not to give DS (aged 7) anything else for supper until he has tried the lasagne?

[Alliwantisaroomsomewhere]

DS's fussy eating drives me nuts. He eats pasta, cereal, peanut butter bread, cucumber, apples sometimes, yoghurt and a few other things like chips and chicken nuggets.

I am FED UP (every pun intended) with making one meal for DH and Me and another for DS. Added to that, I am a childminder so I sometimes do another meal for the other children.

Tonight, I have said he is not having anything else until he tries some lasagne, which to me was very nice and certainly nothing worth screaming over.

He has screamed and performed and and wailed and screeched.

Dh has just told me "this has fucking spoiled our Sunday night. I am fucking sick of it." I am not too sure what he is sick of because it is not him that has to plan and sort and cook one dish and another etc etc. (I am being sarcastic - DS cries at the drop of a hat and has made a right scene tonight with his screeching! But Dh is making out as it if is all my fault).

So: for those of you with fussy eaters, what the fuck do you do?

Have any of you forced the issue?

AIBU in not wanting to cook 3 different meals every night? Or do I have to eat fucking chicken nuggets so that I do not have to do yet another meal on those nights when DS has that?

At the end of my tether.

Dh has not gone to cook DS some pasta. What a waste of time.

ooh can i add to my previous post...

i did black baked beans for DD yesterday and she point blank refused to try them,' but what have you DONE to them'

We all laughed x

My son was like this! In the end I gave up and cooked him chicken nuggets, oven chips and peas every day until he was sick of it and wanted to try other things. Mealtimes became a lot more relaxed and everyone chilled out more! Now he is a strapping 19 year old who eats anything! so I don't think it did him any harm!

Thanks for the replies!

DS yesterday asked me if we can use pieces of food to make a picture - like using broccoli to make trees! I agreed as coolly as possible, though I drew the line at using a slab of cheese to make a house.

I think I will try a more relaxed approach - hopefully that will ease things.

Did he then eat the 'picture'?

but you said he doesn't like cheesse:
"There are some food DS detests and I will never even try to encourage him to try them - cheese, tuna, tomatoes, eggs, salmon. "

did the lasagna have cheese in it (cheese sauce) and he could smell it?
and is it just raw tomatoes he won't eat, or is it all tomatoes (lasagne is cooked tomatoes)

PS: i also thought like pag earlier - lasagne is pasta!

Sorry not had chance to read the whole thread so apologies if this is irrelevant or a repeat!
My DP's son (8yo) would live off chicken nuggets and chips given the chance and at pretty much every meal if its not nuggets will say he doesn't like it without trying it at all, DP & I knowing full well he does like it.
We have found that by telling him each ingredient (within reason obviously!) he then realises he does in fact like it and will eat it, its a bit arduous at times with the 'well you like pasta, mince, cheese and tomatoes and thats all lasagne is' but it seems to work.

my ds can be a real fussy eater if he thinks you'll give in, he's 5yo, i tell him he has to amke good decisions and he has 2 choices, eat his dinner (or at least try new things) and have pudding, or not eat/try and not have pudding and that is his choice to make. i give realitvely small portions so it's not daunting and he knows he can always ask for more but he has a choice to make and he deals with the consequences of that choice.

Generally he makes a good choice, sometimes he doesn't and he deals with the consequence.

nickelbabe, DS really does not like cheese. But he wanted to "build" with it! He would not try it aftewards (DH hates cheese, too, so I won't even try).

We did not do the food thing today because we got home too late and I had not prepared anything as I was childminding. I am hoping we can do it tomorrow.

Regarding the pasta lasagne issue: I tried to get DS to accept that the dish was just pasta and a sauce that I would normall put over spag or other pasta, but he was not having any of it. It turned into a full scale screaming tantrum as I said before. But I will not put up with that anymore. He is a good, cooperative kid most of the time but I think he pushes his luck far too often at home and DH and I are fed up with his turning on the water works anc screeching when things don't go his way.

ah, i see.
that's a shame.
I wonder if there's anything else you could use to build with?
I can only think of cake, though...

I will probably cut up blocks of cheese for him to use but I draw the line at handing out a £5 block of cheese just for play!!

at cake! We have a zillion Halloween sweets he could use, too, I suppose!

I feed my DS what I know he likes.

If you have made lasagne it does not take much to bung some nuggets in the oven.

He will soon start to be inquisitive about other foods, don't stress out at meal times just keep it simple.

oooohhhh!! I know!! chop up pieces of carrots into brick shapes!
That should be easy enough to build with!

Make one meal. If it is not eaten - do not panic. There is no way a 7yo will die of starvation by missing one meal - he will just eat a larger breakfast. Can you tell I also have a fussy 7yo? If I am cooking stew (his particular dislike - but everyone else in the house's favourite dinner), he gets a plate put in front of him. If he eats it, he eats it, if he doesn't, then fine. It's not ME who will be hungry in bed. And I do that with my 7yo and he has SN. If HE can grasp the concept of refusing dinner = hungry until morning, then all NT dc can by 7yo.

HONESTLY, OP - You are making it worse by pandering to him. Dish him up whatever you are all eating. No pressure on him to eat it, but no other food allowed until breakfast. He has to sit quietly at the table until dinnertime is over, but doesn't HAVE to eat it, just know that refusal to eat the food dished up will result in an empty belly until breakfast time. Soon sharpens the mind into understanding that fussiness is not an option!

If he doesn't eat anything - just gently point out that he will not be allowed any more food until the morning. If he still chooses not to eat it, he takes his plate out and goes to bed hungry. In the morning, just give him a bigger bowl of cereal if he refused his dinner. Eventually he will get the idea. I did this with my fussy SN 7yo when he was 5yo (and functioning at a 3yo level) - he now eats at least half of ANYTHING I put in front of him - even things he isn't keen on - because he doesn't want to be hungry in the night.

Your DS will NOT starve through missing an evening meal, especially not if he gets a bigger breakfast the next morning. He might have a rumbly tumbly in bed - but HE has made that decision - and by 7yo, the vast majority of dc will be able to connect refusing dinner with being humgry in bed. Just don't get stressy about it - let it GO whether he eats what is dished up or not, it's not YOU that is choosing to be hungry, and you are not starving him when you have put a perfectly good dinner in front of him.

I only fed my kids things they would eat, Im sure they have never even tried lasagna and they are adults now.

Fabby - how do you know they wouldn;t eat lasagne if you didn't offer it??? And how can they not have tried lasage now?? Not v helpful to the OP.