To cook a separate meal for my 3 year old

[fortynotfrumpy]

My sister complains when I cook a different meal for my 3 year old, saying she should be eating the same meal we eat by now. But dd just won't eat the meals we eat, preferring macaroni cheese, pizza and bread...

My sister says if she's hungry she'll soon eat... I'm not sure that's true!

AIBU?

Do I refuse to give her food and wait til she gets really hungry, or do I keep cooking separate meals for her?

Cooking the same meals doesn't necessarily mean you all have to eat at the same time. In the week, dh doesn't get home til 8ish so the dc eat earlier, then we eat after they've gone to bed. But we all eat the same things.

However, one of my dc is incredibly fussy and would eat the most boring, bland food ever all the time. He is also very skinny and could do with fattening up, so I don't like to serve him food he doesn't like.

But I do make sure he has a go at things. I wouldn't try to make him eat a really spicy curry, but almost all the time he has what we have but I sometimes have to seperate bits out before he will eat them (doesn't like 'wet' food, for example).

To me, he will only get over his aversion to many sorts of foods by both trying them all, and seeing that food is a social activity, and being able to participate in eating with other people will make his life run more smoothly. He's 8, btw, and going to play at friends houses a lot. It's crucial that he has good meal time attitudes and methods of dealing with food he doesn't like. These are formed by family mealtimes with foods that he might not necessarily choose for himself.

Will your dd have packed lunches for school each day when she starts school? Because if she has school lunches you will need to ensure she has the tools for dealing with food that is unfamiliar to her.

The most important thing I've learnt about children is that they change almost on a daily basis. One minute they'll only eat a few different foods and the next they're trying everything (and vice versa I've afraid!).

I would try gently introducing her back into the way of eating the same as you (maybe at weekends in the first instance?). Bear in mind too that food is another level which parents love to compete over. Try not to let it bother you and continue to provide your DC a balanced diet (the same as you or not). Take your sister's advice on board, but don't get upset or stressed over it.

ok, this might sound a bit naive, but what kind of "healthy" meals would be suitable to start us off re introducing family friendly, nutritious food?

All you healthy mums out there who say you all eat the same thing, what exactly are you eating? This really is a serious question.

just keep trying with the foods you eat and do not make a big thing of it

Thank you smallwhitecat - I dont feel alone now! I am very envious though of all the families who are able to eat together earlier in the evening, I can still be washing up at 9.30pm!
Fortynotfrumpy - brilliant question! I also need to have a selection of meals that can be cooked for 5.30 and then reheated at 8pm or later. Dont anyone say shep pie or I will scream...

Octopus the food you mention is more or less the kind of thing we eat, but apart from the spag bol and tortillas, she won't even touch any of the other stuff. She used to eat lasagna (around 8 months ago) but now won't even try it, even when we give it a different name.

Most days when we say it's lunch / tea time she says "no thanks, I'm not hungry". We make her sit at the table anyway and always put different food in front of her, but it generally gets pushed away unless it's one of her standard carby dishes.

She doesn't eat much chocolate, biscuits or sweets at all, she snacks on bananas, raisins, apples, grapes etc, but just seems to love carbs.

She's really skinny!

Oh, and she eats loads of breakfast cereal!

My 2 eat at about 5.30pm and they have either something from the freezer that I have batched cooked for everyone(spag bol, chicken stew etc)so it is sort of the family food, or I give them fish fingers and chips, or scrambled eggs on toast etc (depending on what they have had for lunch). My dh and I then eat about 8pm, again something from the freezer already made up or a salad (which the kids def won't eat). If we make something from scratch at night then we keep leftovers for the kids dinner the next day.

forty, your dd sounds similar to my ds1. sad to say, he has got fussier and fussier as he's got older. my friend assures me her nephew grew out of it by 9 or 10, so am just hoping if we always have good food in the house, he will change. i generally give him one 'taster' meal (which he eats little/ none of) and something he likes in the evening. he is skinny too! he eats a good breafast so I give him muesli and yoghurt which is nice and filling and quite healthy. he also loves fruit. he will eat noodles with peas and sweetcorn, spag bol, sausages (but no other meat), baked beans, cashew nuts, fruit, ice-cream (that's nutritious innit??), brocolli, fish fingers, tuna and ainsley cous cous.

he will eat more when he is hungry (so snacks v limited) - but not if he doesn't recognise the food. The other day we had a difficult one with chipolatas as I made the mistake of calling them that and then he was poking them around the plate and saying he didn't like their name!!! I finally persuaded him they were just sausages - and he ate them. My sister got him to eat meat balls by chopping them up and calling them 'mini sausages' .

ps. he gets worse when he is ill (even slightly like a cold), or upset (eg. if I am unwell which I am a lot) or his routine is upset (eg. school holidays/ christmas). he's only 4! it's definitely a control thing. he can go several days/ a week or so without eating any main meals except breafast. When I had twins he got extremely thin due to all the upset and I remember being so pleased when he ate some crisps which was his first food of any description for several days at one point. I do think some kids just have food issues, for whatever reason. Am comforted by the beige lady's son who now eats mussels!

OP, I understand your concerns about your DD not eating. But also you surely can't keep cooking separate meals? My DD used to eat everything until around 2 and a half, when she stopped eating most things apart from bland pasta/tomato sauces and roast dinners (!) but we've persisted with a balance - and we've adapted our own diet too, less curries than we would normally have - and most nights try to make things that she will eat part of. If she gets to sit down and eat at the same time as you, she may really appreciate the family atmosphere.

But over the last year, my DD has stopped and then later started eating many things, but we've not pushed her too much, involved her in choosing meals and helping shopping and cooking - much more sociable for her and she loves it (she's now 3 and 3/4)

can I just say that offering a wide range of food early on does not necessarily mean your child will be a good eater?

I had to get that off my chest. Nothing annoys me more tbh.

I am obsessed by the quality of the food I eat, to the extent that I try to produce as much of it as I can myself, including growing all my own veg and rearing my own pigs.

DS still only eats baked beans. And as I am not willing to force feed him I see that I will be putting healthy food on his plate and he will be ignoring it for some time to come.

humphrey i agree..

but do you also think that it's important to keep offering those foods your child refuses? rather than just saying "ok, macaroni cheese every night it is"
which stands no chance of ever getting them to eat anything else

Family friendly meal suggestions (they're not massively healthy but my kids will mostly eat these):

Shepherd's pie/ cottage pie
Roast chicken and roast pots
Chilli (mild) and rice
Spag bol
Tuna pasta (like macaroni cheese!!!)
Sweet & sour chicken or pork
Sausages and mash
Pasta with pesto
Jacket pots with baked beans and cheese

All served with whatever veg goes down ok - peas and sweetcorn are generally liked by kids, brocolli florets, roasted carrots, raw carrot sticks.

I think partly I cook separate meals as I don't want to eat this stuff all the time. I like fennel, fresh fish, olives, jerk spices, curry etc. And it's just one step too far for them.

I do agree with that.

But sometimes I am just so bloody fed up with it all. I never imagined I would end up with such a fussy eater, it is exasperating in the extreme.

Sometimes it is easier just to shovel in beans while he is doing something else, at least I know he has something in his tummy. I try not to do that though, I mostly include beans on his plate along with whatever DD and the rest of us is having. He only eats the beans.

BUT he did eat peas fresh from the garden today . He eats a lot of fruit as well. I am glad I have managed to avoid junk food, but that was easy as I don't have it in the house.

I cook different for DS sometimes and sometimes DH and I eat seperate things. Theres nothing worse than the choice or not eating or having to eat something you dont like.

Dear Curly-locks...

I apologise.

I have less children than you so you're a better person. And right about things.

Try a different thread if you want to start a fight, Snobear, there's a dear....

I agree with CurlyhairedAssassin.

Your post was unhelpful and ill informed.

I currently cook different meals for DS (19mo) unless I cook something for DP and I that he can and will eat (we often have quite hot curries or grilled meats etc). I have a problem in that DS will not eat pasta , so has either cous cous or potato as his main carb.

OP the only thing slightly concerning is that you say your DD will only have mac cheese, pizza or bread. Does she actually have anything other than that? Have you tried making a secretly veggie sauce - ie blended and cheesey - to go with her macaroni? As others have said, meals like shepherds pie, fish pie and lasagne (without the pasta for my boy) go down a treat with almost any child I have cooked for (have 7 nephews and nieces) and for most adults! I think you could try and widen her palate a bit.

Definitely easier to cook one meal for all - I do one meal for my two and either eat with them and save dome for DH or eat with him later.

Big favourites in our house, (and easy to make earlier and reheat for the grown ups!) are lasagne, pasta bake, cottage pie, spaghetti bolognese, sausage stew, macaroni cheese, Moroccan lamb and cous cous, home made pizzas, baked spuds. Wherever possible, I pack the sauces with hidden veggies.

I also love Fay Ripley's cook book - Fay's Family Food ( can't link as on my phone - but Amazon has it). It's full of recipes for the whole family which can eat and has tips to adapt the recipes for babies and children - genius!

larks35 Yes, she does eat other things like fruit, cereals, sausage, pizza (home made though picks off the veg) and yes I do try to hide veg in the sauce but take today for e.g. we had spaghetti bol with blended, hidden veg (all fresh including the tomatoes) and she systematically picked out the spaghetti to eat and left the rest. She used to eat all those things you mention that most children will eat, but just won't now. She won't touch mashed potato, mince, fish pie, vegetables, esp carrots, raw or otherwise (though will eat white rice!)

MerryMarigold sounds like your ds is very similar to my dd.

HumphreyCobbler I too never imagined I would ever have a fussy eater and feel totally exasperated when she pushes away a plate of something I've spent ages cooking!

I feel I must respond to Snobear4000. I was brought up on chips and beef? burger, chips and fried egg, chips on their own, chip sandwiches etc, but consider myself to have a very developed (healthy) taste now. I'm also 5ft 4", 8 stone, and never diet, so I'm not sure your theory is true in all cases.

It's exactly because of my background that we try to eat healthily and dd did eat all those healthy things mentioned above for the first 2 years of her life, then just became fussy!

Why is pizza (homemade) unhealthy?

I agree with you sister. A 3 year old should be eating the same meals as you wel at least most of the time. I just don't get people who fuss around making 2 seperate meals.

Sorry but I agree with your sister - stop making work for yourself, and also you will be doing your daughter a favour in the long run

I believe it is broadly true that most children will not starve themselves and will ultimately eat what is put in front of them. There are of course a minority who really, really won't and ultimately will go via the hospital referral route for their eating disorder (a friend's son is a skinny string bean and absolutely won't eat unless it is smiley faces / white bread/ crackers/ chicken dippers). There are also other children who have parents who say they "can't" get them to eat, but actually haven't persisted long enough with their children on this issue (so shoot me - but it is true!)

Not suggesting it is easy or straightforward. It took dogged persistence with my two to get them to eat a broader range of meals - it was quite soul destroying at one stage; cooking a meal and them binning most of it. I don't want a medal for having done this - just saying it can be done. My dd in particular only ate about 6 different foods at age 2 - now she is still 'fussy' and I accept that there are foods she doesn't like (mushrooms for instance) - but she eats a wide range of vegetables, fruits, pulses, meat and fish. Ds has always been a little easier.

Can't recall if anyone has already mentioned this on this thread, but I have read somewhere that you have to offer a food to a small child on multiple occasions sometimes before they embrace it. I certainly found that to be true:

Broccoli - first occasion - child's reaction 'bleurgh'
Broccoli - 15th occasion - child's reaction -eats it without so much as a grimace