"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 😆

Spaghetti bolognese was far from exotic in 1996! It was a perfectly standard dinner.

Your meals sound very good to me, but I'm an adult and I doubt that my DCs would have liked those meals at that age either.
That's a lot of rice you're serving, perhaps your kids don't like the texture or the look of the rice ( orzo too)?
Why not serve more basic, simpler, kid- friendly meals?

Spag Bol in the 90s was not rare. I didn’t hear of orzo until a few years ago though. I certainly wasn’t eating halloumi in the 90s either!

I think we're probably all a bit subject to the idea that 30 years ago barely touches the twentieth century these days.

Your menu sounds fine.
Mine ate what DH and I ate (with reduced salt).
Typical meals were various types of dal, saag paneer, chicken curry, chickpea curry, peppers and paneer. Served with rice/roti and salad.

My Mum insisted I ate that sort of food. I hated it. I later found I was intolerant to onions/tomatoes/garlic/spices. Listen to them.

All those are meals that I'd cook from scratch. Literally never use a jarred sauce in this house. I don't think most people would for those meals, they're pretty standard meals that anyone with average or above cooking skills could make tastily from scratch.

Yes, some people don't have the skills to cook well, and probably do serve up plates full of bland UPFs or jarred sauces, but there's nothing about OP's menu that suggests that, quite the opposite, actually.

You might not have the skills to cook those meals from scratch and make them delicious and flavourful, but most people do, and I'm sure OP does.

When DD was around four or five years, we discovered she definitely changed her taste. We weaned "give her what you eat". And that we worked until that age. We discovered that she also preferred seeing things separate so she preferred not having risotto mixed up the vegetables and meat, but having rice than the meat, sauce is okay, and the vegetables all next to each other.

And that was the girl who had sweet chilli sauce with fish cakes a year prior to that.

I think our meals did change and I would say they got a bit more boring for around five years or so and we often did serve DD leftovers and the DH and I had something else or she would get a sandwich on a day she had a club and came home late while we adults cooked something different.

I wouldn't dump down the food and serve only child friendly meal, yes as a treat why not having chicken nuggets and chips on Friday or Saturday evening, and we had plenty of other pasta dishes but I think it's important to make sure there are plenty of other meals available.

How is it possible for the 90's to be 30 years ago??? 😆. (I can dovthe basic arithmetic, before anyone takes offense, but it seems extraordinary to me...).

Anyway, mine preferred things separated out at that age. So if I wanted to serve risotto, I'd have probably also done them a separate salad and maybe a slice of bread and had a bowl of grated cheese on standby ("oh, theres cheese to go with this, I forgot, it's just in the fridge"). That way they could still have familiar food and a little of the dreaded nixed-together-new-food risotto.

This. 30 years ago was the 1970s FFS.

Bloody non gen x pretending it's the future.

Wankers.

It is usually the cultural expectations of parents and lack of cooking ability that limit what children will eat.

Italian children routinely eat orzo and risotto. Orzo is pasta for those who don’t know. Indian children eat dal and other spiced foods. They will eat what’s available if you don’t make a fuss.

I've got a 3.5 year old who quite possibly has ARFID so the whole feed them what you're eating is a complete no in my house. If I tried to live by that maxim I'd have a completely starved toddler. Maybe try going for less spiced and weird textures. 2 year olds can become fussy eaters at the best of times so why not give them the things they do like instead of getting so stressed about your more adult meals.

Were you eating orzo, halloumi, asparagus and lemon risotto in the 70s though?? Really?

Meals sound amazing as an adult, but I might find a bit much every week and want something plain in the middle like a jacket potato.

I presume you do but you taste their portion separately to yours? You mentioned reducing salt, which I’m sure is needed for children, but does it taste as nice?

Separating may help. I thought I didn’t like most pasta dishes until I got to being a teenager and realised I didn’t like melted cheese on top or Parmesan. Strange as I like cheese on toast but not other forms.

You are also doing a wide range of cuisines in one week. I ate British food at school and some at home, then some nights Indian and as I got a bit older Chinese. Also had pizza out. I got used to spices (not chilli) because we had them a few days a week different things - fish curry, dal, chicken curry, vegetables.

No. But my point was that spag bol was exotic once. Orzo (or pastini) is baby food in Italy and used for children and the sick!

I don't know why everyone is criticising your meal choices, they sound fantastic; tasty, balanced meals. I don't know much snout toddlers yet because mine is only 14 months, but everyone tells me that she will become a picky eater when the toddler years really kick in. Right now she'd eat all of that, as I'm sure yours would have when they were younger, and will again when they're older. People tell me that it's a phase that they all go through and you just have to ride it out!

Sounds like you're doing great to me!

As a Pakistani it doesn’t take hours unless you’re really really incompetent.

My 2 did this on and off and now eat everything, they are great cooks and they very rarely each any UPF even when they were students.
Keep going. Think of what you all really want, not what they want now.

I'm sorry but that is offensive to the op. The meals sound great for adults, but not perhaps for the children.

When mine were young and hated anything fancy, I just gave them the plain version - 'parmesan, pasta and peas' become an easy favourite with them (and their friends that stayed for tea).

So I suggest that you take the carb part of the dish, add butter, cheese and some frozen peas to this and all nutritional boxes are ticked .

Eventually they will eat anything,my children are adults now - I had a tapas meal with my daughter on Saturday and tonight I had Thai curry with my son

You are doing a great job introducing a variety of flavours from a young age. I did the same and now I can take my DC anywhere in the world and any restaurant and not look for chips! We don't notice until we travel with friends who have kids of similar age. Just keep at it by encouraging them.

Oh, do get over yourself.

If you think a two-year-old rejects something because the sauce came from a jar, you’re insane.

Also, none of those meals are even remotely difficult to make from scratch. I make that kind of thing all the time and I’ve never bought a sauce in a jar.

I did try orzo on my toddler in Turkey this week and he was fucking outraged.

(I was Miss Smug when we took him to Spain and he ate literally anything, but Turkey taught me the error of my ways, as he's survived off chips and tomatoes this week)

4 out of 5 of the dishes you list are ‘one bowl’ meals with everything mixed together. I think I always had more success serving up meat and two veg type meals where the ingredients are separated out🤷‍♀️ it gives them a bit more control over what they eat I think, rather than just taking what you give them iyswim 🤷‍♀️

I am laughing at all the posters that are clutching their pearls at the idea that small children need sausages and cottage pie instead of butter chicken and risotto.
I would point out that kids all round the world grow up on foods which are spicier and have more complex textures than cottage pie, and are fine!

I always did the feed the kids the same as us. But I did vary the meals. One day separate meat and veg, and then a mixed in casserole, and then rice meal etc, so that there was variety.
One thing that helped was if there were things that they were going to be picky over, I would make sure that they could eat some parts separate.
So some plain rice/pasta and some with sauce on.
and it is always handy to have some raw veggies on the side that they can eat like carrot sticks or cucumber.
and if they picked out the sausage and left the noodles, then that was fine.

Your meals sound delicious to me OP! However just a suggestion incase it is helpful, have you tried not taking the chilli and stronger more ‘adult’ flavours out (minus the salt obviously)?
I only suggest that as I would rather have the full flavour, and my picky 3 and 5 year olds won’t touch a child friendly korma or mild curry, but I’ve randomly discovered they love a homemade chicken madras/jalfrazi, which I assumed they would hate as they’re strong flavours. Same with stir fry, they won’t really like the blander child friendly version but they both tucked into my stronger version with chilli in.
They like bolognese more when it has lots of garlic and herbs etc.