Do I HAVE to continue to cook separately?

[Luisaa]

Wits end.

5yo DS has always been an incredibly fussy eater but we are now at the point where he will only really eat pasta for dinner. He has pesto pasta, mascarpone, macaroni cheese. He will not eat tomato sauce, so no bolognese or hidden veggies sauces. He hates to see ‘bits’ ie onion, veg, herbs or chicken/mince.

Breakfast is ok as he likes eggs of different forms. Lunch is either a tuna sandwich or egg bagel. Not ideal but at least it’s something. He likes olives and hummus of all things so has that with a wrap once a week. Gone off chicken mayo which is a shame.

It’s dinners I’m mainly struggling with… tonight I have made a shepherds pie and I have refused to cook bloody pasta AGAIN. He is having a meltdown and refusing to eat. Do I just make the bloody pasta? Do I persevere but if so, how?

Any other dinner/lunch ideas for an incredibly fussy eater?

I did starve myself rather than eat the food my parents put in front of me. I didn't like the taste. I am sure there are adults out there who have at least one or two foods they don't like. How would you like a plate of that food put in front of you day in day out?

The health visitor was involved and then the GP. I was underweight, put on I suppose the equivalent of Complan, multivitamins and had an eating disorder from my parents trying to force me to eat foods I didn't like. I eat a whole variety of foods now but a totally different diet to what my parents still eat, they would eat an overcooked pork chop or dried roast beef because that is how they liked their food cooked. I like mediterranean food and eat a whole host of vegetables that were never offered to me as a child. I still won't eat butter beans, tinned peas and carrots but I will eat tenderstem broccoli.

I had a child who had a restricted diet due to illness. I would never send him to bed hungry so dinner was always something he would eat. I did however make him eat a tiny spoon of whatever we were eating so he was exposed to texture and taste. He just had to taste it, lick it, I didn't care as long as the food touched his tongue. Then he got brought his plate of food that he would eat. We made no fuss, no comments because having gone through this myself I just ended up completely stressed out at meal times and that makes it hard to eat food you do like hence why I was underweight.

My grandparents took this view. My parents were away for a long weekend and when they got home I hadn't eaten anything since they'd left. This doesn't necessarily work.

My dd was like this. You can blend cauliflower into a cheese sauce for macaroni...and also butternut squash if you can convince him that ora ge cheese (Red Leicester) is safe. You can also make up individual portions of macaroni and freeze them before the oven baking so that you':÷ for a stash.

I used to serve what she liked and some of what made her gag and encourage her to try a bit. I promise it slowly gets easier. Once I'd convinced dd to try smoothies with those carton ones from the supermarket I began making my own and hiding veg in that. You can hide a bit of spinach. Dd still has a variation of our meal often because she still has so many issues.

It is unwise to make food a battle.it will absolutely not make a fussy eater less fussy.
Give him whatever he will eat and dont make a big deal out of it. Also give him a tiny pot of something new or different with his dinner that he can try if he wants, no pressure.

I guess at least pasta is kind of easy to make. And you could do a batch then heat it up?

Would he eat egg noodles, rice noodles? Would he eat sweet chili or soy sauce, garlicky type flavours?

I guess you could either try and widen the number of things he can have with pasta, or try and get the sauces he likes onto other things? Would he accept cheesy sauce with rice or potato?

My brother was a very fussy eater, also very active and therefore very thin. Dr told my mum just get calories in him and if he'll only eat Weetabix give him Weetabix. Also things like smoothies but back then he just called them milkshakes. Add cream to things if you can etc. He grew out of it eventually and now eats well as an adult. I think the worst thing you can do is make food a battle or an area he doesn't feel safe. Give him the pasta give him a plate to the side with some other bits on if he eats them fine, if he doesn't fine. If it persists long term see the GP but my experience is unless it's very very limited and they're not losing weight, they're not massively interested.

If it were me I would start with half family dinner, half pasta and put zero pressure on to try the family dinner. Just by exposure he may surprise you and start interacting with the food he doesn't like and then may even try it.

My brother only ate fishfingers and drank sweet tea until he was about 10. My mum struggled to get him to eat anything - but he’s completely fine as an adult and not remotely fussy. If he only wants pasta, I’d be inclined just to do that and blend some broccoli into the pesto!

With my DD went fussy, I made what I knew she’d eat but have a plate on the side with a tiny bit of whatever I was eating and encouraged her to try it, especially things she could pick out with her fingers.

I would also do things like cooking and food that you can make eg wraps and pizza and have a range of different things to choose from to add.

If he doesn’t like cooking then baking sweet treats and tasting them is still expanding his palate and encoring him to try new things.

My eldest would 100% starve if not given safe food. Now she’s older (11) she wants to try new things but it’s done in a safe way, where she knows she won’t be in trouble if she doesn’t like something.

We didn’t make food a battle and we do our best to rotate meals the best we can.

It helps to serve stuff family style and let them help themselves. I would do the pasta but put it in a communal bowl on table along with the other stuff and everyone helps themselves. Don’t cajole or suggest he try stuff, don’t talk about the food. He will likely stick to pasta at first but over time he may get curious and try something else that’s on there. Don’t comment on it if he does, just act like nothing has happened! And start including him in the cooking process. DD1 enjoys chopping vegetables and it makes her more willing to try something if she’s helped to make it. And at the very least he is gaining skills for the day his diet does change.

People feel VERY passionately on both sides of this debate OP!

Mine are all now entering adulthood, this is my experience. I took the “tough love” approach to any attempts at fussy eating - 2 of mine now eat anything and the fussiest one eats a much broader spectrum than he would have chosen ten years ago. Conversely I have several friends who now regret listening to dieticians who said not to force anything and let the child lead and now, 15 years on, it’s more entrenched than ever.

For sure, ARFID exists, but I think personally it is being massively overdiagnosed and that the vast majority of children can be positively moved along the food spectrum, albeit at different rates and to different extents.

I’d say you try and broaden it if you can, but “only pasta > shepherds pie” is probably a bit ambitious! How about some halfway houses that combine a bit of challenge with safe foods , eg pesto with potatoes, or pasta with tuna, hummus or different flavoured sauces?

Some other ideas:
Getting him involved in cooking
Getting him involved in menu planning
Allowing him to write a veto list
Getting him to choose one area he agrees to try and be braver in each month (eg trying new fruit, or allowing tomato sauce next to his pasta etc)

Reinforcing the different “grades” of dislike; and giving him language for those eg
This food is not my favourite but I can cope with it
This food makes me feel sick
I really like this food
and so on, so that not everything is “I hate it”.

And lastly- choose your battles. Maybe choose one evening each week to work on it; ideally an evening where you’re not all shattered. Make sure he’s had a decent lunch that day and if you can, agree in advance what the challenge that week will be.

Good luck 💐

I had a child like this. I cooked the pasta every night because I wanted him to eat. It went on for years, I tried every strategy to introduce different foods but little success.

I started many threads here about what to do, and received lots of responses about how I was spoiling him.

He is in his 20s now and is the most adventurous eater of all my dc, and is a wonderful cook!! Things stared to change in his teens but I didn't push it and let him go at his own pace.

My advice is don't turn dinner into a battleground. It's very easy to cook a plate of pasta for him. Your relationship with him is more important than the variety of foods he eats. Give him a multivitamin every morning and let him eat what he wants.

This 🖕. Get them involved, a blender will be your friend for the veggies

My Dd would starve herself. She would only want pasta, nuggets and pizza, chips for dinner. She did eat salad bits and some veg so we let her just eat those things. She's now 15 and will not eat "real" meat apart from mince in bolognese. She has had aham sandwich for lunch every school day for the past 6 years, before that, it was cheese. She has the same pasta dish whenever she can get away with it and makes it herself. She'll choose it over a McDonald's or other takeaway.

I'd say go with it but offer a bit of your dinner on a separate plate but it's not an easy battle.

Mine were fussy (not as bad as yours though, OP). I just resigned myself to making two different meals several times per week. Since going to university, they eat everything and criticised me (when they found out what they’d been missing) for letting them refuse foods. However, at the time, hell would have frozen over before they would’ve eaten it. It’s harder than people think making a 5yr old eat.

It’s really not. It’s one night.

I am not ND but I would have probably been diagnosed with Arfid had it been known back in the day. I would have starved rather than eat something that massively stressed me out. You cannot make him eat.

my son was also extremely fussy and wouldn’t eat meat in any form (not even a nugget) , no rice, no sandwiches as a small child. He was ok with fruit and ate carrots and peas though and chips. I used to give him his safe food and have a little spoonful of what we were eating on the side of his plate. I would say I don’t mind if you like it or don’t like it but would just like you to try it. Sometimes he’d give the tiniest lick but I would praise it. As time went on he would try more and more. Now, at 13, he eats pretty well. Still a fussy eater for sure but so so much better than he was. We can eat some family meals together now that are the same for all of us- fajitas, spaghetti bolognaise, pasta, rice and chicken. Huge improvement. My daughter eats anything so I know it’s not how he’s been brought up and having experienced it myself, I know it’s not something he’s choosing. It’s horrible to dislike and feel fear of food.

keep with his safe food and just add little spoonfuls (so they’re not overwhelming and stressful) on the plate and praise him if he tries it. If he’s getting bored of his safe foods he might give it a little go.

At 3 my son only ate ham wraps, quavers and grapes for lunch, plain pasta and brocolli for tea and toast or cereal for breakfast (if I was lucky, sometime he had a ham wrap). I swore he would turn into a bloody ham wrap. We rolled with it, he would go 24 hours without eating if he didnt like it. Hes a teen now, much better, there are some things he wont eat but most evenings he has what we have now,

Sending solidarity OP as a parent who has to cook multiple meals to cater for the ASD/ADHD/ARFID in our house.

Practical things that help me:

batch cook and freeze meals/sauces regularly to make prepping 2 meals on one evening easier

meal plan and share the cooking with DH

rice cooker is really helpful as you put it on then don't have to think about it and it stays hot for hours

air fryer is good for doing small amounts of chicken or salmon for example if only one or two people are having that

lots of sides (chopped raw veg/spinach/kale/dips/fingers of toast for dipping/olives/sun-dried tomatoes/mini wraps/grated or chopped up cheese) on the table for everyone has been a good way to try different things without the pressure of it being on their plate.

one plate and a side bowl or plate to keep things separate.

How is he with noodles? One of my kids will eat those with a bit of sesame oil, some raw pepper/carrot/cucumber on the side and a bit of tuna (all separate). Not a typical combo but nutritionally not too bad.

You could seek help from the GP if you think ARFID is a possibility.

Know you're not doing anything wrong, some kids really do find eating a real struggle for many different reasons.

And if it gives you hope, my kids have definitely been more open to trying things as they have got older.

Good luck

@Luisaa
Its a nightmare for you but I'm knocking 60 yrs old and can still remember being forced to eat food that I literally couldn't eat, the smell, the texture, the taste and even just the look of it.

Back then the train of thought from DP's was "eat it or go hungry".

I went hungry a lot.

I used to sneak downstairs when everyone was in bed to "steal" a slice of dry bread.

This was in the 1970's there were no snacks, sweets, crisps or fruit to snack on, no-one in our circle could afford it.

I remember getting anxious on the way home from school about what was for tea, I can feel that feeling now, just recalling it.

Tbh, I think it set me up with an issue around food for life, not an ED exactly but I'm "funny about food".

So I don't have any advice but just wanted to share that forcing food or going without as suggested by a PP is definitely the wrong way to go.

I don't know, I like to treat my children as I would be like to be treated. If I relied on someone to feed me through no fault of my own and they insisted on feeding me things that I don't like or I would have to be hungry I wouldn't like it very much.

OP I would go with something he likes and something for him to try on his plate(not touching if he is anything like my dd). She is a teenager now and eats lots of different things, we never had to starve her to get her there.

I had similar with my youngest one. In the end I said he could have his preferred food but he had to have a spoonful of what we were eating. He's now 17 and the past 8 months.... he's eating everything!! It will get better x

Sounds so similar to me at that age and my dad was of the 'eat it or starve' persuasion. Turned every dinnertime into either a full on argument or pressuring me. This did NOT HELP. Also what didnt help is if I DID try something new and didnt hate it, I would get:
"See!! Its not that hard is it! You just need to try more stuff, i told you that you'd like it, didnt I??"
Which immediately added a load of guilt and pressure and more importantly, the attention was all on me and what I was eating. So i didnt try new foods because either way, I was getting pressure. And I didnt feel supported, I felt like I was getting 'i told you so'. So i didnt try stuff.
I suppose what im saying is, when you are struggling with something, the last thing that helps is everyone staring at you and pressuring you and threats and heightened emotion.
I tell you what did help - when I was a teen, said parent moved out and my mum would call me into the kitchen as she was plating up and go 'ive put a bit of x on your plate, cut up very small, if you try one bite that would be brilliant, but if you dont, dont worry' and then it wasnt mentioned again, unless I had tried a bite, in which case, she would ask later on what I thought, and if I said 'gross' she'd go 'okay, good for trying though' and if I said 'it was okay' she'd say 'okay, maybe we try that again then at some point' and i got more comfortable with that 'one bite' and tried more foods and now I eat nearly everything! Still hate mushrooms and cauliflower cheese though...
There are lots of knowledgeable people on here who will be along to help, but just thought id put in how much taking all the emotion and pressure and spotlight out of the actual meal itself helped me.

Op he now eats everything I cook. So stews, curries,stir fry. For a long time he would only eat pizza. In the end I refused to cook it any more. Would your son eat cereal?? Not ideal I know but he would get some vitamins??