Getting my son to eat food again
Feb. 27th, 2011 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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plan_surviveI thought we had this mostly solved. But no.
V is 13 months old. He is still breastfed several times a day. He was offered solids from 6 months old but until about 9 months old, he really didn't do what you'd call eating. Since then he's reasonably steadily consumed both more food and a wider variety. So far so good.
Until this week. Last weekend he vomited a couple of times and had diarrhoea. (Later in the week my husband and I developed this too, simultaneously. And our car broke down the same day in sympathy.) And now he appears superficially well, but he won't eat. We're back at the "lick a cracker" level of solid food intake that corresponded with him being about 7mo. He seems hungry: he is breastfeeding many times a day, and up to six times at night (up from a usual two). With my own illness, and a supply now adapted to a partially-breastfed solids eater rather than an exclusively breastfeeding baby, I am not meeting his demand. He is taking ages and ages to go to sleep at night, I suspect from hunger. He is in a poor mood a lot of the time.
We offer him plenty of food. He picks it up and drops it on the ground, or pushes it away and cries. My husband wonders if it's simply that he's taking a long time to feel good again. (My husband himself usually cannot eat more than 1 meal a day for a full week after vomiting stops.) Which would be fine (if sad) except that he seems to be actually hungry but not willing to eat.
One good thing: in addition to breast milk, he is taking water well and does not show any signs of dehydration that I am aware of.
Did anyone else have trouble getting a toddler to eat well again, post-illness? What did you do?
To answer some questions from last time my family was sick: our closest family lives about an hour away and most considerably further than that, and our parents are either still working full time or unable to travel. This is largely also true of our friends. None of them are willing to risk the pretty much inevitable acute illness that gastro entails in any case. So, no, there is no one who will drop in and give us a bit of a break.
V is 13 months old. He is still breastfed several times a day. He was offered solids from 6 months old but until about 9 months old, he really didn't do what you'd call eating. Since then he's reasonably steadily consumed both more food and a wider variety. So far so good.
Until this week. Last weekend he vomited a couple of times and had diarrhoea. (Later in the week my husband and I developed this too, simultaneously. And our car broke down the same day in sympathy.) And now he appears superficially well, but he won't eat. We're back at the "lick a cracker" level of solid food intake that corresponded with him being about 7mo. He seems hungry: he is breastfeeding many times a day, and up to six times at night (up from a usual two). With my own illness, and a supply now adapted to a partially-breastfed solids eater rather than an exclusively breastfeeding baby, I am not meeting his demand. He is taking ages and ages to go to sleep at night, I suspect from hunger. He is in a poor mood a lot of the time.
We offer him plenty of food. He picks it up and drops it on the ground, or pushes it away and cries. My husband wonders if it's simply that he's taking a long time to feel good again. (My husband himself usually cannot eat more than 1 meal a day for a full week after vomiting stops.) Which would be fine (if sad) except that he seems to be actually hungry but not willing to eat.
One good thing: in addition to breast milk, he is taking water well and does not show any signs of dehydration that I am aware of.
Did anyone else have trouble getting a toddler to eat well again, post-illness? What did you do?
To answer some questions from last time my family was sick: our closest family lives about an hour away and most considerably further than that, and our parents are either still working full time or unable to travel. This is largely also true of our friends. None of them are willing to risk the pretty much inevitable acute illness that gastro entails in any case. So, no, there is no one who will drop in and give us a bit of a break.
