My little girl is 18 months and has never shown much interest in food. She is a very fussy eater and won't let me spoon feed her anything so I am forever trying different finger foods. She goes through days where she hardly eats anything. Most of the time she won't even open her mouth to try the food and other times she takes it and spits it back out. How can I encourage her to eat? Any advice on getting her to eat would be greatly appreciated as this worries me so much.

My daughter was one such girl :'( She hated meal times, and it was such a chore to get her to eat. Meal times in public is a nightmare as she rather play than sit down and eat. I stopped forcing her to eat, and eventually kept telling her during meal times each time that she has to eat because there will be no food afterwards. So if she's hungry then, she has to wait until the next meal time. It may seem a little too drastic and harsh, and it was extremely difficult the first few days but we stood firm with her and nowadays, I don't have much of a problem with her. I don't spoon fed her either but she has her own cultinary so she copies us and feeds herself.