Hello!
First time mom here. My 15 month old is dropping down in the growth charts...was around 25th percentile but now near the 10th as he weighs a little more than 19 lbs. Ped wants him to gain a bunch of weight to get back to the 25th percentile and gave us a goal of 3-4 lbs in 3 months, ah! He even mentioned possibly weaning him from breastfeeding if he doesn't reach our goal. Which I am not going to force him to wean if he doesn't reach it, I want him to decide when the time comes to wean.
So, here's our history. He was exclusively breastfed, no bottle up until about 11 months old. Even though we tried offering him solids for many months he wasn't interested. We even took MIL advice to force feed him a few times which resulted in him hating the spoon (who could blame him???). He had a very strong gag reflex until 11 months. He's still a very picky eater, doesn't feed himself and will only eat if I hold him while standing up and walking around. And, I have to be eating also. He enjoys a small variety of foods...bananas, hummus, avocado, salsa, samosas, oranges (no skin), apple sauce, cheeses, pasta, crackers, pbj, bagel cream cheese, to name a small list. As I mentioned, he will only eat these things if I hold him and make it fun. He breastfeeds quite a lot still, every hour or so.
So, I have some questions. When he eats, he usually only wants 2-5 good bites before he's done and wants to nurse again. Isn't that strange? Shouldn't he want to eat more? He's not great at swallowing. If I give him a medium bite of pbj or a couple smaller bites within a few minutes, it'll take him 10 minutes before he's ready to swallow it. He doesn't chew at all, just works the food with his tongue. Any way to help encourage him to chew and swallow better? One good thing is that he never spits it out, he'll keep working on it until it's the consistency that he wants to swallow. I feel like I'm constantly trying to offer him food, new foods, familiar foods, etc and he either turns his head and won't eat or will only eat a few bites. The thing is he needs to gain weight, and I want to encourage that as much as possible. The other issue is that when I give him foods that don't dissolve, like kale or we'll cooked broccoli he will just hold it in his mouth...forever! He might accidentally swallow it but many times we have to reach back in and remove it. Any thoughts about that? Our ped just says to continue to offer it and eventually he will learn it's ok to swallow.
He's a very happy guy, looks healthy to me. Strong, active, lots of energy, great sleeper.
Anyone experience any of these issues? All ideas, suggestions, exercises would be much appreciated.
Thanks for reading my loooong post!![]()