ds has decided food isn't for him.

[longwaytogo]

Apart from breakfast which he eats without fail because he's so hungry he has decided that meals are just not for him.

I think he's hungry when I put it in front of him but generally he just refuses to eat it. He spits it out, screams, crys, gets down from the table, he is a night mare atm.

He has always been a good eater and it seems that just as dd 3yr 7 months is coming out of her fussy stage its his turn to go into it. He is 2.5 months btw.

So what do I give him? He'll eat anything rubbish, so if I gave him sausages/sausage rolls he would probably eat them.

He will eat some fruit which is the only saving grace really.

[CaligulaCorday]

First, relax. He won't starve himself. Don't give in to the "junk food is better than no food" idea, in a society of permanent feast and no famine, it's not, it's much harder to get them to eat properly when their taste buds have been acclimatised to junk than when they're starting from nothing. (I made that mistake when my DS was little, I was so worried he wasn't eating enough that I gave him junk for a while until I came to my senses and realised I was just setting myself up for a worse problem.)

It's very, very difficult to relax when you're worried your child isn't getting proper nutrition, but steel yourself to at least appear not to care whether he eats or not. Just offer him the food and if he doesn't eat it, make no comment, take it away but don't offer him an alternative. If he sees food as a way of controlling Mummy, then he'll use it to control you. Try not to be (or at least look) anxious or worried about it - if you reward his fussiness with lots of attention (negative or otherwise), then he'll learn that fussiness and faddiness is a brilliant way of getting Mummy's attention. Praise him when he eats, ignore him when he doesn't. He'll soon learn that there's no mileage in being fussy as Mummy doesn't seem to notice when he is, she only notices when he eats.

HTH

[earlgrey]

LWTG, this sounds so familiar. DD1 turned 8 last week, and will only have a co-op (and yes, it has to be co-op) baguette for lunch. And supper.

I can remember the finger food days when she'd eat an omlette with all sorts chucked in - courgette, sweetcorn, red pepper. Then it just stopped. And never started again. And because one of her friends mentioned, in the early days, that she didn't like cheese, she's never even tried it. When we eat out for a pizza we have to check they'll do her a pizza base with garlic butter on and NO GREEN BITS (parsley).

You have my every sympathy.

[longwaytogo]

He doesn't seem to like the texture of meat anymore - or he's too damn lazy to chew it, but all meat however small gets spat out, unless its a sausage/sausage roll.

He doesn't have snacks through the day, and I try not to make a fuss when he doesn't eat, but he ends up asking for breakfast before he goes to bed (not that he gets it) because he is obviously hungry.

The last time I got him weighed quite a few weeks ago when this whole food thing had only just started his weight had dropped so goodness knows what its doing now.

[CaligulaCorday]

As an interim measure you could maybe use the blender to mince all meat like chicken etc. He might eat it then.

Don't worry too much about his weight dropping temporarily as he becomes a food refusenik. It's better that his weight drops slightly for a month and you get it all under control, than that he uses food as a control mechanism for the next 10 years.

[desperateSCOUSEwife]

lwtg re the texture of meat
my dd2 refused to eat meat in piece, chopped or minced form
from 6 months old, and never touched it sine (she is nearly 21 now)
she became a sort of vegetarian as growing up
but would eat the rubbish processed burgers/sausage rolls etc (that i cant stand)

she just did not like eating the texture, and still doesnt
good luck
xxx

[CaligulaCorday]

A friend of mine also didn't like the texture of meat. However, she was never offered sausage, beefburgers etc. (her mum just didn't buy that sort of stuff), and just gradually became vegetarian. In the end, her mother just accepted that she wouldn't eat meat and adapted to ensure that she was getting enough iron in other forms. My friend's now 40 and hasn't eaten meat since she was about 4. She's perfectly healthy.