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?

fortynotfrumpy in answer to what do people eat, here is our scenario

My Dh comes home about 5:45, so we all eat together, if he's late, I'll eat with the DC. On Saturday, the DC usually eat alone & we'll have something later.

Our 'menu' is lentil rissoto, (homemade) meatballs (turkey or beef) & pasta, fish fingers, pots & veg (usually carrots & brocoli), macaroni cheese (+ pureed spinach, makes it green) & sweetcorn, mild faijtas or lentil korma, brown basmati rice & veg. Have jacket pots & bean for sat lunch, roast on sunday. Yawn, that is dull, I am so bored of it, I do chop & change with homemade pizzas/filled pasta & tom sauce /meatballs with rice, spag bol. I made cottage pie recently & that was met with horror, but they did eat it (probably 'cos they were starving !) DH will do them a stir fry for sat tea time. We also have a veg box, so variety from that.

DD2 will frequently declare she doesn't like this tea, but i think it must be the look of it, because she always eats it.

Adding the red pesto to sauce is a good idea, I'm never really sure how to use it.

CoteDAzur - thanks for the tips

edam-I don't doubt the nutritional value of fish fingers and hoops...but I'd get awfully bored of eating that same meal every night if that's all the DCs wanted!!

FWIW...it's not self righteousness, and again, it's not some amazing parenting that makes kids eat up everything we dish out.

I do realise that some kids do have food issues. But I also think that some parents play right into the trap of not wanting DC to skip a meal, appease DC with anything s/he will eat, and a bad cycle starts. You can't convince me that if you feed children only things they like just to get them to eat, they won't use that to their advantage (ie, if I say I don't like this, I'll get beans again).

I am sure some people make their DC's food issues worse.

Just as I am sure that some people congratulate themselves on their superior parenting when their children eat well, when it is just luck in their case.

Until you have been in that situation you really shouldn't judge. It might come to bite you on the arse with your next child. And it is very irritating to have yet another person suggesting the bleeding obvious as if you are too stupid to have thought it out for yourself.

Not read the whole thread but once you're 2nd LO weans fully, you may have problems if everyone starts asking for different meals.

You could try to relax, accept your DD will not starve herself and so just put a portion of your meals in front of her. If she doesn't eat, offer fruit and a healthy dessert (home made rice pud, yoghurt etc). She will eventually get bored and /or hungry and hopefully will eat!
That's my theory anyway. Not an expert :)

DD is 2 and i've always told her it's not a cafe - she gets what she gets and no choice. Mid week we don't eat together as DP and I work FT, but she always gets what we had the night before. At weekends/days off we all eat together.

If she'll eat cereal, try porridge with fruit if her not eating really stresses you.
Or try my DD's favourite - cauliflower and broccoli cheese (homemade cheese sauce made from a roux) with grilled tomatoes, wholemeal bread & butter. Delicious! No good for my waistline though

OK I'm biased
I was a "fussy eater" as a child
I can remember mealtimes being a misery, the guilt on being told "starving children in Africa woulld gladly eat that"
If only my family had realised then I'm not one of life's meat eaters

When I first had kids money was tight but not so that we couldnt provide more than one thing at mealtimes
I didnt run a cafe but didnt sit a miserable child in front of food they disliked or wouldnt eat.
You have enough to disagree with a child during it's life, if you can afford it, food shouldnt be one of the issues
So there was always fresh fruit on the table. usually a soup ( some liked lumpy, some not. Thank goodness for hand blenders) and we happily let our kids try anything off our plates.
I would batch cook and freeze in single portions favourite dishes.
Thaw and zap no problem
We now have in our family
2 vegetarians ( one since pre school, one starting as a 12 year )
2 total carnivours
2 will eat some meat but prefer and happily consume vegetarian food

So if it doesnt bother you cook a diffrent meal for your 3 year old, but keep offering a taste of what you're having.
Another idea is to get them helping cook, you'll be surprised what a fussy eater will try if they've "made " it themselves, even if they only put veg you chopped in a pot

ds1 eats everything except salad.
ds2 - no problem with strong flavours (cheeses, curries) but very fussy about texture, only started to manage chicken at age 3. KNOWs he does not like any vegetable other than carrots and broccoli, although good with fruits. Generally will try about 2 new things a year.
Both weaned the same. I honestly don't think good eaters/bad eaters are entirely determined by parenting/cooking abilities.
I can't always give ds2 what we are eating but he gets some of it - e.g if we had roast pork he would have potatoes and veg and a sausage.
My father in law has only started to try new things at the age of 60.
Don't give up hope, I think a lot of children have a bland phase around age 2-5ish?

Sigh - I don't know why I bothered posting that link from the Senior Paediatric Dietician from Great Ormond Street about fussy eaters because no bugger read it! (After all, what would she know?)

I don't think anyone on this thread is suggesting they have superior parenting skills, but then I don't think it is necessarily 'luck of the draw' with eating issues either and to some extent, parents sew what they reap. As I said - my dd went through a very picky stage and yes I will take some credit for addressing that (since sadly its about the only parenting area I have managed with aplomb!)

Basically what Viv says (the senior dietician, with the research base, who has made this sort of thing her lifes work!!!) is that:
(a) fussy eating is a normal developmental stage
(b) don't stress about it
(c)"Never make a big deal if your child is being picky and never force feed them as this will only cause problems later on. Just remove the meal and make no comment. If your child wants another meal offer bread and butter and perhaps a glass of milk but never cook multiple meals as your child could misconstrue it as a game and use it as a way to gain power over you.? - did you get that? "never make multiple meals"
(d)"sometimes it can take 12 to 14 attempts before kids try something new on their plates"

Fuck me - Viv the dietician said pretty much what I said!

hmc I DID read that link and DID take some of it on board. I say some because if I offered bread (even without butter) and milk as an alternative to ANY meal dd would opt for the bread and milk every single time, and I really don't want her to just eat bread. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to get bored with even plain bread, porridge, cereal, rice pudding, pasta...

I am finding this thread really useful though (and do read every post!). It's particularly helpful to hear from people who have or have had fussy eaters, and to hear what they've done to improve the situation.

It's helpful to hear that there are families where one child is a fussy eater and the other eats anything, that gives me hope that dd2 might be different. Also that having a fussy eater isn't entirely my fault.

Despite feeling a bit defensive, and wanting to shout but you don't have to live with my dd!, I am feeling more motivated to work on this. I recognise that there are things I could do differently, for e.g. I could make more of a deliberate attempt to introduce new foods.

By the way, both my dcs go to bed at 7pm and sleep for 12 hours I just don't understand these parents who say their dcs won't go to bed!

Though thinking about it, dd is also extremely fussy about clothes and colours and fabrics...

forty, just thinking have you tried tapas? It seems a great way to eat out with kids and we found it worked quite well when DS was going through his really fussy stage.

He didn't eat a whole load, but was quite happy to try stuff from the bowls on the table, of his own volition. I think he liked the fact that he was in control of what went onto his plate. He discovered he loved olives!

Might not work with your DD, but worth a try maybe.

Ignore me fortynotfrumpy - I like to get all shirty sometimes.

"sometimes it can take 12 to 14 attempts before kids try something new on their plates"

Heck, that's not bad. When I was growing up my mum always used to say that it could take up to 100 times of being offered a new food before a child takes to it!

fortynotfrumpy there is a mix in my house, they are twins. I've stopped thinking it's a parenting thing with us as one has always eaten and tried everything (still loves new foods) and one is a really fussy eater (although is getting better) although they had the same environment when little! Also my youngest DD is very fussy and seems to be cutting out stuff she loved when younger. She won't eat ice cream now!
We're great fans of "build your own" meals like pita bread, tortillas, tacos...I'm not a great meat-eater, but the rest of family are, so I do a mince mixture and a bean mix for me (and whoever wants it). Have also persevered with slow cooked casseroles which seem to work well (although fussy two leave all the veg..)

hmc - I must have put food on my DS's plate hundreds of times that he has completely ignored!

I do think that is good advice in your link.

I never get into negotiations with my DS. I don't make different things for him to eat because he askes for them. He NEVER asks for food at all (unless it is biscuits which he obviously only gets sometimes).

I know Humphrey - it is very very wearing and frustrating isn't it, I had the same experience with my dd when she was small. Even posted for advice on here (I'll have to try and find the thread...)

I don't cook different meals but i do have to sometimes change it slightly as i am the only vegetarian in my house, so if i make toad in the hole with mixed veg i just switch my sausage for a quorn one. sometimes if i make shepherds/cottage pie i just chuck a meat substitute in the oven for me or more often then not i make it out of quorn. i have brought up both dc's on meat as i think its a very important to thier growth.

my dd 4.6 is more fussier than her brother but she does still eat quite well, i always put the same as everyone else on her plate but if its something she isn't particular keen on it, it tends to be a smaller portion and i add extra of something she likes (usually carrots as she is a little obsessed), if she chooses not to eat it or try new things i used to get really upset but since that didn't really accomplish anything i have since learnt to try not fuss or stress as i know she has enjoyed the rest. on the other hand my ds 18 months is like a garbage disposal anything goes down, it wouldn't surprise me to find him chasing a cow round the field trying to take a chunk out of its ass (by the way his nickname is trex due to his love of meat). both of them were brought up the same, yet they are completly difderent at meal times.

I really wouldn't worry about it, frumpy. There seem to be quite a few things that your dd eats plus lots of fruit, I think you said.

Lots of kids become fussy and picky from age 2, even if they were great eaters before then.

wubblybubbly Great idea about the tapas... will try that!