1 year old & already a picky eater?

To give a little back ground here :D my own 2 children were fabulous eaters & by the time they were 12 months old they were using utensils themselves & eating the same meals as my husband & I....very very lucky I know :laugh:

I have a 12 month old dcg who will hold & eat crackers, wheat cookies, Mum-Mums & cheese. This part is fabulous :yes:

However; if you offer her food either mashed or with lumps in it, she spits it out, mushes it all over her high chair table & point blank refuses to eat it. Offer her pureed food & she'll eat it straight up.

I've tried to offer her other finger foods & if they are juicy or slimy in any way shape or form she won't pick them up. I offered her a sliced cooked carrot today (me holding it :laugh:) & as soon as it touch her tongue she pushed it back out of her mouth :unsure:

I've also started offering her food in the same type of bowl etc as the other DCK's so as to make her feel involved with everyone. I have to hold the bowl down (gently of course) otherwise this gets launched across the room too.

I've stopped offering her the food she will eat first, in an attempt to see if she will try the other food out of hunger. She just won't go for it. I end up giving in & giving her the pureed food otherwise lunchtime will last hours. & that's not fair on anyone.

Her parents desperately want to move her onto the next stage of eating (they provide her the food in the week, so I get to see what she is being offered at home too). I guess perseverance is one of the keys.

Any ideas of food I can offer her to help with this & tips to encourage her on? :)

This is one of the downfalls of waiting too long to introduce foods to kids that have texture. They come to expect puree. You are right to not offer the preferred foods till after but at the same time if the child knows they are coming then she will hold out for sure. Another option is to offer half a mum mum on the plate of food and that is eat. No more after unless plate is empty - same rule she will have as she grows up as in no more of a favourite food like pasta till you eat the meat and veggies too.

Dry cereals like cheerios or multigrain krispies to give new flavours, arrowroot biscuits that will encourage harder biting than mum mums but still dissolve in the mouth. She might do ok with tiny pieces of cheese.

Rice krispies - the regular ones are a good way to add texture to a food as they go soft and become almost non-existent. I start adding them to infant cereal early on to give texture to a food that is usually well accepted. To start add a few before warming the cereal so they mush right away. Later add them after warming so they mush less. Increase the number in the dish as they are accepted. They can be added to other dishes as well.

Use infant cereal to thicken foods that are sloppy to make child eat the food rather than slurp it off the spoon. Works well for say applesauce or even yogurt to turn it into a thicker substance and for a poor eater it gives them extra iron fortified food since poor eaters tend to be poor meat eaters.

Limit liquids to the minimum in the hopes that being hungry helps motivate. Make sure child isn't over hungry when feeding which is opposite to what you might expect but a hungry child just wants fed - ie liquid or fast to swallow. If they are less hungry they will play more with the food and experiment.

My daughter did not do texture for many years and even now does not chew well - special needs involved here but the methods will work for other issues too. It has to be a gradual change such as a bit thicker each day. Always keep a couple foods you never alter so that there is something you can feed the child on a day they just won't.

I also had a child in care with reflux and the way it was explained was that any food that had texture the child tried to swallow was like us having a mouthful of potato chips and not chewing them enough before swallowing so that they poked and hurt the throat and if you have ever done that you know the feeling I mean but for him even applesauce and yougurt felt that way on his throat. He had meds for several months to heal his raw throat and then gradually we had to teach him not to fear eating and some of the above ideas worked to build up his eating.

I have nothing to add, because Playfelt's advice is EXACTLY what I would do. :)
Just slow, and consistent. She will get there.