Toddler Eating Disorder

by Brenda
(Washington)

I have a four-year-old daughter that has some sort of issue with eating. I want to be sure it's not a toddler eating disorder. I'm feeling desperate for advise today, as I have many times before with her. She had issues as a baby in that she could not keep her formula down, but she's over that by now. I cannot seem to get her to eat a normal meal at normal times of the day like my other two children.

She wants to skip meals or just refuse to cooperate. She is a very small frame child and was always in the 2 percentile category. The doctor has made me a maniac pretty much and made me feel like I was feeding her inadequately due to her size or not giving her enough options for foods.

Believe me, the kid has more options presented to her than the president as far as food goes. She was always diagnosed as "failure to thrive". I've tried all of the usual tricks like adding cream to everything to get her extra calories, but she just doesn't like cream, butter, or even bread for that matter.

She does like her veggies and fruits (not to mention candy even though I try to limit this because I know she needs something good in her diet) but she simply does not like high-calorie foods and won't even consider liquid diet suppliments like instant breakfast type of things. I'm at my witts end this morning. All she wants to eat are noodles.

I could not get her to eat her breakfast for the life of me and she wouldn't even do it for a treat like going to the playground. I don't know what to do from here and I know she's frustrated with me for trying to get her to eat all the time.

I've stressed the importance of eating food to her but she keeps asking me "why"? We didn't go to the playground and I let her know that it was because she refused to eat this morning. She has proven to me time and time again that she cannot keep from throwing tantrums when she does not eat.

She has thrown tantrums every time she doesn't eat before we go to preschool.....and that's why I didn't take her and her two siblings to the playground today other than the fact that I just want her to eat something. I gave her a "time-out" for not eating breakfast and I feel guilty about it now.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.