Mommy is taking over the feedings

Tristan has lost his appetite and he is not eating much or drinking much milk. It has become a power struggle to feed him anything. We refuse to feed him unhealthy things so if he doesn't eat, we just stop feeding him. Having said that, we do try and get him to eat what he will in a hour. We didn't used to have a time limit but now we do. He gets cranky if he has to stay in the highchair too long. If he doesn't finish his food, we just offer it in his next meal.

A good meal is when Tristan eats at least 50% of what we give him. Tonight, he ate about 5%. I didn't feed him since I wanted a break for a change so I let Jean-Louis do it. Needless to say I am much more effective at feeding Tristan and although I absolutely hate meal time these days, I have to take charge and do the feedings from now on or Tristan is going to lose weight. I am so frustrated! No one is to blame and I know Jean-Louis really tries during the feeding too. I pretty much have been helping him feed Tristan the past couple of weeks. Tonight I was fed up and so tired of it so I let him do it all. After I prepared the meal and placed it on the table, I just let him take over. After wards, I was just mad because Tristan pretty much skipped the meal. The hour was up so we just had to move on.

Believe me when I say that we have tried hard and tried everything. We have consulted books and looked online and it seems like a very common problem around this time. That doesn't make it less frustrating though. We prepare finger food for Tristan because he is happy eating that way. As he eats, we also finger feed him because he is picky and ends up chucking most of the food on the floor. This is how it goes. We give him the spoon to play with during meal time so he can learn how to use it. From what I can see, I think he is still far away from feeding himself with a spoon :(

I am happy to cook baby food but these days, we keep having leftovers and I find myself having to cook something new for him almost every day to keep it interesting. I am also starting to throw food away too and those that know me know how I hate to waste food. There you have it - I said hate twice in the same post!

Just to give you an idea of what we have been feeding him lately, the following is a list of what his meals consisted of today. Note, besides breakfast, he didn't eat everything we offered him. He also gets 2 sessions of breastmilk feeding and 1 bottle of formula.

BREAKFAST

• 4-5 heaping tbsp Multigrain cereal (flavored with fruit)
• 2 tbsp of plain high-fat yogurt
• 1-2 tbsp of cooked apple
• water
• 1 ml Vitamin D

LUNCH

• 1 tbsp of tomato
• 3-4 slices of chayotes
• 2-3 tbsp of baked kabocha squash
• 5 pieces of whole wheat rotini
• small chunk of overcooked veal
• few peas & corns
• 1/5 slice of whole wheat bread
• 1 tbsp of mozzarella
• A few nutrios
• water

DINNER

• The leftover lunch (2 slices of chayotes, smaller chunk of veal, some tomato)
• 3 tbsp tomato
• 5 pieces of whole wheat rotini
• 2 tbsp of overcooked lima beans
• 1-2 tbsp of fruit (pomegranate seeds & banana)
• water