Dd is 2.5 and is a tricky one with eating. I know fussy toddlers are such a common problem but I am all out of ideas and could really use any advice.
She has always been a bit fussy, but used to have 6 or 7 decent main meals that she would happily eat. Over time, this list reduced down, and she would refuse to eat even our 'banker' meals. So, I read a book about it all and decided that we would all eat together in the evening, and that she would be given a little bit of whatever we were eating. If she didn't eat it, there would be no fuss. She's always offered a yoghurt (or other dairy based dessert like low fat custard) and fruit afterwards.
The problem is, in the few months that we've been doing this, she's literally not eaten one single meal. Most nights she literally doesn't eat a single mouthful, just pushes the plate away. A lot of the meals are things she would have eaten happily in the past, pasta/spag bol etc. so it's not like I'm dishing up crazy foods she won't touch. Most times she doesn't ask for dessert, I offer it to her and then she'll have it. Really all she wants to do is get out of her chair.
She doesn't wake up hungry in the night and she doesn't seem particularly hungry in the morning. But she will often eat lunch (maybe half a cheese sarnie) and then no tea at all.
She's average height and weight so is obviously getting what she needs overall, but her diet is limited to basic breakfast stuff and usually something cheese and bread based for lunch (her GPs look after her and apparently anything else gets ignored). I don't let her see that it bothers me but I just can't figure it out. Where am I going wrong?!
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I know this subject has been done to death, but I can't work out where I'm going wrong.
notmuchofaclue · 03/12/2014 21:18
The no fuss approach is a good, long term strategy, OP, if she's fine then stick with it. We do mainly what you are doing with the added caveat that everything must be licked, just so they get a taste. No one has to eat anything though, and we don't go into, "I told you so!" if it turns out they do fancy some. We have about a 50% hit rate with new foods with this. We've also done quite well with joyfully serving ourselves with a new food and not the DC, then copiously enjoying it. For some reason, having a taste off someone else's plate seems a bit easier.
Also, we've had some phases of rejecting everything except pasta or something similarly beige, and although I've been worried, I never say anything in front of them except what good eaters they are and how they'll try anything. Sometimes this has meant that I've been sort of dishonest with the kind of person who loudly asks personal questions about children in front of the child but I think that such people don't necessarily deserve a straight answer anyway 
Last thing - if the DC wail, "I don't like x food!" I always reflect back, "you don't want x food right now" because I want to avoid the whole I like/ I don't like shit. This admittedly is because my family are a bunch of neurotics who have virtually built their identity on what foods they will or won't eat, and I am now neurotic about not recreating that culture in my own family. But I also think it's worth remembering that people say to children, "would you like x?" meaning, "do you want some?" so it's possible that DC say "I don't like" and mean "I don't want".
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