food flask for bringing her precious porridge around town, since up to then porridge was the only thing she’d eat, baby boss suddenly decided that she no longer wanted porridge. She had discovered French Fries!!! And because it was the only thing she’d eat, we stuffed her with French Fries every day, removing the salt. Ever since we came back though, we’d been making our own home baked French Fries. It’s the only thing she eats now. She’s one WEIRD baby, I’m telling you!!

She is completely NON-experimental with food and if at all successfully coaxed, sure has a mind of her own to know what she likes and what she does not like. And to my stress and anxiety, she does not like a lot. On her favourite menu list – potatoes (not mashed, not boiled, it has to be in stick form, like French Fries), banana (not mashed, and not cut up; she has to eat it from the whole stick where she gets to bite the pieces off), chocolate (she will take this in any form but even then depending on mood), bread (depending on mood), apple and pear (it has to be steamed and cut into cubes), cheese cubes, fish (will eat very minute portions, like one teaspoons worth) and NOTHING ELSE. We continuously introduce new food all the time, various pastas, vegetables cooked in all forms, rice, meat, fruit, biscuits, you name it - nothing has worked. Baby girl would look at it and shake her head. She wouldn’t even give it a chance. If you encouraged her, she’d push the spoon away, and if you persisted, she’d start yelling at you, and does SHE have a fierce yell!

I’ve accepted that I have an anorexic baby. Oh, I’m only kidding!!! I have a fussy eater. Period. And I really have nothing to worry since she is extremely mobile and clearly intelligent. The Doctor also said she was completely normal, looking at her eyes and responses, after checking her inside out. She will discover the joy of food one day. And if it is any consolation, it is much safer to have a lean baby than an obese baby. So let me assure you, if your baby isn’t eating much but still drinking milk and gaining weight slowly, JUST CHILL.

IT. IS. OKAY.

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