At my wits end with toddlers diet

[ReturnofSaturn]

My 15 month old son is a ridiculously fussy eater. It's actually getting ridiculous what he will actually eat.

For lunch today I made him a sandwich. Hummus with some chicken. (Not that it actually matters what was in it as as soon as it was put down in front of him he started crying without even having touched it)

He has now been screaming his head off for 30mins straight about lunch as I haven't made him anything else.
I feel awful, but it's got to the point where it's absolutely ridiculous and I need to draw the line somewhere.

He also won't eat any fruit or vegetables whatsoever. He will only eat banana if I blend it up and feed it to him like a pudding.

What he will eat:
Sausage roll
Toast
Cheese/meat pasty
Pizza/chips/potato waffle etc
Lasagne
Yoghurts
Biscuits

Help!? He's my only child and I'm exhausted with his now!

Take away everything on the list of Acceptable Beige and don't serve it for a year. Only feed him what you want him to eat. Wait it out. DOn't hand feed him, or hover over him. DOn't cajole him, beg him, get cross or bribe and threaten. And NEVER give more than 1 course, or he will learn to hold out for something 'better'.

Give him his meal, sit with your own meal, and chat nicely about other things.

Or just avoid food becoming a battleground and accept that eating is one of the few ways he's able to exert control in his little world.

We normally serve up the same or a very slight variation of what we're having, but try as often as possible to include a 'safe' food. She eats what she eats and we don't make a fuss about it. She's gradually getting more adventurous but I'm ok accepting that toddlers are often just fussy.

Colditz has always it.

Take all the energy out of the situation by not making it a focus.

Feed him broadly what you have.

Agree with colditz.

Serve food then retreat. Don’t beg, plead, threaten. Be totally neutral. He will start to eat. Act like you couldn’t give a shit either way but only serve food you want him to eat.

A few days pain for a lifetimes gain.

Children in Africa don’t turn down food I’m sure.

Can you get a plate with compartments, so that food doesn't touch? At lunch time, put things he will definitely eat in one part and something he often doesn't in just one part - eg if it's a three part plate, put a piece of toast in one bit, a piece of sausage roll in one bit, and a piece of cucumber in the third. Make it small portions, don't overwhelm him - think about how you would feel if faced with an enormous portion of something you'd never tried before. You can always give him seconds of what he does eat.

Don't worry if he doesn't eat the unfamiliar thing but sit and eat with him and let him see you eating all three items. Don't expect him to eat it the first time - picking up / handling, sniffing and licking are all successes as they are the pathway to eating. Then offer something he definitely eats for dinner.

Let him watch you cooking and offer him a little bit of whatever you're cooking with - the heart of the cabbage, a couple of frozen peas, a carrot slice etc. Don't worry if he abandons it, holding it is enough to start with.

Lots and lots of sensory / messy play time so that he gets used to touching new smells and textures, so it's not just at meal times that he experiences these and is then expected to put them in his mouth (think about how hard that would be even for an adult). Try driving toy cars through shaving foam, hide and seek with toys / cars in lentils or playdough, finger painting, pouring rice through a funnel, making patterns with cornflakes (you can playfully say "mmm" and eat one, and see if he copies, but don't worry if he doesn't).

And at 15 months he is still a baby, don't panic. Hummus and chicken sandwich might be a bit ambitious. My 4yo has only started eating sandwiches in the last year - before that she would have the component parts but not stacked into a sandwich. There's nothing wrong with a piece of bread with chicken next to it!

Does he still have milk overnight?

I do think people over think this to be honest.

His 15 months old, his still a baby. They all have phases

Just feed him what he likes but also keep offering new foods, always put veg on the plate. Don’t make a drama about it

Toast, is absolutely fine use wholemeal bread? Maybe he’d like cream cheese or peanut butter on it? What about beans on toast?

Lasagna is great, can pack veg in that (blend the veg and add it in if you have too) always put peas or broccoli on the plate with it

Yoghurts, again nothing wrong with that

Pizza, fine ( you can make them with a wrap even, put chicken/little bits of pepper on it he may eat as it’s still pizza)

Biscuits, well rich tea are pretty boring so he might not be so interested in them?

Sausage roll could make a batch of your own so it’s decent quality meat and I see nothing wrong with that either

Chips (cut up a potato and bake 35 mins with a little oil, not awful for him)

colditz said exactly what I would say.

Act like you couldn’t give a shit either way but only serve food you want him to eat.

This too.

Poor you. I can see how frustrating it must be. But he is very young and there is every chance his limited diet can be changed.

Most of the things on your list had not even been encountered by my DCs at that age.

So yo put it simply, the reason my DCs would not have preferred pizza is because I had never offered it to them (and they hadn't really seen it eaten by others).

Decide what you'd like his diet to be consistently offer him small portions of those foods. Eat them yourself at the same time.

Don't give up on a food until it has been offered on 15 - 20 different occasions.

Wishing you lots of luck.

It can be done!

My son came to me eating four things, toast, beans, bananas and chocolate, all very very sweet things. I carried this on for about eight weeks as I didn’t want to rock the boat.

We always ate together, but different meals, I started putting a very small amount of what I was eating on his plate. It took about two weeks for him to try the new item, I made absolutely no fuss when putting new foods on his plate and no fuss when he tried something new.

In two and a half years he has gone from his magic four to essentially eating anything I give him, the only thing he genuinely doesn’t like at the moment is aubergine.

I'm interested in advice on this too, although DS is 22m so older than the OP's child.

My 18 month old will not eat fruit or veg bar a banana. I hide it in sauces and then always put some on his plate. It often goes to the dog but I'm hoping one day he will start to eat it 👍

Thanks guys.

I don't usually overthink it honestly but every week the list of things he will actually eat seems to be getting smaller!!

He's my only child and have never spent time around babies or young children before so don't know what is normal or not.

I'm sure that 'put it in front of them and ignore them' tactic works for lots of children, but if they are very strong willed or have sensory issues, there are other approaches that might work better.
Put bowls of bite sized foods in front of him and tell him he can choose from them. Just make sure it's all food worth eating.
E.g. postage stamp sized sandwiches on wholemeal bread, with cream cheese and honey or high fruit jam, or peanut butter and jam, or ham and cheese. Chopped up slices of peeled cucumber, apple, pear, rice cakes or mini breadsticks dipped in humous, mini goujons of fish or chicken or chopped up fish fingers, sweet potato chips etc.

I was told to look at what he ate over a whole day or even a week, and as long as there was a healthy balance of all ey food types, not to worry.

You can usually sneak some blended banana and vitamin drops into some milk, or cook veg with tomatoes and smooth to a sauce with pasta and cheese.

Fussy phases are NORMAL.

You are there to prepare and serve the food. Beyond that there is no point getting stressed. Toddlers eat what they eat, some seem to get by on very little.

Is he growing? Are his energy levels normal? Do you give a vitamin D supplement?

I read that in evolutionary terms, when we were cave-dwelling types this was the time when babies started to crawl out and explore a bit without their mothers. Definitely not the time you want them to begin munching on weird foods they haven't seen before (poison berries and leaves etc).

Don't sweat it, he won't get to 18 without eating anything varied. DD gets a mix of predictable meals we know she'll eat a fair bit of and then often dinner is what we have whether she eats it or not. No cajoling but the odd game of pretending she's a dinosaur eating lettuce trees or whatever. Also she loves lollies, I can give her basically anything in lolly format using moulds.

They also go through phases where they just eat less, it depends on growth and hormones and all sorts of things. Try not to worry.

Yes woodcutbirds my son is insanely stubborn for a baby!
The HV even said don't make him anything else if he turns his nose up.
But, seriously how long would I let him starve for then? As he is just so so stubborn he does not give in.

For those saying just go with it etc won't I then be making a rod for my own back and end up having a lifetime of this fussy eating?

Relaxed attitude. Don't comment on what the food is and what he's eating.

Plenty of variety and a 'don't care if you eat it or not' attitude.

Let him see you eating the same meals and enjoying them (again don't give commentary on what you're eating)

I like the saying "you decide what and when, they decide whether and how much".

I'd deconstructed the sandwich - give a pot of hummous, bits of chicken and a slice of bread so he can dip/mix and match or just eat whichever bit he wants. Plus give him a few bits of banana or do the mashing and let him feed himself with a spoon? Or let him just play with the spoon and banana. A table knife and letting him chop soft fruits/veg also went down well with my DS. Make sure there's always something he likes at each meal, put a few things out for him and try not to make a big deal of it.

I also found it useful to remember that they are fussy at that age for a survival reason - they're getting a bit more independent in moving around so their little brains need to make sure that they don't toddle off and eat random poisonous berries or something! So that can be the reason they become very suspicious of new (and even not new) foods. It helped me to think it was actually an important phase in developing rather than a parental failure or just a fussy child who was never going to eat!

For those saying just go with it etc won't I then be making a rod for my own back and end up having a lifetime of this fussy eating?

I think making mealtimes a stressful battleground will create a lifelong fussy eater a lot quicker than going with the flow. Try to take the emotions out of meals, it should be enjoyable.

Let go of the fixed idea of what the child should be eating, how much they should eat and when they should eat it.

Toddlers can regulate themselves a lot better than adults can. If they are hungry they will eat, if they aren’t then they won’t.

But Naboo
He is hungry! I just gave him in and made him so toast and he smashed it down. I don't think people believe me when I say just how restricted his diet is! There's only a handful of things he eats (apart from puddings, choc, biscuits etc)

He has now been screaming his head off for 30mins straight about lunch as I haven't made him anything else.
I feel awful, but it's got to the point where it's absolutely ridiculous and I need to draw the line somewhere.

I mean, reading over that....it sounds crazy.
Why don’t you just give him what he likes? Leaving him screaming with hunger because you think he ‘should’ eat in a certain way is just madness. It will make you and him both miserable.
Offer different things on the side to hopefully encourage him to try. But stop stressing. Give him a multivitamin if you are worried.

It is 100% a (very annoying) phase. I don’t know a single toddler who hasn’t gone through some sort of fussiness with food at one stage or another. He will grow out of it, I promise.

Fussiness at this age is completely developmentally normal.

I would make him a little of what he likes with small amounts of new food on his plate, every time. No fuss about it, just remove it if he doesn't eat it. When they're a bit older I do insist on trying. Even just a lick. But at 15 months that's counter-productive.

Oh and children with SEN, with autism or sensory issues do fail to thrive and sometimes die in Africa. No one on this thread has any idea if this little boy has additional needs. Most of the people I know whose DC do didn't know at 15 months.

But Naboo
He is hungry! I just gave him in and made him so toast and he smashed it down. I don't think people believe me when I say just how restricted his diet is! There's only a handful of things he eats (apart from puddings, choc, biscuits etc)

But he knows you won’t leave him hungry until dinner, he didn’t want the sandwich so he kicked off and you gave him toast. Give him lunch, if he doesn’t want it that’s fine, but he doesn’t get another lunch. He won’t starve to death waiting for dinner, but he’ll be more likely to eat the sandwich next time

What if he doesn’t like the sandwich? I wouldn’t want to be forced to eat a hoummous sandwich.

Leaving him hungry until dinner time is just stupid. He’ll be hysterical. Just feed him!

I wouldn't want a hummus sandwich either.
What works for us is sometimes I will eat on the sofa and then he can come over and try what I'm eating if he wants. He often does and if he likes it I will make it him next time we eat.
No stress, just let him try what he wants.