I feel so upset about DDs eating

[Marleya]

dd is 2 in June. She was weaned using pouches mainly . Really regretting this now. She was really fussy until about 18 months and would only touch dry food and had to be spoon fed everything else.

Now she will eat sausages, sometimes chicken but shes gone off meat in the past few weeks, any type of potatoes particularly mash and chips, beans, brocilli, peas, carrots, cauliflower, cereal and milk, yogurts, raisins and of course biscuits chocolate cake etc if she can

But she will not eat any fruit sandwiches toast or pasta (except tinned shapes). For a few weeks she would eat grapes and blueberries but not at all now. I've tried making funny faces out of food, cookie cut sandwiches , giving her a lunch box but still she just wont eat things. I'm a loss of what to do

[NuffSaidSam]

Don't let it become an issue. Lots of toddlers are fussy.

Continue to present her with a wide range of healthy food. Put it down, let her eat what she wants and then take it away. Balance it out so that at each meal there is something she will eat and something that she won't (so she isn't hungry, but also has repeated opportunites to try new foods).

No praise, no bribery, no nagging. Food mustn't become an issue.

[Wallywobbles]

Does she eat as part of the family ? So sees you eating?

[frangipani13]

I know babies that were weaned using BLW who are now terrible eaters and some who were with pouches and jars who will literally eat everything- I genuinely think it's the luck of the draw. I remember this being a horrendously tricky time with my own DD, one day she would happily eat something and the next it would be refused. All you can do is keep offering her different things, I promise it is a phase. A really good piece of advice I was given was think of what they eat over the course of a week rather than a day, to give a better view of their intake. It helped reframe things for me a lot.

[Marleya]

Thank you she does eat with us except dinner time I tend to eat mine when the kids are in bed. I try give her something I know she will eat at each meal for example at lunch time i gave her a ham sandwich cut into hearts, some grapes and blueberries and some mini cheddars. She ate the mini cheddars bit the sandwich and left the fruit. Hopefully she will just eat it one day i really worry she doesn't eat enough for her age 🥺

[willowpatterns]

Show a complete lack of interest in what she does with the food you give her, even if you are screaming with frustration inside! Provide at least one thing you know she will eat as part of the meal, and leave her to it.

You don't need to cut food into inviting shapes either. If she asks, then give her the sandwich and the cutter and let her do it herself.

[hairyxmasturkey]

Eat together, don't comment on her eating AT ALL and keep offering lots of variety. Lots of toddlers do this- don't make it an issue

[Pentium85]

I can, pretty confidently, guess this is nothing to do with being weaned by pouches.

I was weaned through purée. So was my DS. We both eat everything in sight. I actually know more BLW weaned fussy children. So don't let yourself be convinced by that.

But it sounds as though (understandably) it's become a huge deal in the house, and it really needn't be.

By 2, children will eat and drink when they are hungry.

If my DS ever doesn't touch his food for whatever reason, I simply put it back into the bowl and on the side, and then when he is hungry he goes back to it.

No fussing, no drama, no pandering to what they want and cooking multiple thingS

Also, let them help and watch you cook. I have a mini cooking set and DS will sit next to me and I'll drop the odd of food into his saucepan and he will stir etc

[TwinningIt]

I have twins who were weaned together with the same foods and from the first spoonful they had very different food likes and dislikes (and still do) - it really is down to personality, so please don’t give yourself a hard time!

Agree with all the comments, make sure across the day there are foods she will eat. Apparently you should look at a child’s diet for a week to check they are getting a balance (rather than a day at a time). If she’s getting all the food groups in some form, try not to worry about it.

[TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince]

Would she eat wraps?

[Roomba]

I would try not to get too stressed over it, for your own sanity if nothing else. So many DC go through this phase.

DS1 was weaned on pouches/jars of baby food. But he did eat a good variety of food, until he hit this age and became fussier and fussier. DS2 was weaned with baby led weaning, home cooked everything - I thought I'd cracked it as he ate everything until he hit 2 years old. Then, boom - would only eat pasta with no sauce for months. It was infuriating and worrying, but i found how I dealt with it didn't make much difference in the end. With DS1 I begged, pleaded, baked with him, all sorts to encourage him. With DS2 I just put the food out for him and said little if he didn't eat it, just encouraged him gently to try one mouthful occasionally. Both outgrew it and now eat anything, but I was a lot less stressed the second time! I have friends who DC appeared to live on fresh air alone at some points, few still are that fussy a few years later.

[Soubriquet]

Yeah don’t worry

Dd was weaned on pouches and would retch if anything had lumps in. Now she she eats everything you give her (she’s 7)

Ds on the other hand had mostly BLW and is a fussy little sod

Just keep giving her food that she likes along side foods she picky about

[PatchworkElmer]

I wouldn’t worry, lots of toddlers are like this! What has helped massively with DS:

• Eating together.
  
• Not commenting on what he’s eaten/ not eaten at all.
  
• Making sure that every meal has at least a couple of ‘safe’ items so that he’s not overwhelmed by lots of stuff he’s refused in the past, or by being presented with foods that are all new to him.
  
• Putting lots of the items in bowls in the middle of the table for him to ‘serve’ himself (we did this from about 2.5 so your DD might be a bit young)- he really liked this- I think because it gave him a bit of control. I did plate up some elements (like mashed potato) as non- negotiable, but we were fine with letting him choose his own bits of salad, veg or whatever.
  
• We’ve stopped doing this now but when he was mega mega fussy, we put everything out at once- including the dessert items like yoghurt. This stopped him being distracted by what was ‘next’, or refusing his main because he wanted to get to the dessert part of the meal. If he chose to eat the dessert first (he usually did), that was fine, but there was no more once it was gone.

[TeddyIsaHe]

Don’t stress! Dd was BLW and ate absolutely everything until she turned 2, where she was the fussiest, most stubborn child known to man. She basically ate toast, cheesy pasta and peas for a year.

She’s now 3, and without me doing anything really has started not kicking off about new foods on her plate, and will try most things now. It does get better! I just ignored and gave her loads of vitamins.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

I have an extremely fussy DD so you have my sympathy.

You've had some great advice already, I just wanted to suggest doing the m-chat test as fussy eating can sometimes be a sign of asd.

This book was recommended to me a lot on MN when my DD was a similar age to yours. It was out of print at the time but it's supposed to be very good