How to encourage 5yo to eat more meals

[Mummyof287]

DD 5yrs 9mths is a really fussy eater (not too bad with breakfast/snacks/ lunch foods) but hot meals are very limited.Thankfully she does actually eat most school dinners but for some reason at home the only 'main meal' things we can get her to have are Fish fingers or Battered fish portions, Breaded mozarella sticks, Sausages, Pizza, Fried eggs on toast, Plain pasta and a little bit of potato (mash/wedges/waffles at a push) and the occasional mcdonalds burger & chips from there or the chip shop.

She hasn't eaten vegetables since about 18mths despite being offered various ones numerous times (0ther than cucumber which she loves at school but still won't touch at home despite me preparing it the way she said they do at school) She refuses to touch anything with a sauce at home too, but will eat Meatballs at school.

It makes weekend and school holidays teatimes very tricky to plan any meals for her, let alone healthier ones.

I'd be lying if I said I've never got frustrated with her about it, but we never push her to keep eating if she is full and encourage her to try things but do it lightly and don't force the issue, but praise her if she does even so much as lick it.

For reference; She is quite hypersensitive and also currently awaiting an assessment for possible ADHD.

She was breastfed exclusively til 6m, partially til 3.5yrs and had a pretty healthy weaning/toddler diet with plenty of home cooked balanced meals.Tried to allow her to feed herself as much as possible.

Any tips on how I can expand her very restrictive repertoire of meals?! Thanks

With my daughter I just always make sure there is one thing she likes in each meal (pesto pasta mainly) and then just put very tiny amounts of new/other things on her plate (a small amount of what the rest of the family are having). I try not to mention it one way or the other, but I do praise her if she’s tries the other food, even if she doesn’t like it. She started eating a few new foods (like salmon ) after having been given tiny bit in her plate or ages and then one day eating and deciding she likes it.

No great advice but just wanted to give solidarity to the fact that the are not alone, same ages child- disaster! I actually took them last week I get so stressed out about shopping and dinners as what will they eat etc and he suggested doing a list together on Tuesday “chooseday!” .
he will eat chicken curry no veg, sweet and sour chicken no veg, dry chicken, meatballs etc, dry pasta , rice, No potato things other than occasionally McDonald Fris( all other chip shops/ oven Chico’s rejected!) some fruits, Cucumber occasionally. Will lick/ try others at times egc overall it is exhausting! Will see what this “ chooseday “ list bring!

The leading person on child nutrition is Ellyn Satter, who has a thing called Division of Responsibility in feeding - your responsibility is when and what food is served and the child's responsibility is if and how much they eat.

I'm still working on it with my 5.5yo picky eater, but it feels like it should be less stressful than really worrying about forcing the issue. Struggling with consistently offering new things and eating plenty of veg ourselves though!

This page on her site has a quick overview of picky eating/fruit and veg issues https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/how-to-feed/childhood-feeding-problems/ and links to her books (but there's a lot of info on the site). In short, make sure there's always a safe food (she says plenty of bread is fine) and absolutely no pressure, and eventually they will come round. In her books she has a lot of case studies that show that where parents put pressure on kids eating, it almost always backfires in some way. The aim seems to be to make mealtimes relaxed and pleasant so they feel secure to try new things if they want to (I think she calls it "eating competence" and it's described somewhere on the site too).

Currently per her recommendations we're trying serving ourselves from bowls on the table (I find she takes less than I would serve her so I've definitely been serving too much before). I think there's at least once she's taken something she might not have had before, even if she didn't really eat it, it seems like a win! 2.5yo ate spicy chicken and liked it, and I wouldn't have served it to her.

Good luck! We're just starting out at really applying it consistently so I hope it all works out in the end!

If it is of any help, the two meals that helped expand my DD's repertoire were tuna pasta (just tuna and pasta, no mayo, no sweetcorn) and plain omelettes. I remember her coming home from school, having tried omelette for the first time, and accusing me of never having given this to her. From that, we moved on to eggy bread!