"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 😆

Are you aware there are a wide range of
healthy meals between Goujon’s and asparagus and lemon risotto? It’s not all or nothing you no.

What weird responses you're getting OP. Perfectly normal meals imho. My DC are 9 & 4 and we eat similarly (Chinese chicken and stir fry veg and noodles tonight). The 9yo eats it all and the 4yo picks out what he likes. Just keep serving the meals that are varied and interesting and eventually they'll eat it.

Yes I do 'no'. My point is that posters on Mumsnet are often contrarian and seem to enjoy taking whichever viewpoint is opposed to the OP. Hence the illustrative dichotomy in my post.

If it makes you feel better op one of mine is even fussy with bland every day meals. Dd hates fish, most meat, most vegetables, pulses, the skin on sausages and would basically just eat cheese, bread and plain pasta if she had her way....in fact she basically picks those ingredients out of every meal and then had about 10 breakfasts to make up for it. Some kids are just extremely fussy.

OP, all those meals sound lovely, balanced and healthy, and super tasty (unless you're a really bad cook, like I can only assume that PP that was critisising them must be.) I fed my children similar. I think some children are just more fussy than others. They'll grow out of it, as long as you don't make a fuss. Just keep mealtimes calm, and accept they won't always clear their plates.

Agree that your menu sounds delicious. We have the same approach to meal planning. Sometimes the kids eat it, sometimes they don't. Tonight DC4 ate the prawn curry without the prawns, DC2 ate the rice and some naan. The 9 month baby obviously ate it all!

Over all their meals, they get enough. We reward trying food - they only get pudding (fruit or yoghurt) if they've tried everything on their plate.

They can like something one day and not the next so I don't take it personally.

They are very bold meals for kids op. Try some more basic meals ? Don’t get me wrong we do have some meals that aren’t basic but like we have a Mexican night, we have tacos and snacks to go with an it makes the meal fun for the kids. My youngest is 3, oldest is 9 if that helps and I have 4. Then my little girl loves a Greek pie so just a basic home made pie a mash? Simple meals are much more for a kids taste. I don’t make 101 meals but I will change if the kids don’t like certain things, il do some a curry with mushrooms etc an one of them has it a plain curry with just meat…. Xx

Well you clearly have absolutely no idea how to make butter chicken. In Indian families, it's similar to a Sunday roast and usually made on weekends because it requires several hours and multiple stages. Could you do that from scratch on a random Wednesday night?

You aren't alone. My youngest is the same. I just let her get on with it. Eat or don't, up to her.

I would not want that for dinner if i was a kid, tbh i wouldnt have it now.

Absolutely this!
Its exceptionally rude and also off putting to other people who are eating.
Serve your dinners but put bread, a few chopped cucumbers and veg you know they eat.
They can eat what they prefer but zero rude comments

Fish and ketchup- why oh why introduce UPFs?! Goujons- all the carbs/ breadcrumbs - this way you’d miss-shape tastebuds . It’s better to give them nothing at all. My parents would only give us what the cooked and that’s that. No snacks, just 3 meals a day. Me and my sister eat everything and have a very varied diet.

Why would you assume that they are made from jarred sauces? A variety of stir-fry sauces are really quick and easy to make from ingredients, as is satay. Hardly complex, difficult or take a long time. Butter chicken is much more complex but completely doable and freezes well.

I say push through it. I wish I had to be honest. Instead I pandered and ended up with such a small repertoire it's ridiculous.

My kids would eat most of those (aged 5,6,8) BUT they are quite funny with dishes when its all mixed together - so they wouldnt eat risotto but with curry they are fine with chicken/veg etc, then rice and naan seperate. With tacos etc they get to make it themselves with what they want, stir-fry we often separate theirs into piles of veg, meat and noodles. They are very much driven by how its served and we make sure there is something plain on their plate that they will definitely eat as usually once they start picking at bits they like they eat the rest.

Good luck!

I think "feed them what you eat" a) relies on people eating relatively unadventurously and b) assuming a bit of common sense in terms of meeting toddlers in the middle. After all, it's only relatively recently that we've eaten a different global cuisine each day of the week.

My son loves jasmine rice because it's sticky and easy to spoon up, he loves Thai green curry/chicken balti. But he also loves meat and two veg, beans on toast, scrambled egg etc.

We just mix it up so that one night we'd eat a fancy meal with him, another night something plain with him, and another he gets eggs on toast by himself and we have something more adventurous.

I read kids like more simple and plain foods. Maybe try and simplify theirs, to a carb, protein and side of veg with no sauce. Maybe just good old, ketchup, mayo? Also, don't let it stress you if they refuse their veg,I just get mine to have a bite each time, hoping eventually they will get used to it and enjoy it! 😂Just to add, You sound like a very good cook and I would love to eat your food!

What are you on about?

butter chicken was invented to use up leftover tandoori chicken in the fifties.

it’s literal leftover cooking. Whip up some mahkni sauce and give the limp chicken a new lease of life

I would make foods that can be separated and separate the different components whilst also offering them a portion of it all mixed together as well.

One of my kids will eat spaghetti bolognese but only if it's not mixed together. And other times she might only eat one of the components but if it was mixed she'd just reject the entire thing.

The kind of meals you serve sound delicious to me but are things that I know my kids realistically will likely reject so I'd serve them once a week (alongside a jacket potato or something plain that they will eat) just to expose them to it and accept the meal as a lost cause.

The menu sounds fine to me, our kids have always just been served what we’re eating - when they were little there would have been some minor tweaks but mostly to make it easier to eat (so we would eat short penne rather than spaghetti so it was easier to get from plate to mouth!) and generally everything is served up in the middle of the table and we all helped ourselves - made it easier for them to choose the bits they wanted and see us eating the bits they weren’t sure of.
It wasn’t successful every night of course; there were nights where they ate more and some less but we ate together every night, a meal made from scratch - thank god for dh and his absolute love of cooking and feeding the family, if I were in charge they would have definitely been chicken nugget kids!!

Find many responses bizarre - your food sounds delicious!

My 4yo will eat almost anything, only caveat is he is usually involved in the cooking process. It started as he was usually so hungry after nursery it was easier just to involve him and now he loves it.

I do consult him about the menu (as I would another adult), but the corollary is if he doesn't eat it, the other option is to go to bed hungry. This seems to work.

I'd stick with it, but maybe involve them a bit more in the shopping & decision making (and then hold them to it).

My kid would have loved all of those at those ages. PPs are so weird with the spag bol suggestion. 30 years ago that would have been 'exotic' to british palates.

Just separate things a bit so they can pick if they want.

Sounds delicious and my DD (15) would hoover that up and ask for the recipes.

It’s sounds all absolutely fine. People are weird about what they think children can eat. If you just give them boring stuff every day that’s what they’ll be used to. I think you should keep encouraging children to eat interesting food. It’s not exactly outrageous challenging stuff op is offering.

Imo it sounds like the issue is the moaning and carrying on not really the rejecting of food. If there's something on the plate they enjoy or a side dish on the table of a carb/bread etc then should be fine

Just tell them off/sticker chart and reward for good manners at dinner time I.e. no rudeness, no saying its disgusting, mo spitting it out, everything has to be tried before dessert. Explain it as telling the truth that you don't like it is fine but being rude isn't ok because if they went to a friend's house or restaurant they'd have to eat and try their food without being rude. When they say they don't like it you could ask why, talk about the different balance of flavours or texture, get them thinking about food more than just "bleh looks new and new food is gross"

Sometimes I had my dc watch cooking shows - big cook little cook, my world kitchen on cbeebies - and we'd make a recipe from there

I served mine all sorts they didn't eat lol but always made sure there were lots of different sides to fill up on.

So true 😅 some of it is just luck of the draw, some kids are just fussier than others, and there isn’t always much we can do about it and some of it is just phases. They’ll grow out of their pickiness, try not to stress!