After my last post about Truett’s eating, things got a lot more complicated.

Truett has reached a new stage; the stage of  refusing to eat unless we let him feed himself. He’s not a baby ya know! We had been making the unforgivable mistake of spoon-feeding him foods that he would get super messy with/couldn’t feed himself such as oatmeal for breakfast etc and he started refusing to eat.  Several meals in a row for days. I mean, he wouldn’t even let the food into his mouth at all and on the rare occasion that he would open his mouth, he would spit the food out before he even tasted it. We were at a total loss and I was on the verge of panic about him only eating a few hundred calories a day at most for several days in a row when my FIL cut up a hotdog for Tru and Tru ate the whole thing – and most of another hotdog, a cracker,  and 4 or 5 strawberries by himself. It finally clicked. Tru will not eat, or will eat but only very little unless he is allowed to feed himself. Way to be independent!

 

I am hoping that he doesn’t regress again from this stage into refusing to eat food unless it isn’t cut up or something weird like that. For now I’m just happy that he is eating again even if it means that he is getting his clothes changed 3 and 4 times a day. The dog is happy too because he has way more messes to clean up off the floor than he did before.

 

Because I’m still trying to get iron-rich foods into him that he can feed himself (so, no more hot instant oatmeal), I have started mixing baby cereals into 2 of his bottles of whole milk a day. We give him his bottle after his meals and I can get about 2 servings of baby cereal in him which has most of his DV of iron in it. It only makes his milk a little bit thicker and so far he hasn’t seemed to mind really. I made a slightly bigger hole in one of his bottle nipples to accommodate the thicker consistency and it has worked so far. I am happy about that. 🙂

 

For breakfast I have been giving him waffles, homemade banana muffins or crepes sans syrup, or cereal that has soggied up in milk (disgusting!)  followed by his cereal bottle. He has his sippy cup of water with him throughout the day. For lunch I have been making him a burrito shell covered in refried beans and cheddar cheese folded in half and cut into little bites. He likes it but it’s messy! He also likes tuna sandwiches or grilled cheese also cut into little bites. If he’s still hungry, I cut a banana into lots of mushy bites of grossness since he won’t let me hold it while he takes bites of it anymore or some other kind of fruit. This is followed by another cereal bottle. For supper, he has whatever we are eating even if it’s messy. It’s always messy. He has his last bottle of milk after supper. He’s really not a snacker so that’s pretty much the whole day worth of food. He might occasionally eat a few crackers or something but he really isn’t interested in food between mealtimes.

 

I just can’t tell you how relieved I am that he is eating again!! Lesson learned. Some babies are ready to do this feeding thing with no help (thanks mom! no thanks.) before they really have the coordination to do it without help.