The struggles of feeding a picky eater

Sigh. I have no idea where Olivia got her lack of appetite from but it's definitely not from me. I love food, a little too much probably. Me & Olivia have the opposite problem, I need to lose weight and she needs to gain, neither of us are having much luck. Instead of feeding her breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks, I feed her about every three hours as much as she will possibly eat (usually not much). Now that she is sleeping through the night, I have to get more calories into her during the day (it's not easy). Instead of being able to just make her whatever I think is best, I have to have a variety of options because one day she loves something, the next day it just gets tossed on the floor. It's so frustrating because I hate wasting food, I really hate it. To avoid wasting food, I give her really small portions. Sometimes that backfires and she ends up wanting more but by the time I get more, she just wants to get out of her highchair. My plan while I was pregnant was to feed her healthy, organic, nutritious food, unfortunately my plan was a bust. I still try of course but when it comes down to eating a little unhealthy or nothing at all, I rather her eat something. Something is better than nothing. I wouldn't do that if her weight was normal but she's so low on the curve that I really don't have much of a choice. By unhealthy I mean pizza, ice cream, cookies, pudding.. of course she loves all that stuff. I don't give it to her all the time, it's always as a last resort (trust me, I cringe every time). Here's an example of how she eats, for dinner tonight I gave her milk (2oz), pasta with butter (a few spoons), white bread (1/4 slice), a banana (one bite and spit it out), applesauce (2 small spoons) & a cookie. It's exhausting and it's a lot of different things but it's really the only way that has worked. For a few weeks I tried feeding her really healthy and if she didn't want it, I would wait till the next feed (hoping she would be really hungry) and she would just refuse again. I still give her a few purees, just to get some veggies into her but now she's really starting to refuse puree so that will be another challenge. So far the only vegetable she likes is broccoli, so I give her that as much as I can. I spoke to a nutritionist a few months ago and she suggested giving her more protein (yogurt, eggs, chicken, beans, cheese) I thought that was a great idea, unfortunately Olivia didn't like any of that stuff. The only thing she ate from that list was yogurt & sometimes cheese. It was worth a shot though. I'm hoping once she can talk, she can tell me what she wants to eat, I feel like that will help a lot. Although maybe not, I know older kids who are picky eaters too. I kind of just wanted to vent about that cause feeding her dinner tonight completely drained me. I get tons of advice on feeding her (most of which I've already tried) but I'm always open to new ideas, if anyone has some, feel free to share.

Olivia's many options. (smh)