Fussy eater or ok?

[teaforall]

Am I stressing too much? Meal planning is a headache.

DS1 (8)
Tall and slim. Very active. Bad sleeper with night wakings. Goes back to sleep after warm milk.

Likes cereal/Weetabix/croissants/pain au chocolat
Bread - brown/white (but nothing with seeds)
Rice, loves pasta (his fav food) but not keen on chips/potato shapes. No butternut squash etc.
Loves tomato sauce or anything saucy on pasta (I whizz veg into it) Used to like noodles but not anymore
Likes curry sauce/stews/soups
Cheese - grated cheddar only. No feta/halloumi/babybel/cheesestring
Dislikes salad
Dislikes fruit - no bananas/oranges. Hates the skin and seeds on fruit so only finely sliced and peeled apple, raisins or smoothies. He drinks a lot of smoothies but not with 'bits in' or bananas.
Vegetables - Only broccoli, cauli and carrots. He eats those a lot. Occasionally baby sweetcorn. Nothing with a ’skin’ like courgette, green beans, tomatoes, cucumber.
Meat - chicken drumsticks, tinned meatballs (not 'real ones'), ham, no sausages (used to love). Dislikes tuna.
Fish - ok with salmon flaked into pasta or fish fingers/goujons/fish fillets
He'll eat yoghurt but only petit filous, not plain greek etc.
Crisps - only Quavers and Ready Salted
Loves chocolate/biscuits/icecream but obvs not every day
Loves milk
Loves shop bought lasagna.

By contrast, his brother (7) wolfs down fruit and veg. Eats it before the carbs/protein. He doesn’t like saucy foods so meal planning is tricky. Luckily DH eats most things.

Also likes porridge

Sat here in tears as the bad sleep is so tough and I don't know if it's his diet affecting his sleep.

Sounds similar to my DD (also 8).

We tend to adapt what we are eating to include something she likes so from your list:

• Family has salmon fillets and veg she has flaked salmon in pasta or fish fingers and veg

• Lasagne - try making one with no veg - the mutti tinned tomatoes are the only ones DD will eat - or used a sauce DS likes as a base

• Chicken - roast chicken for the family DS gets the drumsticks

Give him a bowl of porridge or toast before bed every night

Please don’t be offended but that is not fussy! That’s actually a really good range of things.

Thanks. Not offended at all. Lack of sleep makes everything worse doesn't it?!

That honestly is not bad! I was expecting ham sandwich and quavers. 8 is still young and he will get more adventurous

His diet sounds alright really! So I don’t think that’s affecting his sleep.

I would give him supper before bed and stop the warm milk palaver. He’s likely waking up because he knows you’ll make him a drink. Give him a couple of days notice and then stick to it.

When Dd wakes up in the night, unless she’s had a nightmare I’m very firm about not getting up and going straight back to sleep.

If she's had a nightmare ,do you stay with her in her room til she settles? DH thinks we could let him in our bed (which we do sometimes) but I think that's not helping the whole cycle.

He woke last night at 2am and came down to us (we sleep directly below him on floor below). I said go and try to get back to sleep and he burst into tears and went up and cried. He shares with his brother so I went to settle him so he didn't wake the whole house. He said he was scared and had a bad dream.

Might just be settling back into school.

He struggles to settle himself if he wakes so he comes down to say cold, hot, bad dream, tummy ache etc.

Yeah if she’s had a nightmare I usually let her in with me, I hated having to sleep on my own after a bad dream so wouldn’t do that to Dd. However she will use that to sleep in my bed every night so I do have to judge when she actually does have one, it’s usually obvious if she’s really upset rather than whinging!

Do your dc listen to anything whilst in bed? Dd has a toniebox that she will put on if she wakes up in the night and will go back to sleep quite easily with that. I wonder if he chose some books to listen to and he knew he could quietly have it on so it didn’t wake his brother up that would help?

That sounds like a very well balanced diet overall.

Thanks Ostryga. Will try that. Writing it down, he does eat pretty well actually. He's just very slim but my Dad was the same build so must be genes. He's got bags of energy.