my 13 month old daughter has always been a good eater, since the day she was born! shes is still eating the gerber 2nd foods...her pediatrician says she should be off of them and eating all table food. my problem is she won't eat the food i provide for her. i bought some of the gerber toddler meals and she refuses to eat them! its so agravating because she'll eat the carrots/peas/squash if its from the jar but not whole. i don't know? its not because its too big or shes not used to the textures because she eats mac & cheese, goldfish crackers, chunks of bananas etc. so do you think its a junk food thing? ahh! i really hope not. i need some advice...anyone whos gone through this please please help! i just want her to get the right nutrition. thanks

I understand your frustration! Although my 11 mo ds won't eat hardly anything that isn't completely pureed, it's for a different reason. I think he has a super sensitive gag reflex... So I don't have too much advice for you, I just wanted to let you know that I can totally sympathize with your wanting the best nutrition for your lo. That being said, I think you might just have to wait and keep offering her the "real thing". Maybe don't offer it every day, just off and on until she gets used to eating that way, and slowly wean off the jars of food. She'll get the hang of it soon enough. I think food issues with toddlers have got to be near the top of worries for mommies! Good luck!

Whiskers :)

i agree with what whiskers said. go ahead and keep feeding her the jar food, but also offer the table foods as well.... slowly phase out the amount she gets from the jar foods until she isn't eating them anymore. even if she acts like she hates it, keep offering table foods to her with her meals. don't just rely on the old favorites (mac-n-cheese, goldfish, etc....), keep varying it each time. and it won't hurt her if she misses a meal every once in awhile (if she absolutely refuses to eat what you've made for her). eventually she will learn to eat most foods if you are consistent with it.

I agree with Whiskers too - just slowly try to wean off the jar food. My daughter just turned one and I still give her the stage 2 fruit with her breakfast or occassionally a jar veggie with dinner if I haven't steamed her anything to be sure it's nice and soft. I have been very slowly incorporating solids into her diet, but I'm also always worried because she crams lots of food into her mouth at once! At least with some of the jar food, it helps wash down the chunks in her mouth.

I'm not worried that she's still on the jar a bit because I think the switch to solids can be a slow process sometimes. ...and now I worry about when she's suppose to be able to use a spoon! :D It never ends!

I had the same problems with DS -- we were supposed to feed him what we were eating, but he didn't like ground meat, toast. So I just kept on feeding him what I knew he would eat -- stage 2 mac & cheese, baby food turkey & ham. Otherwise he'd REFUSE to eat and we've always struggled with keeping his weight at the 50th percentile.

I gradually tried incorporating other foods. Found out one day at daycare he couldn't get enough of spagettios -- so that's what I fed him. Lots of whole milk or greek yogurt.