3 Years Old Still Eating Baby Food: 5 Things to do

Is your 3 years old still eating baby food? Honestly, mothers are the most awesome people on earth. Motherhood, especially in the early phase of nursing a child, can be such a demanding task, especially for first time moms. Questions never seem to come to an end. You want to know if this is safe if that is okay. And it’s not like these worries will evaporate in a year. Mothers always want to find out what the best thing is for their babies, season in, and season out.

Food is often at the heart of most of the questions mothers have. And the fact that foods are specific to ages makes the question make sense. Of course, it should not be a normal thing for a 3years old to still want the food they ate when they were just one year old or less. Did you find that your 3 years old is still eating baby food? 

5 things to do when a 3 year old is still eating baby food

1. See a Dietician: 

Feeding a baby can be a lot of work. If you find that your 3 year old baby is still eating baby food, then it is time you consulted your dietician. Meanwhile, you should see if your baby is growing and developing as they should and if their speech coordination is on point. One thing is sure, chewing supports muscle development and speech establishment in the early years.

2. Check for Tongue-tie Issue: 

Different factors can be responsible for the reason your baby wants a baby food even when she is three year old, and one of these could be a tongue-tie issue. Does your baby have a pointed tongue at the end? If yes, that could be a reason. And this makes sense when you consider the fact that chewing helps in the development of speech skills and eating habit. 

In the meantime, while you plan to consult your doctor, you could keep feeding your baby whatever safe baby food that is within your reach but in moderate proportions. That can be topped up with a baby jar plus a cup of full-fat milk. These are safe and healthy alternatives, which are quite better than sending your little one to bed hungry.

3. Check If This is A Behavioral Issue: 

If you have checked for a physical issue like tongue-tie, and there was no positive result. It makes sense that you check if the issue, beyond physical, is behavioral. Apparently, a three year old is no longer a baby, so to say, but a toddler, which means they are already starting to build consciousness and will of themselves. 

Hence, it is possible that your toddler refuses to eat any other food other than baby food because they have picked that their refusal is always followed by surrender on your part. In this case, the concern is more than your little one getting the normal quality of food. The point is that your toddler wants to always have things play out their way, and feel in charge. You don’t have to impose foods on them, but you can pass a message of obedience across by stop letting your toddler have their way, once, or even twice. Then see where things go from there.

4. Control the Quantity of Baby Food That Your Child Eat:

Another idea that you may give a try if your 3yrs old is still eating baby food is regulating the amount of baby food your three-year-old eats. If you let your toddler eats baby food in sufficient amounts, then you should know that they are not about to stop doing that. But a shortage of the food they like, and an even more shortage of it, with time, will leave them with no choice but to subscribe for a food that is ideal for their age. 

You should not allow your child take anything more than a couple cups of milk in one day. If they are having excess of milk, then what space will there be for any food in their tummies? Milk is not the only thing they should not have in excess, their in-take of water should be regulated as well. 

Normally, anything more than six to eight cups of water a day is too much. 

5. Continue Serving Them Those Foods: 

Having done the aforementioned things, you should keep at serving your little ones the very foods they do not like to eat. Yes, they may reject them. But keep serving them. Give your little one food like chips, fish fingers; alongside one of the foods, they do not enjoy eating. Never make the mistake of introducing the food to them. No, you do not have to. All you need to do is drop the food on their plates.

Suppose you want your toddler to eat carrots, rather than telling them what the food is and how you want them to eat it, just leave it on their plate. If you observe a positive response, give them thumbs up with a wide smile. If negative, you could just give a dismissive look, and act as if you were not concentrating all along. Do not look their way at all. This, with time, should help.

Note that this is not a call to starve your child. No. The thing is just that once your baby has learnt that they can always get baby food when they are hungry, then the attempt to give any other food a try will not be encouraged. 

Conclusion

Nutrition is important for healthy growth and development in any human – adults, toddlers, and babies. It is even more important for children because they are at the early and formative phase of their physical and mental development. Nutrition is however specific to phases. There is what a one-year-old should eat, and there is what a three-year-old should eat.

If you discovered that your 3 years old is still eating baby food, go ahead and practice any one of the tips given in this article and let me know which one works for you in the comment section.