Establishing Good Eating Habits In Infants Under 2 Years Old

My son, Coby, is 17 months old and has only been eating real food since he turned 1. At 4 months old he was hungry and I gave him purees. He really liked purees and I felt confident he would progress onto a lumpy puree, and then gradually move onto real food. It didn't work out like that. He refused lumpy purees at 7 months old and wasn't interested in eating real food. It has been a struggle. His cousin is severely underweight and I felt anxious he would become like him; he pushes the food round his plate and his ribs stick out.
I am extremely fussy about what I eat, so it amazed me that the first food Coby wanted to eat was crisps. We were on the bus and he tried to help himself to other children's bags of crisps. But, I was so excited to see him interested in eating anything that I bought him crisps. He was 10 months old and this was the first food he had wanted to eat. He just wasn't interested in eating anything else. I would put food on his highchair tray and he wouldn't even touch it. I just made sure I bought the best quality crisps and viewed it as a stepping stone.
At his 12 month health visitor check-up his weight was in the 25th percentile, and height the 50% percentile. When he was born his weight and height were both in the 75th percentile. This gave me a wake-up call; I had to focus on his eating!
I knew something had to change so I stopped giving him purees, thinking if he was really hungry he would eat real food. However, he just ended up hungry. So I had to re-introduce the purees and come up with another plan.
I pinned up an eating schedule on the wall, every 2 hours I would give him some food. His appetite was so small he needed lots of small snacks. He was eating so little he was waking up twice in the night for milk. And that was exhausting. I am a very impatient person but I had no choice but to slowly, slowly, encourage him to start eating more normally.
Apart from the crisps, he liked bread, and for some reason spaghetti. He ate hummus sometimes with breadsticks and a couple of times macaroni. Also Greek yoghurt with pureed raspberries.
For breakfast I started to feed him omelette, peas, and cheese cubes. He only eats one munch of each. As he only eats a small amount of one food, I realised he needed a variety of foods at each meal.
However, at 16 months we turned a corner as he become interested in trying more foods. Suddenly he is trying orange, apple, raisins, melon, and pear. The texture of some foods he still doesn't like, for example bananas and broccoli he has never tried.
The amount Coby eats is very small, definitely nowhere near the 1000-1200 daily calories toddlers should consume. However, each month it is improving. My aim is by the time he is 2 years old he is a good eater. I feel quietly confident we will get there, but that is something I had never expected.

Things I have learnt:
Not to worry if your baby isn't the best eater, it isn't set in stone at this age.
You might need to give them lots of exposure to foods before they feel interested in eating itr
You need to focus on their eating if it is an issuer
Make mealtimes a positive experience, funr
Praise them for eating , even if they only eat a single much.
Not to worry if they play with their food, they need to get used to some texturesr
If they don't like what you make them, give them something else to eat instead. This is not the age for, "if you don't eat your food, you get no pudding" mentalityr
Plan mealtimes around times when your child isn't tired but really hungry.
Always have healthy snacks in the pram. The little plastic snack pots are very handy for holding healthy snacks like raisins, little chunks of cheese, and apple slices soaked in lemon juice. Oranges are also a good snack to carry around with you.
Infants under 2 years old need a higher fat diet than adults; 50% of their calories should come from fat. I have started to cook with coconut oil as this can help support healthy brain development, and is a very stable oil to cook with. Infants also need a good amount of DHA for brain and eye development, 100mg daily has been suggested as a good amount. This can come from breast milk, formula, eggs, or oily fish. If you are nervous about giving your infant oily fish, you can buy a clean source of DHA online for babies.
Infants also need a higher proportion of protein as they are growing at such a fast rate. I include a protein source at each mealtime.
Explain to your toddler the importance of good eating habits. They might not be able to speak, but they might be able to understand what you are saying.
When they are teething they are unlikely to feel like eating very much, no matter how hungry they are. That is tough if they are teething for weeks or even months at a time.