To just stop offering DD breakfast and lunch?

What time are you giving it to her? i've never liked to eat breakfast too early either. Even as a child. I'm usually ready to eat around 11am. It can make me feel nauseous to force food down me early in the morning when I am neither hungry nor in the mood.

Make sure she always has access to some easy, healthy food at the point she feels she wants it. A banana, some greek yoghurt, some cheese and grapes or hummus and breadsticks, avocado, hard boiled egg. Anything that can be prepped ahead and put in a tub ready for later, or is really low effort and won't go to waste if she doesn't want it.

It doesn't need to be 'breakfast' per se, just any food that is going to give her what she needs at the point she feels hungry.

You could try Naked ham. It’s nitrate free at least.

I wouldn’t restrict milk as it’s actually pretty healthy & if she is prepared to drink that then that’s a good thing.

I would just leave a couple of bowls out for her to eat on the go - would she eat things like shreddies, mini weetabix, American pancakes, breadsticks. You can then just box them up again if uneaten. Babybel, Innocent smoothies & mini yoghurt might also work.

I don’t think you can force feed her.

We fast forwarded to Lord of the Flies pretty quickly on this thread…

Has nursery ever expressed any concern about her eating or her energy levels?

I have a child who doesn't eat much. At 3 she could have just one meal all weekend. It was hard work. Her weight didn't suffer until she turned 4 and since then she has barely gained any weight even though she is now eating better.

It is difficult we have different rules about food when she's eating well and when she isn't.
If she hasn't eaten breakfast or lunch most days and she's happy to eat ham I would give her more ham. I would just then offer her less ham over the rest of the week to provide balance to her diet over the course of the week. My daughter would have days where she would only eat ham or chicken and other days where she would only eat pasta and other days of only peas and so on.

Keep offering food. If one meal has been rejected offer a second. Keeping the rejected meal to be offered the next meal. Once she started eating better we were more restrictive about what we offered as back up meals.

Unless it’s ham and crisp picnic 😂

IF she eats snacks, stop the snacks etc. There would've been no issue.

If you're worried about upfs and the ham, you could make your own?

What do you think it is about the ham that she likes? Easy chew? Salty?

My DS was the same, just before he turned 3 we went on holiday and for the entire week he ate fries and avocado on rice cakes, that’s it! When he started school I had to supply the avocado and rice cakes, ham, and some cold rolled up pancakes as that’s all he would eat!! It is so tough so I really understand your frustration and worry. My DS is still fussy but now that he understands better and is 3 yrs older he eats a much more varied diet. Have you tried a sticker chart yet? For every new food my son had he would get a sticker and then 10 stickers led to a surprise, or something he chose. Good luck, but it will get better!

I look back at the struggles I had with my children not eating a proper meal and wonder why I bothered. They would have eaten all the ingredients as picky bits - but just weren’t interested in the cooked meal outcome. I have no idea why I didn’t give them ‘deconstructed dinners’ until they were 5 or 6. They only have been interested in sitting down for a good meal since the age of about 12 or 13 (puberty basically)!

My daughter was similar, she would eat ham, wotsits, cucumber, sometimes cheese and yoghurt. She wouldn't eat cooked food. Her bigger sister would eat anything and I was cooking from scratch most days.
She was breastfed until she was three and I think that was part of the problem. She didn't need food. She dropped her weight a little and I got stressed. She would eat lots of fruit but that obviously wasn't meeting all her nutritional needs.

I didn't find the answer, I can remember putting her lunch out and thinking it was a waste of time. She grew out of it, she was a fussy eater until she was about eighteen. Preferring beige food and fruit. Thankfully now she's got a brilliant, healthy diet.

I wonder if she's picking up on your stress, of course that's natural and not easy to stop yourself feeling that way.

Could she help you prepare food?
Good luck, it's very frustrating.

Give her a tablespoon of whatever you're having on her plate and see if she eats it. Toddlers can get overwhelmed by portion size and refuse to eat.

As the parent of a child who has severe ARFID my advice would be to-

• don’t comment at all on what she does or doesn’t eat. Keep conversations on anything but food.

• focus on calories in, don’t worry too much about what it is as long as she is eating

• make sure she has access to “safe” foods throughout the day.

• try to find a multivitamin she will take

I would also talk to your HV or GP and get her properly weighed just so that is being monitored

My son is 4 and has never really loved sitting for a proper meal (will occasionally as he has gotten older), I make him a "snacky plate" that can just sit out so usually sliced cucumbers, strawberries, raspberries, crackers, yogurt tube, cheese etc that he can pick at between playing

But it's still better than a 3 year going almost 24 hours on just milk.

Ah. Stop stressing about UPFs and just offer anything, maybe mini pizzas, fishfingers, ham, sausages,: it’s much better that she eats regularly than worrying about other things just now

I have a bit of a fussy eater too, I find it's textures for him. Does she struggle with chewing or seem to not like to chew? Easy to swallow or soft to chew helps, so for breakfast for example my son has weetabix but it has to be heated in microwave so it's like a porridge texture with a bit of honey. Or ready brek, or he'll eat toast with peanut butter on and loves pancakes, I make tiny ones and he dips in yoghurt.

Lunch he will eat spaghetti hoops and scrambled or poached egg, again things that will just slide down his fussy gullet!

For dinner I really have to hide his nutrients so I make a mild curry and blend it and make flat bread which I toast and chop into fingers so he can dip in his daal textured curry, or lentil and veg sauce blended mixed into macaroni pasta.

Its a pain and I'm alway having to be creative to get nutrients in him but we've found those solid things he will definitely accept, and still try and offer fresh fruit and veg but he won't touch them, I have to hide fruit by making it a coulis or stewing it and putting with yoghurt. A pain the bum and I wasn't fussy so wasn't expecting it!