Picky Eater

Like with almost everything, Henley Jane is turning out to be opposite of her brother...Lash was a great eater and Henley is not. She enjoyed all of the baby food that we introduced to her, although she had her favorites and the ones she would struggle to eat. Once we ran out of pureed baby food (equivalent to Stage 1 and Stage 2) we tried introducing chunkier baby foods and some additional solids and found out that she is very picky.

Here is a list of solids that she would eat without much coercing: zucchini bread, nutrigrain type granola bars, cheese, banana/blueberry muffins, wheat thin crackers, pear sauce, applesauce, cheerios, rice cereal and animal crackers. We tried things like macaroni and cheese and chicken with rice, but she would only try a few bites and then start spitting it out. She did really like the chicken and noodles at the Vinland Fair, so if anyone can get me that recipe I would greatly appreciate it :)

After quite a bit of observation, I have concluded that it is an issue with texture and not with taste. Here are a couple of things I have tried and found success:

1) For snack I give Henley cheese crackers and watered down 100% vegetable juice (similar to V8 or tomato juice). For some reason this combination works. If I try to give her veggie juice without the cheese crackers she usually spits it out. Go figure!

2) I realized that Henley really liked bread, so I tried to think of any way to get veggies and fruit into bread. I went to allrecipes.com and stumbled upon a recipe called Toddler Muffins. I followed the instructions for the recipe, but I made some slight changes to the ingredients based on what I had:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
5 oz (total) pureed baby food: carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup sweetened applesauce
2 mashed bananas (3/4 cup)
1 cup flour
1/2 cup quick oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

This recipe made 24 mini muffins and a few regular size muffins. I froze the muffins in a freezer bag and I pull out two each morning because Henley eats one mini muffin for lunch and one for dinner. Along with the muffin she will have a slice of cheese at one meal and some pear sauce or applesauce at the other meal.

Thanks for taking time to read about our picky eater. The purpose of this blog post was to put in writing our experience so that if I cross paths in the future with someone who has a picky eater I can say more than "Oh yeah, Henley was like that but I can't remember what we fed her." Also, I welcome any and all ideas for ways to get fruits and veggies into her diet.