To find cooking for my fussy eater 2 year old depressing

[Makeupbabes]

I'm sick & tired of making food for my 2 year old and for it to get chucked on the floor. I feel like I'm giving him the same bloody meals all the time as that's the only thing he will eat. If I dare try anything different he refuses to even put it in his mouth & pushes my hand away when I try and feed him. I feel like I'm spending my life brushing food of the floor. When does this fussy stage end :(

[flanjabelle]

I'm right there with you. Every meal time I am tense waiting for the "I'm all done mummy" when she has eaten basically nothing. She then tells me she is still bloody hungry but refuses the food. I'm trying my best to stay cool and calm about it but it's hard. I don't want it to become an issue but it's really bothering me.

[porridge90]

Totally with you. I have all but given up and resorted to coco pops, toast and potato waffles. We just don't eat those kinds of foods in our house, we love proper home cooked meals but she is a fully paid up member of the beige brigade unfortunately.

[EponasWildDaughter]

Oh tell me about it :(

Yesterday i had to scrape her serving of our lovely roast lamb dinner into the bin and serve her ... what do you think ... bloody Ellas Kitchen roast lamb dinner out of a packet! When will she accept an egg? Some cereal? A banana? A bit of ham? Some cheese (that's not in maccaroni)? sigh

[Makeupbabes]

Aww so glad I'm not the only one. I've got all these lovely Anabel Karmel cooking books & just given up trying now. All he wants to eat is pasta/spaghetti & peanut butter on toast. I wish he could just eat what we're eating would be so much easier :(

[porridge90]

I have taken to tricking to my toddler now. I dipped a sliced up banana in melted dark chocolate and put it on my plate... and then wandered into the kitchen (watching through a crack in the door). She ate the whole bloody thing.

[Discopanda]

My 4 year old will only have the same few meals and claims she doesn't like sauce or cheese or rice or noodles or potatoes, does my head in!!! She has pasta 5 times a week at least!

[Helgathehairy]

DD was very fussy, waffles cheese mash beans toast. But she's 2.9 now and slowly getting better. We've added avocado (she LOVES it), bagel with almond nut butter, ham sandwiches and the other night I made chilli & rice and she ate it! I can also get away with hard boiled egg if I mash it with the avocado. And she had two bites of a prawn the other night.

We had a compromise, she got 'our dinner', she didn't have to like it but she did have to try it. If it went badly she got toast. But like I said she's slowly improving.

[Notcontent]

I think it's quite normal for small children to be fussy. But then very slowly it changes... But don't offer things like sugary cereals because that will just create problems in the future.

[SquinkiesRule]

The nature of two year olds. Contrary little beggars. What used to frustrate me was one week they would love something. Then serve it up a week later and it's on the no go list in their head. Dd at 11 still wont eat potatoes, so she gets extra veggies with the meat for dinner. I don't cook anything other that what everyone else is getting.
I stopped fighting it. I'd stick food in front of them if they ate, good, if not they went without. Then they would moan for food, and I'd produce the dinner they refused, eventually they would sometimes eat, sometimes not.
Throwing food was a definite no. They were removed from the table and sat somewhere else while we ate.
Two is plenty old enough to know the house rules. temper tantrums were ignored, I'd walk away. One of mine would follow me and carry the temper on wherever I went, so I'd keep moving or go for a wee. I'd be fighting the giggles when I was being followed for the show to go on. but they got over it quickly. Better now than when they are strapping 9 year olds.

[GreyBird84]

I'm with you.

I love cooking & maje all from scratch but he is at his happiest with beans or spaghetti hoops. Or a pancake - not toasted, no butter or jam he literally just chomps away on a pancake.

Meat still needs blended with spuds & veg, he doesn't seem to like the texture.

And yes to the OP who said one week it a yes the next it's a no...so frustrating.

[CoodleMoodle]

Right there with you, OP! Our 2 year old refuses ALL homemade food and always has. BLW didn't work, homemade purrees didn't work, it was Ella and co or nothing! Nowadays the closest to homemade she gets are chicken nuggets & chips (NOT homemade, she won't touch them), plain pizza (again, not homemade and only when she feels like it), and pasta with pesto & cheese. Oh, and toast, porridge and one very specific brand of microwave rice!

Otherwise she eats those bloody expensive toddler 'ready meal' type things. Not the really mushy ones like the Sunday lunch or whatever, but the spag bol and pork casserole type ones, with at least a bit of veg/pasta in. She's going off them, and I don't blame her, but she will not entertain anything else. All of that 'give them what you're having' just doesn't work with DD. It was our plan from the start but she won't eat it, and just cries and cries, it really upsets her (it's as if she's actually TERRIFIED of food she doesn't know). She's never had real fruit apart from purree and the odd raisin. She's never had veg unless an Ella/similar pouch, or in the readymeals. She's never had actual meat unless you count chicken nuggets!

She's under a dietician and has sensory issues, which don't help. But I fully understand your frustration and very much sympathise. Lunch is more our problem here - if she'd just eat a bloody cheese/ham/whatever sandwich, life would be so much easier! She'd be perfectly content to live on Mini Cheddars and breadsticks...

(Sorry for the rant but even though I've learned to accept it and she IS getting better, it still gets to me sometimes! DH is very fussy so I know where it comes from...)

[ouryve]

When you're 2, food always tastes nicer stolen off someone's plate.

Squinkies' suggestions for a neurotypical child are good. It's worth bearing in mind, though, that some food dislikes have a sound basis eg a tummy ache after eating, a terribly strong taste, over and above what you might sense or an odd texture - cooked cheese is very different in taste and texture from uncooked cheese, so a child who won't touch cubes of cheese or grated cheese but loves cheese sauce, might just be persuaded by s lice of pizza or cheese on toast

The author was soundly slammed for the way it as presented, but there was someone who came on for a post of the day, a few months ago, who introduced the idea of tiny tastes. Make safe food the main part of the meal, but put a little bit of something not trusted there, too, with no comment or coercion.

As you've found out, food off a communal plate is good, too - just not if you do it every meal because then "rules" get learnt and the novelty wears off. As a once in a while thing eg just a weekend lunchtimes, it can be a good way of introducing new foods. It still works on my food phobic 12yo, occasionally! (though the 4th half of a boiled egg he helped himself to, last night, ended up abandoned after it touched the bean salad, when he clumsily tried to serve it to himself with flat tongs!)

[Pettywoman]

Both mine are awful, it is soul destroying. I dread mealtimes now which makes it worse.

[ouryve]

coodle instead of a sandwich, will she eat stuff on toast - that's how I got DS2, who was very much like your 2yo, onto anything even resembling sandwiches. I used the toast to introduce a new topping eg primula cheese spread, then used the cheese spread to try him with a sarnie - in his case, brown bread won out over white!

[DisgraceToTheYChromosome]

For eight months, DD ate NOTHING but pasta spirals, satsumas and lump parmesan. She got her iron by licking my welding test piece.

Since she's now 5'10" and a stunning beauty, it seems to have done her no harm.

[taptonaria27]

The enjoyment of the kids is always inversely proportional to the effort involved and nutritional value of the meal.
Lovingly prepared fresh veg and roast dinner bleurgh, chicken nuggets and oven chips - wolfed down and thanked enthusiastically for.
Drives me mad!!!

[CoodleMoodle]

ouryve
The only thing she will have on toast is jam, or maybe butter if she's feeling adventurous! We've tried a few things but they all caused a lot of crying... DH offered her a tiny bit of cheese on toast before - you'd think he'd tried to kill her

She IS getting better, just extremely slowly. We keep trying! She ate a tiny piece of one of those fruity cereal bar things at the dietician and said it was nice - I nearly cried. (Of course I went out and got her some, got her involved with buying it and all that... No deal. Looked at me like I'd lost it. Maybe I have!)

[ouryve]

That all sounds painfully familiar, coodle!

[fatmomma99]

I think it might be because v young children have so very little power and choice, but there a couple of things they can control - their bowls (to an extent) and what they put in their mouths.

So I would say, try not to make it a stress. Try and build in choice.

There's stuff about giving them ownership - if they can 'help' with the cooking they might be more into eating it (I have to say, my DD never did that).

It gradually gets better.

My 14 yr old has JUST discovered avocados. One of my fav things in life, and which she has previously dismissed as "momma food". I don't like to complain, and they're stuffed full of nutrients. But they're MY effing avocados. I've had no lunch this week!

[tobysmum77]

I think the key to most 2yos is to not stress. Obviously there are some with specific sensory-type issues but for most its about control. If you all eat together put one thing in their plate you know they will eat then leave them to it. Remove it without comment, dont pressure them to eat and it removes control. If you eat it as well then at least you've enjoyed it so it isn't soul destroying.

All 2 year olds go through this whatever people claim, they also seemingly dont seem that hungry at that age in my vast experience of 2 of the little blighters

[pleasethankyouthankyouplease]

There with you and share your pain! And it feels endless doesn't it? But I know very few adults who'll only eat pasta so I'm assuming it passes! A friend told me about the control thing and to let the kids have a bit more and have to say it works. She recommended getting things like homous and dips and veggies and breadsticks and letting them dip. Also she said get the pudding out too and say " this is dinner. You can eat it in whichever order you like!". It helped even for a while. At least it got us out of the "fruit and yoghurt only "stage.

[SquinkiesRule]

When mine were two and we'd be in Costco shopping they would eat the samples being handed out. Weird how anything on a toothpick was good, but if I bought that same food it wasn't any good. I did contemplate serving dinner on toothpicks with my oldest. He has sensory issues and a lot of textures were a no go, so his diet was restricted even now theres a lot he doesn't eat. But I still cook when he visits and he picks around the things he can't eat and eats the rest.

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

If it's any consolation, my 6 yr old who would happily eat anything as a small child [except anything from a packet which was foul apparently] is now going through an amazingly fussy stage it's fucking me right off. I think it's from watching other kids at school dinners having a hissy fit and exercising a form of control over her life.

So while I'm one of the maddening "smug" folk whose kids eat everything, it doesn't always last Have some

Anything on a cocktail stick does seem to be amazingly attractive to a small child though. We used to often do a "build your own meal" as a snacky tea time by putting lots of chopped stuff into small bowls so that they could help themselves.

A friend used to mash banana and avocado together [bleurgh] and hand over mini brown pitta's for her toddler to fill up with the mush. The mess was unbelievable and it took forever but her fussy toddler did get some food into her.

A small bowl of undefrosted frozen peas is a great pre-lunch snack for a toddler. It's weird but they all adore the "icepop" peas.

[specialsubject]

Assuming no issues, serve super tiny portions of the good stuff. The idea of throwing away roast lamb makes me weep. Half a teaspoon to try , that's it. Save it for those that enjoy it.

[Onedaftmonkey]

So happy I'm not the only one going through this hell. DS 6 had lived off faddy stuff for 4 years now. He stopped eating proper food after a hospital stay and has survived on crazy stuff like plain noodles. Plain rice. White fish. Turkey dinosaurs. And now just peanut butter or chocolate spread sandwiches. Weetabix ,cheese and Pringles. Given this he has only been sick once in 3 years never gets colds and has more energy than all his class put together. I am praying that one day he'll eat a proper meal. I'll keep offering every day and hope he grows out of this soon.