Dinner refusing 2 yr old - any ideas?

[Mibby]

Does anyone have any tips for a dinner-refusing 2 year old? Breakfast and lunch are fine, snacks are fine, dinner is either total refusal or 2-3 mouthfuls and 'full/ finished'. Suspected a tooth coming thru but Calpol has no effect. We're not offering alternatives, or pudding unless she's made a 'good effort' and no snacks from 3 hrs before dinner.

[noblegiraffe]

Perhaps she's not hungry? It's possible if she's getting two decent meals a day.

[Rooble]

Let her finish when she's full? Childrens' appetites vary, and she might just be right that she's had enough.
If you think she's taking the P, you could say "fine, but no more snacks before bed". (Need to follow this through though).
Are you worried about her not eating enough?

[Rooble]

X-post - but Giraffe far more succinct than me!

[Mibby]

Thanks for the quick replies :)
Breakfast is cereal and lunch crumpets/ sandwich/ cheese on toast type stuff. Shes eating quite a lot less than a week ago :(
We dont do any snacks after dinner.
She still seems to have a fair amount of energy

[noblegiraffe]

Sometimes their appetites do come and go. If you're offering a dinner that you know she likes and she says she's not hungry, and she's not saying she's hungry later either then I'd just let her be for the moment. Some days my DS eats like a horse all day and some days he'll skip lunch and have a few mouthfuls of dinner. I know he's not mucking around if I offer him a biscuit and he says no to that too!

[hillyhilly]

At that age, my ds ate 2 meals out of 3, he loves breakfast but either lunch or dinner would be as you describe. He didn't come to any harm, don't worry about it.