"Just feed them what you eat"

[Cindy1802]

I am at my wits end with kids and how crap they are at eating. I have a 5 and 2 year old, who both are fed good diets. They get a home made meal from scratch every night of the week. They have always been served what we eat, moderated with no chilli/low salt etc, but recently it's been grating on me how often they complain about what's in front of them. I am adamant I am not going to be making multiple meals every night. I did my reading during the weaning stages and read many sources saying to feed them what we eat. But everything is apparently disgusting! For context, they have rejected this week:
Tomato and chicken orzo
Pea asparagus lemon risotto
Butter chicken curry
Satay stir fry veg and rice
Kid friendly chow mein
Roast veg tray bake with sausage and halloumi

They will sometimes pick through and eat the sausage, plain pasta or a particular veg, but many times it's just moaning and complaining! Please tell me I'm not alone!!
Thanks for the rant, I feel a tad better already 😆

To be honest I would reject most of that. I would rather have homemade fishfinger with ketchup, cottage pie with veg, beef stew and dumplings macaroni cheese, spaghetti bol. Keep it simple.

Homemade chicken goujons, meatballs, casseroles

I was chef in a kids nursery and the simple more basic meals were always the favourite.

You're giving them adult flavours and textures. I think ours were about 8 to 10 when we could all eat the same meal unless it was a roast dinner or spaghetti bol. There's a reason why kids like simple textures/flavours. You can still feed them healthy food, it's not about chicken nuggets and beige food.

Mine really prefer "meat and two veg" type meals. Salmon with roasted sweet potato and red peppers, lamb chops or pork ribs with carrots and peas, sausages with potatoes and beans, roast chicken with veg. I season ours and leave theirs very plain.

We have had success with curries and stir fries when the sauce is very mild, sweet or rich with lots of coconut milk or yoghurt. And of course anything in a tomato sauce is eaten (spag bol, meatballs etc)

Try sausage and mash, spaghetti with pesto or bolognaise, macaroni cheese, mine prefer just plain egg noodles to any stir fry or even plain pasta sometimes, rice with some plain chicken or tuna (maybe...). Children do often just prefer plainer food that is simple so they know what it is. The books sound lovely theory but my lot certainly didn't read them. Your menu sounds lovely to me but I know my kids wouldn't eat it.

Agree that the meal plan doesn't sound appetising to be honest. They literally sound like recipes from ready to cook meal boxes, or a forced attempt at being fancy. Unless you're exceptionally good at cooking, it's extremely hard to make any of those dishes taste nice for a comforting weeknight meal. Peas, asparagus, lemon and risotto rice grains sound like a textural hell. Stir fry and chow mein sound greasy and bland, especially if salt reduced. Tray bakes are notoriously tasteless because everything is sitting in watery veg juices and you don't have any depth of flavour from frying, deglazing, etc.

Children crave comfort food like spag bol, pie, lasagne, mashed potatoes, roast chicken, fried meat, buttery veg etc. If made from scratch, boring meals can be the best ones.

I'd love that now but I don't think I'd have eaten it when I was five. It sounds a bit spicy for the average child's palate.

Our dinners usually consist of Lasagne, Shepard's pie, bolognaise, stew, fish and rice, a fry up, sausages and mash/ chips … I don’t know that I’d eat much of what you eat either tbh

I get you’re suppose to feed them what you eat, but they are people who live in your house so why not cook stuff they might like? Other than the curry I wouldn’t eat those meals either. Keep the flavours and textures a bit more simple while they are so young

We absolutely do serve them things like spag bol, sausage and mash, roast dinners, pasta bake. They do eat those kinds of things but I don't want to eat that kind of thing every night. I guess my whole point is that the advice of "just feed them what you eat" is rather misleading unless you all want to stick to quite plain and standard meals!! I have just got a bit triggered lately by insta Vs reality, people making out that if you feed your kids this kind of diet from the get go, they will be used to it and eat what you eat.

I don't think I worded my original post very well, I was ranting a bit too hard 🤣

I'm also wondering how many of those meals are truly made from scratch, as opposed to fresh ingredients being doused in a jarred sauce. Things like butter chicken, stir fry and satay sound a lot like they were done with ready-made sauces, which always taste like a shadow of the real thing. So you can't blame children, or anyone, for not liking things made using convenience products.

Maybe cook more of the bland meals considering they’ve rejected 6 very adult ones in the last week. There’s balance to be had between plain every night and very adult every night. And remember social media isn’t real! Some kids will enjoy those flavours but yours don’t yet and that’s fine too, that’s real life

I disagree with PPs. I think that all sounds fine. When mine were little they were happy with mild chicken curry, risotto etc as well as home made lasagne and pasta/pizza. Veg wasn’t a problem either. They didn’t have nuggets or burgers so didn’t expect them (though they did have the occasional fish finger).

However, when they went to school and friends’ houses they started to change. Peer pressure.

Fuck me what a load of dull posters. Your menus sound a billion times nicer than a homemade fish finger or a bloody cottage pie!

Those things aren’t difficult to cook from scratch you know

When DS was 4, he would have struggled with most of that. He often ate a wrap filled with something from the meal plus some raw pepper or sweetcorn.

He got better and now age 6 would eat most (maybe all) of that.

I hear your frustration though about media saying 'just feed them what you eat!

I don’t like much of what you listed. It’s a lot of quite strong textures, and some flavours that aren’t that appealing to some. I’d cook (healthy) children’s food during the week, and perhaps what you’re having at weekends.
School is busy and there’s a lot of sensory going on while they’re there. Nothing wrong with just wanting something simple after a busy day.

Your food sounds lovely and far better than I cook for myself but I can understand why it might not appeal to a child's palate

Nothing wrong with that menu. Some things you could try to make your lives easier: hold back part of their favourite bit (eg some sausage) as an incentive to eat the veg, tell them it's a good idea to eat the dinner but it's a choice and if they don't want it tonight they can have it for breakfast, get them to help choose what they want every Friday or whenever so they feel involved with having some degree of control (because it's not great being fed things that aren't your favourite every single day).

Sorry but if you think this then clearly you just can’t cook. It’s really easy to make these things delicious.

Your meals sound lovely, but I don’t think my kids would’ve eaten them at 2 and 5. They’re 8 and 10 now and much more adventurous so I think we could do most of those meals, especially if I introduced them in stages.

I found what worked best with mine is firstly not having stuff mixed up so they wouldn’t just reject the whole meal after a single bite (or look) and secondly making sure there was at least one very familiar element on the plate if I was trying to get them to eat something new. Adapting meals so we had similar but not exactly the same worked too, so same carb and vegetable for example, but DH and would have salmon and the kids have fish fingers (now they devour salmon and it’s so bloody expensive I think I’d prefer it if they just liked fish fingers!). I just found the whole process so soul destroying that it wasn’t worth trying to force them to eat the salmon (for example) as long as the meal was generally balanced and not too much hassle for me.

I’d say we eat the vast majority of meals almost exactly the same now, so there is hope - and my DS was very fussy when he was small. We do eat quite boringly in my opinion, but I don’t have the brain power to think up new meals at the moment, I’m just grateful we all eat the same. Mostly! I do enjoy a hot curry and that’s always pizza nights for the kids.

A 5 year old is old enough to know its rude to call food disgusting. We taught ours its fine to not like certain food, but that its unacceptable to be rude about the food someone has prepared for them.
Also this whole children need lasagne and cottage pie and the like is crazy, plenty of children worldwide wouldn't have those as part of their diet and are fine.

It's just people being contrary. You can bet if the OP had posted that she feeds her kids spag bol, pizza, chicken goujons, sausage and mash the first replies would be how unhealthy that all is and how she should feed them stir fry etc.

I hear you. All those meals are perfectly pleasant sounding and child appropriate.

We have an 8 and 10 year old now and it's still hard going half the time unless it's from a limited roster of roast dinner, chicken katsu curry or things like plain pasta and tuna. But we just keep trying to expand it.

Today was easy pasta bake with yesterday's leftover chicken and 8 year old picked at it for 45 minutes before we all gave up. Tomorrow is another day!

Can you split it a bit? So tomato orzo but add plain grilled chicken on the side and veg/salad
butter chicken - sauce and chicken separate
same with stir fry, keep it separate