A dad loosing the will to live with feeding times

[Nitramuss2025]

My 18 month old about 3 weeks or so ago decided he didn't want to eat his meals anymore. Before hand he was always a fussy eater, with meal times taking longer than usual to feed him.

Now every single meal is a complete battle , most meals he takes a bottle , just blue milk , he's been off formula for about a week or so.sometimes we don't give him the bottle for a while to see if he eats then end up giving him it after an hour or he just has nothing in his stomach

He won't eat anything he previously liked and when he does it's once in a blue moon.

The books all say to let them pick , or have favourites that they will eat as a backup. None work.

He is quite fond of fruit or was sorry. Now refuses to touch it completly. Wasting a crap tone of food and only nibbling when , for lack of a better word he's forced to eat or he can't leave the table.

He's not at a high chair anymore. He has his own tables and chairs , even when my niece visits she sits there beside him only a few months of a difference wolfing her tea down, as he watches and still don't eat.

He will occasionally eat Coco pops, porridge the odd time, but most of his meals are a variety, so he eats what we eat.

Sandwiches or thins at lunch time , with ham or chicken, with a small side of quavers or fruit all cut up.

Dinners concist of again what we have, chicken , mince, fish , with rice or pasta with veg, carrots and peas and so forth

It's now at the point I'm getting increasingly angry because of this.

Was recommended to try the naughty step and out him back to his dinner after a few mins, didn't work, I don't think he's old enough to recognise what it means.

But now he's developed the no shakey head approach, trying to spoon feed him or hand him something or simply asking him to eat his food is met with a stern face, brows down and a head shake signalling no.

I'm at a complete loss and whilst everyone is telling me it's a stage and it will pass it seems to be getting worse not better.

He's even doing it with chocolate and crisps not that he gets them that often.

He's been teething since he was one and now has about 10 teeth, so I would have assumed it would.make eating easier and he would be game. But no joy

Can anyone help me

I think the best advice I ever received when going through this was "no child will starve themselves to death". It really helped me stop getting wound up over it. Offer picky food on a plate that he can help himself to and just let him get on with it. As long as something is going down he will be fine. My mother always tells me that for about a year at that age I literally lived on bananas, Weetabix and yoghurts. Obviously I grew out of it.

Been there! It's tough.
You need to stop making it a battle. Eat together, make no comment if he won't eat. Just chat normally and take the food away at the end of the meal.

I always say my job is just to make the dinner not to make them eat it! I think our job as parents is to create the right environment. We create a place for them to feel safe, to learn, to grow, etc. We facilitate their needs, take them to their appointments, give them opportunities to socialise and keep active. We encourage them, we are there for them when they need us, we create the boundaries and structure. But we have no say in their compliance. We provide the food, we may even cut it up and spoon it to them when they are little, bit we can't make them actually swallow it! That's not our business! Just like we can take them to the park but can't make them play, take them to school but can't make them learn etc. We are not in control of that, just for creating the right environment. The rest is up to them

lose the milk and allow him to play and put little bowls of food around. If and when he goes to eat something don't react, just ignore it so it doesn't become more of a thing than it already is.

Failing that, a teddy bears picnic maybe, everyone sit and have lunch on a picnic blanket etc - might work.

Don't tell him off for it - it will just make it worse in the long run ( even though I know it's really frustrating)

Have you tried making a face with the food on the plate? Or a boat or flower. Sometimes that tempts them if you can say eat the eyes rather than the peas. Also you have had lots of good advice from PP

Lots of good advice here.

What worked for me with an older DS was to use the biggest plate I had and put a smallish portion on it, that would look much smaller than it really was because of all the empty plate around it.

The wisest thing I ever read here about kids and food was:

It's your job to put healthy nutritious food on the table. It's your kid's job to eat it. Or not.

That's all we can do as parents: give them the opportunity to eat well 3 times a day with a couple of healthy snacks. Whether they choose to eat it or not is up to them.

What i learned to do with my fussy eater is put the food in front of her then not react. If she leaves it, there's no reaction from me at all. It takes two to get into a battle. Gradually, this approach has worked and her diet has expanded. Be patient. Lose the bottle and swapfor a sippy cup. Save milk for snack times.

Obviously make sure he doesnt have a sore throat or anything like that first .
My ds went like this around the same age , honestly the list of things he would eat I could count on one hand! I was worried about his nutrition so I gave him abidec drops , but I decided early on I wasnt going to go into battle- I saw my sil do this with my niece and it was awful.
I just gave him what he liked to eat and always offered something new. It improved greatly when he went to nursery full time , he just loved to copy his peers .
He's 6 now and doesnt eat " everything " but has a wide range of nutritious foods that he enjoys.

Please don't go down the teatime battle route ,my 12 year old niece doesnt eat enough to keep a sparrow alive and I think it stems from this

Oh and let him sit at the same table as you while you both have a meal together. Monkey see, monkey do. Those little tables are more for colouring and playing. Eating should be a sociable activity.

You've had some good advice that I agree with, as pp said, put down the rope, stop it being a battle. I wanted to add that it's fairly normal for kids to be a bit feast and famine with their eating. Mine are 3 & 6 and they're still a bit like this, either eating me out of house and home or hardly eating at all. I read that it's a normal thing. It's more important that they learn to regulate their own eating and stop when full, rather than clear a plate. I also wanted to mention portion sizes. A portion for a toddler is the size of their closed fist. If you're accidentally putting too much on a plate then it can put them off. It could be worth putting a half portion on the plate for a while, and having more available on the table serve-yourselves style if they do want more. Meals where everyone serves themselves are a great idea because it gives the child the control, which can lead to kids eating more. Finally I wanted to mention the Facebook page 'kids eat in color' which is full of useful ideas for fussy eaters. Good luck op!

Sometimes that tempts them if you can say eat the eyes rather than the peas.

Please don't do this. Children who are allowed to select what they would like from a balanced range of food do not need to be told to eat anything. They will try new foods when it's right for them. Pressure to eat is never a good idea for a NT child.

I would like to add that there are children who will literally starve themselves because they have neurodevelopmental differences or eating disorders. They are few and far between and the huge majority of resistant toddlers only behave like this because their parents are trying to impose inappropriate control and creating a battle they can't win.