Our Story

Elliot was born a perfect little boy. I was lucky enough that I was able to produce lots of breastmilk, and it felt really good to be able to raise Elliot on 100% breastmilk for the first few months of his life. I pumped and bottle fed him about 75% of the time, and nursed the rest of the time.

I pumped so that Elliot’s dad could be more involved in his feedings, so that family could come babysit and give me a little break, and also because nursing wasn’t this magical thing that everyone made it out to be. It hurt. A lot. Like, toe-curling pain when Elliot latched on. The pain went away as he grew, but there was still lots of tenderness. It’s bound to happen when someone is sucking on a sensitive part of your body for hours.

But overall, I feel very lucky that I was able to nurse Elliot for so long.

Introducing Solid Food

I have a food blog where I post lots of recipes, so I could not wait to introduce Elliot to solid foods! I had a plan for making a video of every time he tried a new food. I was sure he was going to love food since I made sure to eat a wide variety of foods, flavors, and spices when I was pregnant and while I was nursing.

Right around 6 months we started trying to give Elliot solid food. He was ready for it. He was always watching us eat, following the fork with his eyes, opening his mouth when I opened my mouth. This was going to be so fun!!!

Here is Elliot, either trying to eat my face or to give me kisses. 

But he refused solid food.

So yea, it felt a little disappointing when he did not want to try any of the usual first foods: applesauce, mashed banana, mashed avocado, baby cereals. He turned his nose up at all of these.

Baby steps

For the next few months we kept offering Elliot baby food purees, and he would eat them, sometimes. Sometimes he enjoyed them, sometimes not so much. Sometimes he threw up afterwards, though we didn’t think much of it at the time. We figured that his little body is still learning how to digest food, and it will get better.

We introduced Puffs and after lots of gagging as he figured out how to eat them, he finally started liking them.

Around 10 months we introduced Cheerios and he loved them.

We gave him pasta and rice and he seemed to be into both!

At one point, he was even loving avocado and fish.

Failure to Thrive

This all sounds great, right? Well during all this time, Elliot had trouble gaining weight. He’s been hovering around 16 pounds from 7 months until his first birthday and he completely fell off the growth chart for weight. This is because he was not eating enough food, and not drinking more breastmilk to compensate. He was also VERY active.

On a good day, he would eat one container of baby food. Other times, it took him 2-3 days to get through one container, or to get through a quarter cup of cooked rice.

Seeking help

Around Elliot’s first birthday, we started working with a gastroenterologist (GI) to see if there is an underlying medical issue preventing him from eating more.

Long story short, there wasn’t anything conclusive that we found out from the GI. Elliot had some reflux and a bit of irritation in his stomach, but nothing to worry about. This was good news, but also made me realize that there isn’t an easy solution to Elliot’s slow weight gain.

Two steps forward…

For the next few months we really focused on nourishing Elliot with as much calorie-dense food as we could. I made my own baby food and add avocado oil and oatmeal for extra calories. I would dream feed Elliot (give him a bottle of milk in his sleep). We put cartoons on during mealtimes so he would stay seated at the high chair long enough to eat. (We later had to figure out how to stop turning on cartoons during mealtimes.... but that was a late problem. Right now the focus was on getting him to enjoy food!)

And it worked! Elliot gained 3 pounds in 3 months. We were almost back on the growth chart!

One step back…

But then suddenly he stopped eating again. There were days where he literally would not eat more than 10 cheerios in a whole day. Some days he drank more milk to compensate (though still not getting enough calories per day). Some days he did not.

And that’s when we decided to find new resources and strategies to help with Elliot’s eating because what we were doing was not working. We started feeding therapy and took online classes about picky eating such as Mealtime Works and learned a lot. 

We started this blog as an outlet to document our daily struggles, celebrate our small mealtime victories, share kid-friendly recipes, write about what works and what doesn’t work for our picky eater, and hopefully show other parents that they are not alone in this.

As Elliot grew into an active toddler, a curious preschooler, and a very sweet and loving little boy, this blog also evolved to include kids' activities. Elliot is now thriving in elementary school. We are still using techniques from feeding therapy to help him expand on his choices of foods, but overall he eats a healthy diet, loves to eat, and is a happy, active, and awesome kid!

What’s your picky eating story? Where in the picky eating journey are you currently? I’d love to read about it in a comment below, or you can also join our Facebook group where you will find like-minded parents. It feels good to know there are others who understand exactly what you are going through.