Weaning Wednesdays: Meet our mealtime monster

Ok, its been a long time since I've written about Junior J's meals.  The boy oddly has regressed in terms of his food preference, and now only eats stuff that has been pureed smooth.  So for every lunch and dinner, he gets variations of an oatmeal-based porridge (with all sorts of veg/meat mixed inside and run through my hand-held blender), and breakfast usually consists of milk (we've resorted to Pediasure to up the calorie count), cheese and some carbs (bread/different cereals that we rotate).

He's been a difficult one to feed.  We've tried giving him small portions of "table" food to self-feed, such as corn, cucumber, pasta or cereal to self-feed... and some days he'll happily sit there and try to feed himself while we hastily try to spoon in oatmeal in between:

Junior J on one of his better days, eating breakfast from his snack cup

However, usually the self-feeding thing lasts for about 10 minutes before he starts to (1) feed the dog his food, (2) spit or (3) fling his plate (and all of its contents) to the floor... all options which make the dog very happy, and us, not so!

So right now, the only thing that seems to work would be to keep him occupied by all sorts of activities (which I console myself are helping him to develop his fine-motor skills), while feeding him his oatmeal and spooning fluid (water/milk/soup) in between mouthfuls to make him swallow (yes, he has the skill of storing all that liquid food in his mouth, like a hamster!):

Reading board books, and stacking cubes

Taking things in and out of boxes

Putting cotton wool into a vitamin container, and learning to cap it

Poking toothpicks into holes in a soft board

He's usually quite ok when he's out for meals, but keeping him occupied with stuff helps...

And many a time, he starts to get restless halfway through the meal (each meal takes almost an hour!), and we resort to using the iPhone and letting him watch videos of himself, or play educational games.  I know, I've seen those "looks" parents give me when they see our kid, barely two, engrossed in poking at the screen, but trust me, we only whip it out of desperation when nothing else works.  The boy's weight gain hasn't been too great (especially after the recent bouts of illness), otherwise I'd just stick to the "don't eat just starve" philosophy.

On good days, we manage to get him to finish his food... and on bad days, he puts his head on the table and refuses to eat.  Or he ends up like this:

The bib says it all!

So far, the only two people that have managed to make him eat his meals would be myself, and the hubby (and even the hubby can't seem to tolerate feeding him for more than 30 minutes!).  I'm really almost to the end of my tether, and my only consolations are that the boy (1) is generally easy-going apart from mealtimes, (2) is still wanting his breastmilk, and (3) has finally consented to wear bibs again during meals (of course, with the condition that he puts his little frog toy in the pocket of the bib!).   So parents, please help me out here... do share any tips/experiences you've had for feeding/getting a toddler to eat!