My 11 month old son has a very healthy appetite. While at home, his eating schedule consists of breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner, and then milk before bedtime. He is accustomed to this schedule and expects to eat at the same time every day, and if the time is coming up, and he's not sitting in his high chair with food, he'll let you know about it, loudly, until he's being fed!
I work part time, Monday through Friday, and am away from home from 9am - 3pm. I am lucky enough to have my mom who lives in the area as well who is more than happy to watch my son the majority of the week while I'm at work. He still goes to day care usually 2 days a week (at the most 3 days, but that is rare) from 9am - 2pm. The daycare he goes to is an in-home licensed child care, and the woman who runs it is wonderful with him. He's never shown any sign of being unhappy there. When I drop him off, as we get out of the car he realizes where we are and gets a huge smile on his face... he practically leaps out of my arms as we walk in the door and squeals and smiles as the woman, and then hurries over to the other kids to play. So I have never had a concern about his daycare until just recently.
The past 2 or 3 weeks when my mom has pick him up from daycare, the woman has told her that he has just not been interested in eating at all. At home, he self feeds and drinks from a sippy cup at all meals. At daycare, he wants nothing to do with either. I make sure to send foods with him that are his favorite, hoping this will coax him into eating, but he either cries until he's taken out of the highchair, throws the food, or just will NOT open his mouth for her. She has taken him out of the highchair, let him play for a few minutes and then tried again, but it ends the same way each time, and by that point he is really hungry and crying. So, she's ended up giving him a bottle instead of lunch for the past few weeks. The only other thing that has been successful is when she pureed the food I had sent with him for lunch, which is something he has refused to eat at home for the past few weeks.
Is it common not to want to eat at daycare? Or to have an eating regression, but only while at daycare?
Also of note, is that on the days he is with only my mom, he eats just fine for her. He stays at her house, so he is still away from home.
Should I just send him with pureed foods to daycare and expect that he will drink bottles there?
I'm not sure what to think about this. Any advice is appreciated!
I wouldn't change anything, and I wouldn't worry about it. Chances are, he is not hungry enough to warrant missing out on play time. You said he is very happy and immediately crawls over to play with the other kids. He obviously enjoys that a great deal. He's not going to starve, or probably even be in danger of losing weight, because he doesn't eat from 9-2, two days a week. I would imagine he notices the hunger at your house, and your moms, because he is not as entertained (not saying you ignore him, but no one entertains like other kids!) and is used to eating at certian times. However, the hunger feeling while he is at daycare takes second place to the entertainment and fun.
Consider yourself lucky that you have such a social little guy and don't worry. He will eat when he is hungry.
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M.C.
answers from
Washington DC
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Are there younger kids at the daycare? Maybe he's seeing how they are being fed and wants the same treatment.??
Just a thought.
M.
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G.B.
answers from
Tulsa
on
Your care giver sounds like a real jewel, good for you to have found her. In my child care center if the kids don't eat in the dining room when it was time to eat the teacher just had to try again in the classroom. Sometimes there is just too much going on, the child may have focused on something and want to get back to it, there may be things in the area they want to see and just not be able to do it in that situation.
It sounds like your caregiver is really trying. I suggest she try giving him more fluids during the course of the day, before the meal, he may just be really thirsty. Give it some time, you may not find this great level of care anywhere else. Try to let her take the lead here, you need to keep to your way so he can have that consistancy and then she can do whatever she needs to do to get him to do stuff for her. Don't change everything just because he is doing something different somewhere else.
By the way, he is kind of young to show separation anxiety yet and when he does don't take it that he's not happy there anymore, it is just a stage they all go through. It may never happen, I had kids come to my child care center from 6 wks. on and they went through it mostly in the toddler room, a few babies did start in the baby room at around 11 months to about a year old but not usually.
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L.S.
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Seattle
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I have an inhome daycare. The only thing that I can think is that maybe he is distracted with playing and doesn't want to stop. Do they do any kind of wind down activity before they eat. My childcare has story time right before we eat to transition. That is really the only suggestion that I have. Good luck.
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B.B.
answers from
Portland
on
My son was that age when he refused to eat what I sent to daycare, he wanted what all the other kids were getting. Our solution was to let our daycare provider serve him the same meals she served to the older kids. She served child friendly food and made sure to keep his stuff cut up small but he started eating so much better when we made the change.
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A.P.
answers from
Eugene
on
My son eats like a horse most the time, unless we are over at a friend's house--then he's too busy to eat and just squirms to get down and go play. We don't think it's worth the fight so we just let him play. If he's getting to the point that he can really "play"--crawl or even pull himself up on things to play; maybe he is just too distracted to eat. I will say that we have always had amazing childcare although we only use it for 10 hours a week. We moved and found someone (who wasn't great, but we felt a little desperate to have anything) and he hated it. We lasted about 2 weeks (going only 2 1/2 days a week) before we found something else. It was abundantly clear that our very happy little boy wasn't happy there. That doesn't sound like the case here at all--reading your post you seem to really trust your caregiver and I would trust your own intuition that she is great.
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W.C.
answers from
Seattle
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My daughter was like this at your son's age. Then one day she just started eating. I think it is because they are busy watching and learning. Or it could be extreme sensitivity to change of place or person. He will survive. My daughter had the second and she is now thirty.
