Feeding tactics

jacob has decided that he hates eating. he screams and cries whenever food comes his way. he will be starving but when he is in the highchair he reaches for everything in sight and won't eat. we tried powering through the crying but he either gets so upset that he barfs or he just won't stop crying. shoveling the food in his mouth while he cries also leads to barfing. we decided to try more solids (even though previously he always gagged and barfed on any food that wasn't puréed. we figured that if he is barfing during most meals from crying we might has well try the solids cause it all equals barf). there was lots of gagging at first but slowly he was able to handle some solid food without up-chucking. oh progress!! :)

he will eat solids without crying because he really enjoys feeding himself the only problem is that he has such a short attention span for food. he will literally eat about 10 small bites of food and then starts crying again and whining and reaching for anything he can see. we are so sick of meals being like this that we have caved and now try and get him watching tv while we feed him or read him stories while he eats (which is his favourite thing ever!). we are at a complete loss as to how to get past this. it's not that he isn't hungry. he is hungry! he is sometimes absolutely starving. in fact if he is interested in a show or a book he will eat loads of food. i don't get him and this whole eating thing. we have even started to have to feed him in the night lately because he can't make it to his morning bottle or breakfast. He is up so much in the night crying and if we feed him a bottle he will actually sleep until 6:15ish (which for him is sleeping in).

here are some pics of him eating while watching tv or being read to.