one year old w/ diminished appetite

[@llli*coolranchdressing]

hello,
my daughter is 12.5 mo and has started solids at 6 mo. initially she had a good appetite for solids (pureed) but recently (last mo) her appetite seems to have diminished. She is drinking homo milk now (was exclusively on breastmilk) and drinks that well as long as it's room temperature.
she is in the 5-15%le; always has been
her one year old check up is for next week

she used to eat 3 meals a day and 2 snacks. now Im lucky if I get the 3 meals in.
this is her menu:

-breakfast: sit her in her highchair, feed her infant -cereal. She used to scarf that down but now only eats 1/2 of what she used to and isn't eager to eat it. then she outright refuses and after awhile I take her out of the chair (she may be in it for 15-30 min and I try to encourage her by eating my cereal) and then offer her food as she's wandering/playing around. she'll eat this way much better when she's distracted. I know this is a very bad habit but Im worried she wont get the calories in. she is a very active toddler, always been...always looking for action.

-lunch: garlic toast w/ melted cheese. I sit down w/ her while shes in her chair and eat the same thing. she likes this. however, once again after awhile she'll start to refuse and so I go back to let her play and feed her a few more bites to finish off the small slice of toast. I'll offer her about 1 ice cube tray of fruit that I made for her that's slightly de-frosted. she no longer accepts pureed things so I've even made little "drops" of her pureed fruits on aluminum foil and froze them so they're bite-sized. she accepts these

-dinner: whatever we're having and if she wont eat it then another item from her pre-made meals that I've made.

she will eat: cheese, egg yolk, banana, avocado, etc
she no longer eats: yogurt (I think b/c its soft texture similar to the puree)

I'm worried that she is a picky eater as well as these bad habits of not wanting to eat her full meal at the dinner table. My sister and I were also very bad eaters as kids. my sister still is (takes her 1 hr to finish dinner and she plays w/ her food/picks at it....but Im sure its good for her metabolism!).

does she just know how much her body needs?

what should I do?

[@llli*mommal]

Babies grow fastest in the newborn stage, and then their rate of growth gradually and progressively slows. 1 year old babies are notorious for a decrease in appetite for this reason- they're just not growing as fast as they did even a few short months previously, and as a consequence they need fewer calories.

Babies and toddlers are natural snackers. They tend to want to eat a little bit of food and then run off to play, returning for more food when they are hungry. So making your child sit at the table for meals is probably a losing battle. It may help to create a "nibble tray" full of healthy whole foods for your child to pick at. Things like fresh fruit and vegetable pieces, bits of cheese, whole-grain bread with peanut butter, cream cheese, or avocado spread... Foods that she can grab and eat on the run. Trust her to get her needs met, and don't worry about her eating habits now, when she's so young. There's a lot of change that will happen naturally, without you needing to force it.

[@llli*sonogirl]

It's also very possible that your daughter no longer really appreciates the purees at this point. If she seems disinterested in the cereal at breakfast, why not try a different food? Something perhaps with texture, if that seems more to her liking? Toddlers really do love finger foods, it gives them something to "play" with while they eat! She may also want more control over what she is eating, rather than being fed by someone else. My own 12.5 month daughter has NEVER let anyone feed her anything--but she's been a voracious solids-consumer this whole time, as long as she's been allowed to feed herself!

[@llli*zaynethepain]

I agree that the year mark is simply a time when babies need less to eat until they got another growth spurt. And yeah, she's probably bored eating the same thing every day. I would say my son is a great eater and he ate huge amounts of his favorite foods as an older infant. But as he approached the year mark, his favorites just no longer did the trick for him. He has days as a toddler where he eats barely a few bites and others where he out eats me. I just make sure to offer a healthy variety of foods through out a week period. Family dinner time at the table is an important part of our evening but I don't care how much he eats so long as he sits with us for few minutes. I think it's way more important to teach him to follow his natural hunger and satisfied cues than the idea that the plate must be emptied.

[@llli*coolranchdressing]

thanks for the replies ladies!
the other dilemma is that she doesn't feed herself...for some reason she wants me to feed her. I keep trying to encourage her to place food in her mouth but after the initial 2 bites or so, she just starts to play w/ the food and not eat it herself. I will keep trying to offer her this tho'.
So if she isn't eating baby cereal what else should I offer that contains some of the supplements in the cereal (iron, etc)?

thanks again

[@llli*mommal]

In place of fortified cereals, offer a variety of healthy whole foods. For iron, serve her meats, beans, fish, and leafy greens.

[@llli*lllmeg]

does she just know how much her body needs?

Probably! If your baby is not feeding herself, perhaps she is not all that hungry. Which is fine. toddlers as a rule are picky eaters. Later they may or may not become more adventurous. As far a I am aware, there are no studies that show that children who are picky as toddlers are picky as adults. It is fine to offer your baby a variety of foods, but if all your baby eats is one thing, and not much of that, that is probably entirely normal and fine.

My daughter started solids at 7 months. She ate very little at first, almost nothing, and I was only offering once a day. At around 10 months she ate more. Then very little again for a while. She is about to turn 16 months and suddenly she is eating everything in sight! Well, not really. But she is eating much more. For example, She likes deli roasted turkey, and before she might eat a couple tiny pieces and now she will a whole slice, and ‘ask’ for more. (But then she only eats one more bite.)
My middle child barely ate a single thing until he was 14 months old and was very very picky as a toddler. As a 7 year old, he will voluntarily try anything I eat. And if he likes, it, he will want it all which can get annoying if it was something I only ordered for myself!
My sister and I are less than 2 years apart and ate exactly the same things (and there was very little variety and it was all pretty bland) for our entire childhoods. But starting at about age 12 and continuing as an adult, I have always been very excited to try new foods and my sister remains picky (although it gets better all the time, I joke with her she will be really adventurous in her eating by the time she is 75!)

A very very good book on the subject of young children and food is My Child Won't Eat by Carlos Gonzalez, a pediatrician. I highly recommend this book. I have stopped stressing entirely (well almost) about my children's various eating idiosyncrasies since reading this wonderful book.

[@llli*coolranchdressing]

hi ladies,
thank you for your responses. I will research that book you offered above. I just had my daughter in for her yearly check up (12 mo) and my pediatrician wasn't too concerned either. She continues to be in the same percentile as always. He just thinks she's an "early" picky eater/doesn't need too much food b/c she is so small anyways. I guess as a mom there is always something to stress about! but I'm getting better!!
thanks again!