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?

lots of good replies here, just wanted to chip in

Have you seen the Dinner Lady cookbook ? good compromise of proper food & kid friendly food.

Also wanted to add that my DD2 is tries to be a fusspot, but i don't allow it. She was doing the classic of not eating much tea to get pudding (yogurt). A few nights of "if you don't eat this, you won't get that" & she was back on track. It's hard though, but just brace yourself for it.

Sometimes it's a mind game - trying to assert themselves, sometimes it's something more complicated. e.g. DD2 "doesn't like rice" but will eat it if fed. (I think she doesn't like the look if it). Once she realises it tastes ok, she's fine. She also get's bored with eating, so again I feed her. She has just turned 4 & is also tiny.

I know she can feed herself but I know she has a couple of phobias, so I am trying to make sure it doesn't get out of control.

YANBU, as it's your decision, but I think you are making life unecessarily hard for yourself.
I take account of them having some foods they won't eat, such as liver or mushrooms (after all, there's some foods I don't like), but if they showed signs of starting to be just fussy eaters I would give them the same meal as everyone else and make sure there was a pudding I knew they liked afterwards. If they didn't eat the former, they couldn't have the latter. Also, I (try) never to make it an emotional issue, and keep very matter of fact about the whole thing. I would never cook seperate meals.

I think your sister is right, too, I'm afraid. My two have always eaten what we eat, and when my DC2 was about 18 months, she got pretty picky, as well, but still, we made her eat with us. She'll be 3 next month, and is getting better at trying things...not great, and she isn't very adventurous, but she does manage to eat a whole meal with us most nights. She does know that if she doesn't eat what we put in front of her, she doesn't eat. She has refused meals before, but we stand firm, and boy, does she eat a good brekkie the next morning!

I've 'catered' to their tastes somewhat, too...plain meat,veg and potato, lots of casseroles and soups...healthy but things they (and DH and I) like. If I try a new recipe that they don't like, they can have toast or cereal.

You are making life harder than it has to be, and it will be harder to coax her to eat stuff the older she gets.

I often find myself cooking 3 separate meals all at once, for DS (17 months) DD 9 and me and DP.
Maybe i should open a cafe...

I don't think homemade pizza is particularly unhealthy for a child in moderation. Bread, tomato sauce with lots of veg hidden in it and modest smattering of cheese - if you can get them to eat veg on top as well then all the better. As long as they're not eating it every day, I don't see a problem. I think pizza gets lardy when it's loaded with cheese and fatty meat products.

But it's not just the unhealthy food that is the point here, pjmama it's the fact that if OP starts letting DC dictate how she's going to eat, the OP is never going to be able to cook a meal that everyone can eat, and that's just a little ridiculous.

I know Eve, I was giving my opinion on her specific question in her last post.

I have twins who have been fed exactly the same food (right back to breastmilk) at the same times for the whole of their lives. They have completely opposite tastes in food, one is a good eater and the other is a fussy little bugger.

Whilst I accept that there are things that you can do to encourage a child to be more adventurous with food, I think there is a hell of a lot of luck involved as to how easy that's going to be.

As long as you're managing to get a balanced diet down her, even if you have to puree and hide things then I wouldn't put too much pressure on yourself or her - IME getting stressed about it tends to make things worse. She's got the rest of her life to learn to like more things. Your responsibility is making sure she's adequately nourished now. Whether she becomes a pizza addict in later life is down to her own choices as an adult and not down to whether you managed to get her to eat broccoli when she was 3. I'm sure there are plenty of people happy to tell you otherwise though!

If you are happy with what your dd is eating, sod your sister. None of her business unless you asked for her opinion.

I dislike people boasting about how well their children eat as if it's some sort of contest and fussy eaters are the result of bad parents. And treating fussy eaters as if they are bad children.

I was a fussy eater as a child - still am, really, am a vegetarian and have very strong dislikes of a couple of flavours/textures such as mushrooms. Apparently some of us are 'supertasters' who are more sensitive to flavour. Nothing my mother could do about it - and God knows, the poor woman tried.

A parent who forced me to eat food that disgusted me would have been extremely cruel. It's not about making trouble for the sake of it, it's about being revolted by certain tastes and textures.

School dinner ladies tried to bully me to eat their disgusting slop (thin gravy and stringy meat and veg boiled to nothing and custard with an inch of skin and cups of coffee as a 'treat' served in metal cups). School dinners were especially hard as my mother is a very good cook and her food was lovely - apart from the stuff I hated - so I could see the massive gap in quality between her food and cheap and badly cooked school dinners.

My mother lost patience once or twice and made me sit there until I'd eaten up all the kidney from her (apparently v. good, other people used to beg for it) steak and kidney pudding. Thank God we had cats!

Oh, and toddlers around the age of 18 months to two years become extremely sensitive to bitter tastes in, for example, green veg such as cabbage and broccoli. It's an evolutionary thing thought to be to do with warning them off eating berries in hunter gatherer societies. So it's normal for toddlers to start to reject green veg. Just because we adults can't taste what they do, doesn't make their feelings less valid.

Btw, ds is a very good eater, always get parents commenting on it when he goes for tea. Think he takes after dh!

I can't be arsed cooking more than once, DS1 eats what we do or he doesn't eat. I eat with DS early in the evening and DH eats when he gets home. I usually have a glass of wine cup of tea with him.

OP - I have to say that I agree with your sister. Maybe I am lucky, but the majority of time, DS1 also nearly 3 eats what we eat.

It hasnt always been easy TBH. There have been times he has walked away from the table and left the food. But we have persevered and he will now sit and eat the food we do.
But I also understand how willful 3yr olds can be.

My only advice is that if whatever route you decide to go, persevere with the same techniques. If you decide to try and expand the foods and not offer anything else; stick with it and remain consistent in your approach. I know a lot of people slate supernanny on here, but I once saw her do something with a really fussy eater and it worked a treat. Considering we are in summer, can you start on a weekend and take a picnic somewhere. Take a lot of different (non usual food choices for her), spread them out and make it fun for her. Take the focus off eating, and let her know she can pick a little of what she likes. It may just make the whole thing a little less fraught.

At three, she should also understand a reward system. Is there something (a magazine for example) you can incentivise her with. She tries one new thing every day and if she collects 1 star a day - she gets a magazine at the end of the week?

We never force ds1 (3.7) to eat the same as us, but neither do we cook a whole different meal.

We generally have something carby with a sauce/meat/fish/veg. Ds1 will usually eat at least one of the things, and if it's just bread we'll boil an egg on the side for him to have.

All our carbs are wholemeal and many are home-made, so I don't worry too much about his nutrition. He will very happily eat baked salmon, shrimps or white fish so we'll have that a couple of times a week and bolognaise/burgers once. Afaic he can eat carbs the rest of the time.

I don't really get what the problem with carbs is these days. I eat pretty much following the old fashioned food pyramid and like you am 5'4 and 8st - pretty healthy.

Well, I think YANBU in that it's your choice what and how you feed your DC. Having said that I think there is genuine aversion to certain foods and then there is fussiness that, as a parent, you choose whether to allow or not.

For example,DSS1 used to eat chips, roast and mashed potatoes but wouldnt eat a jacket potato. That is not an aversion, that is him deciding he wont eat it. So, when we had jacket spuds he would be asked to eat a quarter of a potato, with the beans, cheese and salad that he liked. He's now 10 and will eat pretty much anything, including jacket spuds.

So, to me, if your DD will eat macaroni cheese and she will eat pizza with a tomato sauce, then there's no reason that she wouldnt eat pasta with tomato sauce. You know she doesnt mind those flavours and textures. If she wont eat that, I'd be persistent until she will. So, once you've extended that way then you might want to add red pesto with pasta. Similar colours and she likes the pasta. Or if she'll eat rice then do the tomato sauce with rice and then add some mince or chicken.

Clearly this is your choice though, and if you're happy or unconcerned that's up to you. My sister's DC are much fussier eaters than I would put up with, but they sleep 12 hours a night and go to bed without a murmur. Mine are harder to get into bed and DC3 is, tbh, a nightmare sleeper. She wouldnt put up with this. That's our parenting choice isnt it?

I am sympathetic, OP, having had a first who ate everything and then a second who is much fussier. At one stage, probably around three too, she was only eating a handful of foods, so ham, cucumber, apple and cheese and almost nothing else (except biscuits and cake which I didn't want to form the major part of her diet). Cue internal panic, as I didn't want to get into a power struggle over food.

What helped me is to continue to serve the whole family the same food, but with two adaptations:

1. Serving food in dishes. Yes it is a pain to wash up, but then everyone can help themselves to what they like, and leave the things they don't. I found this much more effective than plating up a nice portion only to find her saying 'no, don't like it' before it had got on the table (it's a control thing).

1. I notice that lots of the 'family friendly' meals (which look delicious to me) are sauce based, my daughter hated sauces! For her, mixed in food was awful, whereas separate food was better. So, I started making sure that the potatoes and veg at the very least were separate, so she could eat that with a chunk of cheese if she didn't like the main. We all eat the normal courses. That way you can eat as a family (we eat at 6 -6.30 and let the one in late from work heat theirs up) pretty much the same meal and I don't fuss if she doesn't eat it.

Her fussiness peaked at around three, like your daughter, and she now eats a wider range of foods and will now eat pasta with sauce/fish in sauce, and has recently added some new vegetables to the salad ones like green beans and cauliflower (I never thought I'd see the day). Just keep presenting the food day after day as a normal part of family meals and over time, this works.

As for just cooking what you like, slapping it down and saying 'eat it', I think if a child has already gone fussy and is used to having meals she likes, you are heading for a not very edifying power struggle which you may lose. I remember having to finish the plate of school dinner and feeling physically sick. Box clever and get her a bit more in control whilst presenting a wider choice of food all the time.

YANBU, if they don't like something they won't eat it. We tried it with DS (2.6). He was a dream to wean, ate anything. Joined in with our meals and would eat nearly all my veg as well as his own, so we 'did it right'. He turned 18 months and gradually started eating less and less variety. At first I kept giving it to him but there was just no point in the end.

Now he eats pasta and sauce (where I can hide some veg), chicken curry, chilli con carne, spag bol and jacket potato cheese and beans. These are good meals so I just freeze extra for him when I cook them. We still get him to try other things but if he won't open his mouth, what are we suppose to do, force him?

My friend had this problem too and she kept on for weeks and weeks trying to give her DD food that she wouldn't eat that she normally would. She had to give up as she just wouldn't eat. Nearly everyone I know is going through or has been through the same thing. They do tend to come out of it in the end. I swore I wasn't going to be one of these who done seperate meals but I'm not seeing my child go hungry when I know very well that he just won't eat it.

Your sister and many others on here are wrong. Don't make a fuss and it will pass (thats the hope I am clinging to anyway).

Oh, and he's now pretty adventurous and eats loads of 'grown-up food' - salad, smelly cheeses, pretty much anything. But he started out by trying it off our plate (and having something pretty plain on his) and gradually as he gets used to the flavour is more willing to just eat it.

You can not cook separate meals and not make a fuss or force them you know.

We sit and there is food. There are no rules here about eating everything/anything, if he doesn't want to eat he can choose not to eat (and sometimes does), the only rule is not leaving the table before everyone is done - this was dicey for about 6 months but he got it eventually.

Normal healthy children are in no danger if they miss a couple of meals. Personally I think it is good for kids to feel hungry sometimes, they need to know what it feels like, which is another reason we don't do snacks - people seem to be afraid of hunger now when it really isn't necessary.

However, if the OP doesn't mind doing what she is doing then it is up to her. I do what suits us, she should do what suits her not her sister.

I give my son his dinner around 5pm, but DP doesn't get home from work until nearer 7pm so we have our meal later. I've never seen it as "more work" even though DS tends to have something different to us, it's just how it is and I'm happy with it.

At weekends we all have the same dinner with varying degrees of success. DS is a typical near-4 year old, eyes most vegetables with varying degrees of suspicion but will eventually try a bit of everything. He may not like it (and some of the faces he pulls with a mouthful of brocolli are tremendous) but I'm happy as long as he tries a bit of everything on his plate.

His favourite foods just now are... risotto (full of unblended veg which he -gasp- eats willingly!), pesto with pasta, beans and cheese on toast, tuna pasta mayonnaise, any kind of soup, homemade fish "fingers" (slices of haddock covered in breadcrumbs and cooked in the oven), homemade pizza, homemade burgers...

Sure, I'd be happier if he ate a lot more vegetables, and I do often resort to "giving in", but he's healthy and happy and eating lots of fruit and at least making an attempt with veg.

So no, in a nutshell YANBU.

"Your sister and many others on here are wrong"

Actually - DetectivePotato and many others on here are wrong

I don't anybody in real life with pre-school kids that eat with them in the evening, but most people I know DH's don't get home until 6.30/7pm or later. There is obviously a parallel universe where people finish work at 5pm or earlier. Until my kids can comfortably eat at 6.30pm they will get a separate meal.

this might be useful

ib - if your ds only eats wholefoods, with no refined carbs and lots of fruit & veg, there's a possibility he might be getting too much fibre. Children need smaller quantities than adults as part of their overall diet, otherwise they get full up before they've had all the nutrients they need. If you always have wholemeal bread, for instance, it might be worth using white pasta. But it's been a while since ds was that age so I can't remember the exact details - have a look on The Food Standards Agency's site.