Fussy eaters!!

[skybluepearl]

What do you do when fussy eaters come for tea?

My 8 year olds best friend hates everything I cook. And I mean everything - jacket potaotoe with cheese and salad, sausage cassarole, roast chicken, fish pie, spag bol, thi green curry etc. He's such a lovely lovely lovely child but a complete pain to feed.

I will take note of my own kids food dislikes if I can see they really hate something (swede for example) and up till now I have been just cooking our usual family meals - which he picks at then leaves (last visit he left the family meal completely - I then gave him beans on toast to keep him going).

So should I be cooking him a special meal for one or should I be giving my whole family pizza on the nights he visits (so we can all eat the same) or should I just continue as I am - offering my normal family meals to him? He does visit lots and i want him to feel welcolme. I also have to think about my own family though and would rather cook and eat something nice. Pizza is fine here and there but not all the time.

realhousewife, this is enlightening information. I had not thought of it like that.

He only started eating spag bol after we made it together (so he could see all the ingredients go into it). I think it must be a completely subconscious thing though, as he was like that as a baby already.

I have had him in hospital twice for stomach infections/ stomach flu (he then gets so food phobic he ends up on a drip... ). And that experience has made him even more wary of food. Then his appetite takes over again, thankfully.

Ahhhhhhhhhh I could write a 100 page manual on my DS, as I guess we call could . There is so much to learn being a parent. One of them is patience.

Ah, no boschy he obviously has issues around mess and is a little uptight, but then all of my children would fit that description. He is the only one who will not eat a wide variety of foods, though. The other two always loved their dinners and are real foodies now ( both grown-up)

Chandon my ds 8 is exactly the same.He loathed all my home cooked baby food.I Annabel Karmeled him big style,you know the expose to just about every fruit/veg on the planet.He even filtered baby rice through his gums.

Said ds is a non identical twin.His twin and my other child are the most amazing eaters,there is nothing they won't eat.Said fussy child had the same food in the womb,the same bm and f,was weaned out of the same bowl of baby food-he was sooooo born with it.

Interestingly he hates strong smells,tastes and dislikes some textures.He's quite a clean/tidy child(going by my standards which probably aren't that high admittedly).

C'est la vie,he has a varied healthy diet and is bouncing with health.So he'll freeze if given strange ,new foods and picks out every fleck of basil in my homecooked pasta sauce,will gag if faced with any veg other than carrots,peas and corn but by most people's standards he has a fab diet.He's just started nibbling the heads of broccoli florets-woo hoo!!!!I refuse to stress.

Oh and yes all the schools we visited boasted they can deal with fussy eaters ....

Boschy you're right we need a support thread, enough of hijacking OP's thread. I think it would go under "Behaviour / development"?

boschy lol no worries. I actually WAS a "eat what's in front of you" parent until DS2 came along with his SNs and food/sensory issues.

People need to understand it's not "pandering" to him, it's providing him with a nutritious diet as best as possible. Sorry, but saying "it doesn't take long with the right approach" simply does not understand. I certainly didn't. We are patient, presenting foods to DS2 that we are eating, not pushing, but still being encouraging, and it took THREE YEARS before he would eat peas. Literally 3 yrs of him pushing them around on the plate, counting them, lining them up, talking to them, sniffing them, licking them, before he finally decided to eat one. He eats them now, provided the right level of encouragement, but it was hard work being patient for that long. Another year before he began eating carrots. I am happy (well, resigned perhaps ) to take it at his pace, as we have found that seems to work best for all of us.

Sensory issues can be worked through to some extent. It is just not that simple to say that kids that don't like to get messy won't eat proper food. And DS2 doesn't connect what goes in with what goes out AT ALL.

DH, by comparison, was a fussy eater when I met him. Gradually as he has been exposed to some different foods and styles of cooking, he has broadened his tastes somewhat, although he still is not keen on veg. He will, however, eat something he's not keen on rather than completely go without, as he is an adult and knows that's dinner. DS2, on the other hand, will simply not eat... he has no concept of time or the fact that he NEEDS to eat, so therefore he will just not eat if there is no option he can cope with eating.. and he will continue to do that meal after meal. Again, it's a completely different situation.

Mrs heffey, it's all about tiny victories, isn't it?

I just look at the foods he DOES eat, and then it isn't so bad.

MsBrian and all other 'sufferers' I will go start one right now! (should be working but hey-ho)

Exactly Chandon.

My youngest was fussy from weaning onwards. There were lots of tastes and textures that he couldn't cope with from the start. We tried to be firm but if he didn't like or recognise it, he couldn't eat it.

I remember cooking a roast dinner when he was toddler and he was hungry. Really hanging-off-my-legs-and-crying-for-food hungry. I dished him up a plate with a little chicken, carrots, roast potatoes and a yorkshire pudding. None of it was touching (he likes big gaps around his food ) and no gravy as wet food is a definite no-no.

He couldn't eat anything on that plate. Not a thing. He just kept pleading with me for 'proper dinner' and I think it was that point that DH and I realised this was far more serious than we had thought.

After that we just concentrated on nutrition as much as possible - if he had would drink some orange juice and eat some grapes, he would have got some Vitamin C inside him, etc. We just tried to win the tiny battles for a long time and hope that he wasn't damaged by lack of a varied diet.

Laura my ds wwas the same.I think it's control thing ie if it's covered or mashed up they can't select what feels safe.He only liked dry foods for ages and pasta sauce in the middle not mixed in iykwim.He loves gravy now though.

I wonder if some kids have a slight brain imbalance in the area which makes kids wary of dangerous foods(stone age),hyper sensitive in order to keep them safe.It's normal at around 2 to get fussy but my ds was always like it and it got worse at 2 then never went away.It's gradually improving though.

I'm no medical expert though.It just doesn't make sense to me as we're all uber foodies in our family,also there is the twin thing I mentioned earlier.

ah laura the 'proper dinner' thing, DD1 could have said that.

Anyway, support thread now available on Behaviour/development forum.

I have to say though, whether the children are fussy because they're pandered to, or because it's innate, or whatever, I just can't stand rudeness. Surely it's not to much to ask that they are taught not to call food "disgusting", or use the word "yuk" about food (especially when they're a guest in someone else's house), or to exclaim in horror when you mention vegetables.

I agree with that stopraining, rudeness is not on, and if my food phobic said anything like that in public she would be in big trouble.

BUT, some children learn a defence mechanism. If every adult around is saying "oh go on, just try it", "look how much Persephone loves her broccoli" or "but you MUST like peas, everyone likes peas" I can understand the temptation to cut the conversation short - possibly rudely - and not get into another bloody great debate about what you do and do not like to eat. Not condoning out and out rudeness, but maybe just a different POV.

I have had to have big conversations with DS about that StopRaining - he cannot bear the smell of most of my food (so I don't know who suggested that filling the house with food smells is a good idea but I don't think that would work here) but I will not tolerate him saying it's disgusting (even if the smell makes him heave)

yes christine same here! you dont have to eat it, but you mustnt be rude about it and especially not if you are not at home.

DS goes very candidly and politely "no thanks mummy that's too yucky"

Stopraining, agree about the rudeness.

I have "drilled" my DC into saying: "Thank you that was delicious but I've had enough" instead of "yuk".

Next mission is to make them sound like they mean it

lol at your DS MsBrian - I love that!

Oh no, I won't tolerate am dram and face pulling at the table either. A simple 'no thank you' is sufficient!

Thanks for the thread boschy - here's the link for those here who are interested

Christine, Chandon and valium, I couldn't agree more. I don't care if people eat or don't eat what they're served, but it's a complete no-no to slag off the food to the person/people who made it. And I'm talking about my experience of adults here, not kids! At least two of the adults who have done this sort of thing to me, I know for a fact were indulged as kids and asked what they wanted for tea, given other options if they decided they didn't like what was dished up, etc, so in their cases upbringing definitely at least contributed to their attitudes as adults.

Beamur, as for preferences, of course everyone has the right to eat to their own preferences when they are cooking/ordering the food, but in someone else's house I think it's just not on to say 'I don't want to eat what you've made because I prefer x/y/z.' I can't count the number of times I've eaten at other people's houses and would have 'preferred' something else to what was offered, but I wouldn't dream of saying so or of saying anything other than 'Thank you.' Simple manners.

LadyClarice - sure, I mostly agree with you - but there is a difference in how an adult can rationalise that and express it and a small child. Politeness though and not saying yuk is a given in this house too.
I had this a lot over the weekend, we were staying at PIL and whilst MIL is a fantastic cook, sadly much of what was on offer was not to DD's taste - but to her credit she politely and quietly told me she didn't like it, but did try it all first. Poor Granny is not used to her food being declined.

Beamur, your DD sounds really sweet. My dad's partner's little girl is similar in that she will try EVERYTHING. It's quite rare that she doesn't like something, but when she doesn't it's fine because she will have tried it and will always be polite about not liking it, and won't demand something else instead. She also loves helping with the washing-up, so as far as I'm concerned she's a great guest.

see my earlier post about tongue tie.

there will be hundreds, actually probably thousands of kids out there with tongue tie.

and it will not be obvious in a huge number of cases.

out of interest, how many of the fussy eaters on this thread are tongue tied that you know of.

there is a pic of ds1's tt and high palate on my profile.

have a look in your fussy kids' mouths and see what you find.