DD7 keeps spitting out food

[AllForAnEasyLife]

Dd7 has over the last 2 weeks been spitting out her food at mealtimes.

So she will put the food in her mouth, chew it and then spit it in tissues and pile them up next to her at the table.

She says she cant eat it or she doesn't like it etc.

I say to her that if she doesn't want it thats fine just leave it. However she wants to eat the food and then eat snacks and sweet food afterwards so i think shes trying to get rid of the savoury food in order to have a dessert.

I thought it was a reaction to being out of her routine for so long and not having any contact with friends etc. She has now gone back to school as we are key workers and im unable to not work any longer.

She was extremely pleased about going back and over the last week no spitting of food was happening.

However tonight we are back to it again.

Dd tells me that at school if they provide the packed lunch (on 2 occasions) she stands over the bin eating the sandwich and then spitting it out.

I only serve meals that i know she likes, she chooses her own portion too.

She asks for food alot but when given it she will eat 1/4 of it then not want it.

She always wants a sweet pudding after meals which we are trying to discourage and implement that sweet stuff is not an everyday thing. If fruit or yoghurt is offered after meals instead she very often declines it.

She is not over weight but is slowly dropping centiles. She was on the 91st and now shes on the 83rd.

Dh wants to not let her leave the table until food has finished but i really don't want to do this. He also wants to ban all snacks and sweet stuff until she can eat savoury food for a good while.

I don't know what to do

There is no coughing or anything like that.

There is no need for such harsh responses.

I want to understand and help my daughter.

Please ignore all the harsh responses @AllForAnEasyLife it’s hard to get sympathetic responses on MN Clearly there’s something going on and your DD isn’t just being badly behaved here. Like I said above, I think this is a sign of something deeper and she’s anxious about something.

Help your daughter by not pandering to her giving her sweets and junk after choosing her meal she spits it out and gets a treat for doing it she has far too much control over everything

@Haworthia I agree with you in some respects but if it was anxiety surely it would be for all food not just savoury? It seems to be a tactic to get through the foods she sees as boring in order to get pudding.

Like I said above, I think this is a sign of something deeper and she’s anxious about something

If it's down to anxiety why is she only spitting out savoury foods?

Give her a biscuit or small amount of chocolate with her meal. Once she’s eaten that encourage her to sit at the table until you’ve all finished eating. If she’s hungry she might eat as she’s not trying to hurry to get to the sweet thing. If she doesn’t eat her meal then don’t make a fuss just tell her you’ll put it in the fridge until she’s hungry. When she asks for a sweet thing instead later tell her she needs to eat the food that fills her up first.

I’m a bit that you tried to blame your sister who DD wouldn’t have seen for 10 weeks.
Spitting into a bin is foul but she must be supervised at lunch. If she was my student I would have told her off for it and then told you about it.

If it's down to anxiety why is she only spitting out savoury foods?

Look, I simply don’t believe that any seven year old, who previously ate happily and normally, would restrict their own food intake so dramatically just because they want to skip straight to dessert. Look at the bigger picture here. She’s losing weight. She must be hungry despite the small amount of sweet food she’s eating.

She’s eating the sweet things because she finds that easier to eat and harder to resist.

My daughter, aged 8, developed food issues after a gastro big. She’d sit and cry and say she wanted to eat but she couldn’t. She too would cave when it came to sweet food.

I hate these threads that turn into a pile on of posters criticising the OP and the child unfairly. I guarantee this child isn’t being manipulative.

It's a choice she is making as she is only doing it with savoury. Did you tell her off when it started? Spitting food out would be totally unacceptable here, is it something you have allowed?

What do you mean “allowed”? How do you stop a child from spitting out food, short of sewing their lips shut?

What do you mean “allowed”? How do you stop a child from spitting out food, short of sewing their lips shut?

She's 7. You do it the same way you stop them doing anything else - with sanctions for doing it.

What do you mean “allowed”? How do you stop a child from spitting out food, short of sewing their lips shut?

The same way you stop them doing anything else - consequences.

Spitting food out is rude.

What do you mean “allowed”? How do you stop a child from spitting out food, short of sewing their lips shut?

Don't be bloody ridiculous. I won't even waste my time trying to explain. It would be too hard for you to understand.

I've never had this issue with my kids but...

could you turn the meal around? Start with a very small amount of sweet stuff (like a yogburt or fruit) and then serve the savoury? If she knows she's had all the sweet stuff that's going, would she then eat the meal? Obviously her appetite will be less, but if you've only allowed the tiniest bit of sweet (like one of those petit filous or something), then her appetite should allow some of the main meal.

And if she's still hungry then she'll eat. If it's obvious that that is ALL the pudding that is on offer (a tiny scoop of ice cream or one single bit of something), then maybe she will eat her meals 'back to front'?

Ok so we decided from the last time i posted that we would ban all sweet stuff, including crisps etc.

She complained alot at first but did stop mentioning it after a few days.

Now as she knows shes not allowed to spit the food out, she has started storing it in her mouth. She stores it for about 15 mins before swallowing it. Its not every mouthful but its usually the last mouthful she stores.

Every meal i make there is a complaint. There is far too much things she doesnt like.

If i make a spaghetti bolognaise then she complains if there is mushrooms in it.

If i make cottage pie or potate hash then she complains if there is onion in it.

Cereals, she doesnt want them with milk, she wants to eat them dry.

Wants tomato sauce with every main meal to mask the taste of the food.

Likes malt loaf or soreen loaf as its mainly called but picks the raisons out of it.

Will only eat yogurt if it has the chocolate split pots.

Wont eat apples, pears etc unless they are peeled as she doesn't like the skin on them.

Im getting really fucked off with this and my patience is wearing very thin with it.

Obviously its not nice to eat things that you dont like and i would hate that done to me but her list is too large of what she doesnt like therefor it means im constantly altering meals

Oh i forgot...

Wont eat pie of any sort

Fresh fish - wont touch it but will eat fish fingers

Cheese is also out, as is cheese spread etc

Eggs is another one. I ve tried it all sorts of ways to no avail.

I could go on and on

My 6 year old DD went through this and it tuned out she had tonsilitis which was reoccuring.

Did anything happen just prior to her starting the food spiting? Such as choking on food or being sick? Just thinking back to when I was a kid, and I got some very strange ideas in my head regarding certain foods. Such as purple jelly babies being poisonous. Or that certain foods would give me worms ( after mishearing something my mum said.) Could she be scared that fruit and vegetables have bugs/ insects in them and are going to make her sick? but think crisps and sweets are safe because they are 'manmade.' Or that she could get something like mad cow decease from beef. I'm trying to think outside the box. There must be a reason she is doing this and it might not to be intentionally awkward.

She doesn't want cheese, milk, eggs or certain yogurts? You don't have any friends or relatives who are vegan do you? And who might have been talking to her about it?

I honestly cant think of why this is happening.

Over time, last year she slowly started mentioning she didnt like certain food that she had previously eaten.

She then became fussier and fussier with food, she hasnt mentioned anything about throat pain, being wary of whats inside something etc.

Nobody i know is a vegetarian or vegan

Is it a control thing? Not in a bad way. But that life is very uncertain and different right now. I know that my dd feels that life is not in control and reacts in different ways to that.
Maybe this is the thing she can control or feel she gets to control.

We went through this with DD1. I ended up not listening to her before the good wax ready but if she complained at the table once the food was dished up I'd just remove the plate and tell her to get down from the table where we'd ramp up the jokes and chatting about lovely things then have a tasty pudding.

She soon dropped it and just ate what I put in front of her to be part of the merriment.