Just a little background info in case you are new to this story:
Lauren has never been a fan of food. I always got tired of people saying "Oh, it's just a phase!" It's most definitely not a phase as she's never liked food. She's never been in another phase to compare this to. Her weight really hasn't been an issue because she has steadily gained weight thanks to whole milk & formula. She currently weighs 20 pounds at almost 16 months....small? Yes but she has grown and she's short.
Our meal times consist of this: In the morning, we usually start with YoBaby yogurt. She has good & bad days. One day she will love it, the next she will not. 90% of the time, she starts screaming no and shakes her head. She will flap her hands in every direction and go crazy as I like to call it, ha! If other food options don't work, out comes a full bottle of milk.
Lunch Time: I try cheese toast, applesauce, fruit cut up in small pieces, veggies, crackers, etc. If I'm lucky, she will eat 5 bites of toast, maybe 1 cracker, and possibly fruit. She won't touch cut up fruit, it has to be pureed. More Milk.
Dinner: I've give up on the whole idea "feed her what you eat." We try everything else and barely get anything in her little body. More Milk.
I know that its not normal for a 15 month old to act this way. How can it be? When I'm around other kids her age, they eat finger foods at 15 months, they like goldfish, crackers, fruit, etc. Not our little Lauren.
Every Thursday when I pick her up from school, her teachers tell me that she hasn't eaten AT ALL. After last week, I got so frustrated that I took her right to the Pediatrician. I couldn't take it anymore. He scheduled a swallow study for her this week....
The results came back completely normal. She has no problems swallowing. I'm amazed they could even see anything on the X-Ray. This is what the scene looked like:
In we go to a little X-ray room. It's me, Todd, Lauren, a therapist, & a doctor. Lauren sits in a little booster seat with a X-ray machine around her. She was 100% fine. I was handed a bottle with barium in it (she can't taste that). I was told when to start feeding her. She saw the food and freaked out, screaming, almost fell out of her seat. That obviously didn't work so we tried applesauce. Repeat. Finally I had to give her juice in a syringe. Ugh I felt like the worst mom.
It was concluded that she hates food. DUH! I've said that forever now. I can't tell you how happy I am that someone in the medical field actually saw what we go through every day at meal time. How can a 15 month old hate food???? She definitely didn't get it from her daddy or I. I feel like I've stressed how horrible meal time is in hopes to find a solution and I get told "some kids are just picky" PAH LEASE, picky and hating food period is soooo different. She just goes bananas at the site of most food.
We now go see a food specialist and will start some type of therapy like Occupational, etc. Lauren will learn to love food through therapy....seriously :)
