Is Fussy Eating now an acceptable phase?

[SpacePuppy]

Ds nearly 2 eats a very restricted diet of fruit, weetabix, porridge oats, toast with marmite or jam or peanut butter, cheese, yogurt pancakes, biscuits and sometimes oven chips. I cannot get him anything else, he pushes it away and refuses to try anything. He will lick something new once and that's it. I don't want to start a battle around food, he is on his curve weight wise. He does not try to eat meat at all, I'm concerned that he might not be getting enough nutrients, vitamins etc.

Does anyone else have this dilemma or had and do they eventually start eating or do you have to follow the "starvation" method (nothing else to eat except whats on the plate?)

TIA

[Ineedacleaner]

My DS is really fussy has a very resrticted diet too but dd will eat most things. SHe has gone through the fussy phase but it has never been a big deal and we have come out the other side.
WIth DS though it is so hard not to get worked up about it?? The thing is if you look at the things your ds eats they are not that bad actually.
What I tend to do is cook DS the same as we are having but try to put one thing I know he definately will eat on the plate as well. I give him his meal and leave him to it, whatever he eats is great whatever he leaves is fine.
He has tried more new foods this way and I have noticed that if I happen to glance at him when he is putting something he is not sure about in his mouth he will take it out so is more likely to try somethng new if I am chatting away to dd or something.

They do say as well that it can take something like up to 20 offers on their plate of a food for a toddler to try it.

[Ineedacleaner]

I meant to say that as I cook the rest of the families fave meal every now and then I do DS the same we will all eat a meal that he LOVES and will eat all of sometimes.

I was the worlds fussiest eater as a child it just improved over time with no fuss ever made by my parents, by the time I was in primary school I was eating more and by the time I left I ate even more again now as an adult eat most things.

[LoveAngelGabriel]

Agree with Ineedacleaner. My son (2.9) has gradually increased his repertoire this way, although he is still very fussy. I refuse to stress about it anymore, to be honest, and my lack of stressing has definotely seen a small improvement.

p.s. I was a very fussy eater as a child but I'm not that fussy as an adult (lamb, any kind of animal innards, strong cheeses and mushrooms are the only things I don't eat!).

[SpacePuppy]

Thanks for the replies, I've been following Ineedacleaner's suggestion for about 1.5 months now, and he is still not interested i our food. I know that if all started around 15 months, my dh accidentally gave him some chicken that was not cooled enough and it burned him and since then he is very sceptical of any hot food, he also still has a little bit of a gag reflex. I suppose I'm just being impatient again, and should leave him to it.

Thanks

[Tortington]

this is a bug bear of mine
i hate pandering.

how will children know the tastes - th e blends of foods etc - if you pander to them just having pancakes?

i think ultimatley you are doing you child a diservice - and letting them rule dinner time - by handing ove you power to a 2 hear old - holy mother of fuck - your making a big stick

[lemonaid]

Because if you don't let it get to ridiculous levels (like only eating pancakes) they get over it.

DS went through a very fussy phase at nearly 2. He was eating plenty of fruit, so I didn't push the vegetables beyond having to have tiny "taster" bites of things. Now he's 2.9 and chose to eat mushrooms (previously one of his biggest "yuk" foods) last night.

He was always happy to eat meat, fruit, yogurt and cheese, though, so I suppose I knew he was getting an OK balance of food. Also I didn't cook him special stuff -- but if he only wanted to pick the meat out of what we were eating and eat that plus fruit that was OK, so long as he tried a tiny bit of vegetable (and it's amazing how tiny a bite a 2yo can take). Also no biscuits or junk to fill up on.

[Ineedacleaner]

!.5 months is nothing lol, it has taken about 4 months for ds to even try something not on hei list but he does now, there are some things that he tries and genuinely doesn't like but that also doesn't mean that I don't give it to him anymore because children this age tastes change so much that it may be a couple of weeks before I cook the same thing again so I give it another go.

Do you give him his own cuttlery? That made a huge difference to ds as well having his own tools to do it himself, sometimes he won't try a food on his plate but will have a touch of it and poke with his fork and maybe not this time but next time some will make it in his mouth.

[LoveAngelGabriel]

custy - how would you advise her, then? The 'that's all you're getting, like it or lump it!' approach only works to a certain extent with very fussy children. I tried it when my son was about 20 mths old. He ate virtually nothing for 3 weeks and lost a worrying amount of weight. Not going there again. I don't think pandering to your child is the way forward, either. I certainly wouldn't suggest saying 'ooh diddums, have another choccie biccy and a fruit shoot if that's all you'll eat'. But I do think it is better for a child to eat a healthy-ish but limited repertoire of foods than nothing at all. My son lived on cereal, milk, yog, fruit and egs/beans for months. I stressed a bit. Meanwhile, ^he thrived.

I genuinely believe that remaining relaxed about the whole thing and not turning into a food obssessive is the only approach worth taking. Maybe your child will gradually become less fussy. or maybe he just will be a fussy eater. Plenty of adults are fussy. We all, to some extent, have foods we don't like. It really isn't the end of the world.

[LoveAngelGabriel]

p.s. blaming yourself for your child being a fussy eater (or congratulating yourself for how 'well' your child eats) is a bit silly, really. It's a bit like the whole sleep thing - some kids just are shite sleepers, fussy eaters, or are just more stubborn/ fussy / sensitive than others.

[Dinosaur]

So true, LoveAngel! DS2 ate everything I put in front of him - if he'd been my PFB, I'd have thought it was all down to my brilliant weaning and been a right smug pain about it.

As it was, he followed DS1, an incredibly fussy eater and very skinny toddler. So I knew I couldn't take any credit for DS2's "good" eating at all!

[Tortington]

unless there is something medically wrong with your child then i personally do not subscribe to pandering to food choices - i cook - they eat or they dont - they then dont eat until next meal.

this is ofcourse different from not liking certain foods - we all have foods we dont like.

so my advice would be - make a meal - slap it on table - if they dont eat it - take it and chuck it - make next meal and dont feed inbetween.

[FluffyMummy123]

Message withdrawn

[Tortington]

i think its the same thing 'catering' for one who is fussy to me equals pandering. its a matter of semantics

[Hulababy]

I think fussy eating has always been around to an extent. Look how many adults there are nowadays who claim to not like veg!

Don't forget also that in the past the food would have been less varied and possibly more bland, with just salt and pepper for seasoning, not loads of herbs, spices and influences from other countries. So children's palattes were not bombarded by so many different tastes and flavours so young.

In the past I thought that fussy eating was just a fad, caused by parents giving in, My own DD has eaten evertything and anything pretty much, with very few dislikes. We have neverdone the giving in and I thought this was the reason why.

And thnen a met a friend's little boy, who had real eating problems at the age of just 3yo. And she hadn't just given in, she hadn't been the cause in this way. It was way more complicated. And they have tried everything including a referral to the Gp and a dietician, etc. So some eating issues in children ARE real, and not just a fad.

[Dinosaur]

Letting them eat what they like at the age of two does not mean that they will still be fussy when they get a bit older.

DS1 who was a very fussy toddler will try just about anything now and eats very healthily, although he's still as skinny as a skinny thing.

[MsSparkler]

Mine has been fussy at dinner time over the last few weeks. The last couple of days has been better but i have a theary of if my dd doesn't eat what i give her then she gets no fruit after and she goes hungry.

I know that sounds mean but as my mother says "kids will never volunterily starve themselves"

[LoveAngelGabriel]

Cust, your method sounds very sensible but it doesn't work with my son. If he doesn't like it, he won't eat it. And seeing as he just isn't interested in food, he wouldn't give a shit if I didn't give him anything else. He'd be quite happy not to eat, really, which in my opinion, again, is fairly normal for some young children. They aren't fussed about food. They'd rather be playing or doing anything else than sitting at the table eating. So I have no problem catering to my son to a certain extent. He often has 'picnic' dinners - where I get all the things I know he will eat in each food group, bung it on a plate in a 'fun', Blue-Peter-ish kind of way, get his teddybears out and we have a picnic on the floor. He's only two, after all. I hate all this 'my small children WILL act like polite-but-dull dinner party guests at my table' malarkey, anyway. It's not me, or our family. And I do tend to make him meals I know he will eat most of the time, only introducting other stuff every now and then (usually from my plate - he will sometimes ask to taste something). I have genuinely given up worrying about whether he eats green vegetables or not. Ce la vie!

[FluffyMummy123]

Message withdrawn

[Dinosaur]

hear hear, m'lud

[FluffyMummy123]

Message withdrawn

[LoveAngelGabriel]

PMSL@ cod, so true

[blueshoes]

Different child, different strategies. Different parent, different styles.

Don't like the word "pandering" either. It is parenting according to the child, according to your own personal style and belief.

Check out this book by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka: Raising your Spirited Child

[Mercy]

Agree with Loveangel, cod, dino etc.

We've been dealing with this for more than just a few weeks (which is normal at around 2 ime)

[FluffyMummy123]

Message withdrawn

[blueshoes]

We cook great (IMO) meals from scratch at home too - some of which are similar to what dd will eat happily at school.

Dd will not eat it at home, but will eat it at school. Why, why, why? Time and again, we have tried, cajoled, threatened. There is no logic for this.

Food can so easily become a battleground in our house. But I cannot be bothered - Dd gets her sandwiches, cereal, rice cake and frankfurters at home. I have bigger fish to fry at her age ...