to leave the children alone in the kitchen until they've eaten their 'disgusting' food.

[NoseyNooNoo]

DD is 4, DS is 2. DS won't eat much at the moment. Often doesn't even taste the food. DD will eat one section of the food but entirely ignore other bit.

Tonight DS looked at his cottage pie and veg and said 'eugh!' and ate none of it. DD ate the cottage pie after she had declared the smell 'disgusting' but not eat veg despite it being the veg she likes. I've left them to it and said they can get down when they've finished it.

I realised I've had a tantrum but I'm sick of rushing around getting everything sorted for them just for them to find fault or be difficult. The food thing is really symbolic of DD finding fault (the 'disgusting' comment) and DS just saying 'no' to everything.

And breathe...

We are having battles with 3yr old DS. If he had his way it would be sausages, sauce and bread every meal - he wont eat chips thank god!

Tonight was pork steaks, roast pots, peas and sweetcorn. We didnt give him the pork as he struggles to chew it so spits it out, but he had 3 roast potatoes, peas and sweetcorn with gravy.

Pushed it away, i mashed the potatoes up with the peas and sweetcorn and gravy, and he has (after sitting under the table for a few minutes) eaten the whole lot, and is now having a slice of bread (at his request) before yoghurt for pudding.

Its a battle ground, but as long as they have made a good attempt at the meal, Im happy.

DD1 (6yrs) is very fussy with vegetables, but she knows she has to have at least 1 on her plate and eat it, and she does through gritted teeth!

DD2 is a pig and will eat anything except fish, chips and melon!

With regards to your DD, I would be happy with her having eaten the cottage pie, and wouldnt push the veg too much.

DS is still only 2, and I found with my Ds especially, he didnt really start eating "meals" properly until nearer 3. I would offer "finger foods" again for a bit to get him back into the swing of meal times.

The reason I said 'you eat what you're given or go hungry' was because meals were being refused that had been fine the previous week as can happen with the fussy little buggers.

So you plan your meals, go to supermarket, cook meal and then have the little angels say they don't want it? I don't think so.

I would give a choice between two things when they got older but by then there was no problem anyway.

I strongly disagree that children need to be introduced to "as much variety as possible."

As long as they have a reasonable variety of healthy foods, it's fine. If the only fruit and veg they eat is peas, carrots, apples and bananas, that's ok.

Bogeyface - Your 3 eldest eating anything might be a natural development and not necessarily a result of your feeding techniques. 2 of my eldest were faddy when younger and just grew out of it.

Pointy, I know several children who wont eat more than a couple of different meal choices precisely because they were pandered to in this "what you would like darling" way. My BF dd lived on cheese sandwiches, crips and plain pasta with grated cheese for over 3 years. She had malnutrition but she flatly refused to touch anything else.

Yes most children do eat more because they are not pandered to (I am not talking about genuine allgeries etc) but a hell of alot dont!

Agree with Pointy.

How did you react to it though Juuule? Did you allow them to dictate what they would eat at every meal, as has been suggested?

Have they eaten it yet, NoseyNooNoo?

Tonight I had a major success and DD2 finished (yes FINISHED!!) her tea within half an hour, She declared my stovies were yum and the best she had tasted. Next time I make them they'll be horrible, she'll hate me and she'll sit looking at her plate for over an hour.

Generally I figure that as long as she makes an attempt and understand that there's nothing else til supper I'm happy. She won't starve herself

In our house I've told the dc that they can eat or not eat what I've cooked, I don't care. But they cannot ever say it is "disgusting", although they are of course allowed to comment that they happen not to like it. They're a little older though.

I've discovered that general refusal to eat something, especially something that they like, means in fact that they are not hungry and so I think it's ok to just go without. I have not yet discovered a way to get them to tell me they're not hungry and to convince them this is a better reason that "I don't like it".

If we're not eating together, I still quite often have to go and do some urgent task in another room to escape from the faffiness though!

Dammit, I was hoping this was going to be teh 8 minute casserole lady

8 minute casserole? Sounds great.

Got to make dinner now.

8 mins to prepare - 2 hours to cook.

What I do when the kids don't want to eat is just let them stop. Then, twenty minutes later when they start complaining that they're hungry, I just remind them that their tea is still on the table. If they're genuinely hungry they do go back and eat it.

"Make them food they want to eat,"

Not entirely foolproof-mine either don´t know-but it definitely wasn´t what I´ve cooked, or they´ve changed their mind between what they said at 7.30 when they leave for school & 1.30 when they come in for lunch.

Correct muddling - because hungry, truly hungry, is almost totally non-discriminating. Sounds like too many spoilt children on here - either that or a lot of mothers with nothing better to do than fight with their kids about food.

I looked at the 8 minute casserole and was hugely jealous that she has children that will eat that!

"Eat what you want or don't eat, but there won't be anything else" works well with dd and is starting to work with ds2 (3.1) but doesn't with ds1 (6). He chooses to go hungry until his trousers start falling down, in preference to putting something "disgusting" in his mouth.

If I only had dd and ds2, I would believe that my parenting choices had caused all their better traits. But I have ds1. [hollow laugh]. I console myself with the knowledge that he will, one day, be the most determined, passionate, principled man. Although possibly one who won't eat lamb casserole.

Nosey, I too would tell them they can get down if they have had enough. But I'd make them apologise for the "disgusting" comments.

friedtoacrisp Exactly. And it's not like we stick stuff on their plates that we know they hate. It's usually stuff they have eaten in the past - and liked. To be fair, ds is a good eater, very little he doesn't actually like. It's dd who's a picky little miss, but all we ask of her is that she tries something if she's never had it before before she dismisses it as 'Yuck!'.

"Almost" is probably the key word there, friedtoacrisp. How hungry do you let them get? After a couple of weeks, when they are visibly losing weight, even though they were already underweight, do you carry on?

Actually, thinking about it, ds1 doesn't recognise when he is hungry. He just gets very grumpy. Maybe that's the problem ...

I think if you have the main food groups covered most of the time it's not worth fussing about. I'd never try to reason with a 4 or 2 year old.

If you ask kids what they want you'll end up with very limited meals as Bogey says. Worse they'll get bored and refuse to eat them - mine rarely eat pasta and bananas as had them too much as under fives. DS, 12, just told me at supper he'd gone off chicken as has it at school and I don't cook it interestingly enough for him.

The 'no pudding till you've eaten XYZ' usually works - until they ask what's for pudding and then weigh up whether it's worth eating XYZ to get it ...

OPs children at 4 and 2 are too young to be asked what they want. But maybe OP could put less effort into meals, eg pitta wraps, handful of raisins etc, once or twice a week and then it's less depressing when it's not eaten.

and how exactly do you 'make sure' your dc eat one item of veg or fifteen mouthfuls? and what happens if they don't?

Make them what they want? Well that would be plain pizza every single day of the week for DS2, with maybe one day a week of plain pasta.

If your DC set so much store by what they're told at school, ie. eat their dinners without a problem, perhaps tell your DC that 'school would be so disappointed if they knew that they weren't eating dinner at home'...

sigh... I don't know, it's a battle. Carry on praising the good and ignoring the bad and trying to din some good table manners into them... that's what I do.

Is there an angelic friend of theirs who can be drafted in to eat dinner with them sometimes (on the proviso that he/she clears their plate)?

Good luck OP... I feel for you, we all feel for you... )))kids((( but (((kids)))

'Make them what they want' doesn't translate into asking your tiny children what they would like to eat best of all and then rushing off to make it. We are not stoopid.

It involves knowing the foods that your child enjoys, thinking of a range of different meals that includes these foods and bunging in a new food every now and then. And never making a song and dance about finishing something off.

it's eat what you're given or bread and butter in this house. sometimes they choose the bread and butter option, maybe once or twice a year...

not having puddings (well, we have one maybe one a week/fortnight) solves the pudding/clean plate dilemma too.