>I have a mom whose 12mo is not "interested"
>in eating "much".  Mom admits he may be eating more than she's aware of,
>it just doesn't look like a lot (grazing).

The World Health Organization book: "Infant Feeding: The Physiological
Basis" edited by James Akre provides summaries of all the information they
used to write their recommendations in 1979, including that *at the
population level*, children need to begin solids by 4-6 months.  What is
"normal" for an individual child may vary greatly from what the average is
for the population.  Just because US adult males average 5'9" in height
doesn't mean they all do (as one example).

Among the problems of deciding from the outside (anyone other than the child
himself) how much solids a child *needs* are the following:

1) Lack of appreciation by the parents of how much food a *typical* child of
a certain age is capable of eating.  EX: I have seen parents stuff a child
with 3 times the amount of food it wanted, override the child's obvious and
vigorous protests at having more food shoved in its mouth, and *then* the
parents worry and fret about how the baby "didn't eat enough."  This was a
24 month old child, who was basically force-fed more food than a typical 6
year old would eat at a meal.  This child also had chronic problems with
constipation, and the parents tried to get him to drink lots of apple juice
and eat prunes, and sometimes used suppositories on him.

2)  Lack of appreciation by the parents of how much food the child has
actually eaten.  EX: Parents who don't really keep track of their child's
intake, and so tell outsiders that he "doesn't eat much", but when you ask
*specific* questions about what the child ate for breakfast, lunch, dinner,
snacks, at the store, at the neighbor's house, at the friend's house, out of
the cat food bowl, etc., it adds up to more than enough food.

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.