To stop battling with DD over lunch.

[Voidka]

When I pick DD up from preschool she always wants the same lunch - cucumber, toasted teacake and chocolate milk. Its been like that for nearly 6 months. Anything else is a flat refusal (except if we go out).

I am tired of trying to coax her to eat something different, I know that she can because she eats varied dinners. I dont want to cause any problems so should I just let her get on with and hope she grows out of it.

I wouldn't worry about it, but I would cut back a little on the chocolate milk. If she's eating other varied meals it is fine.

(My son lived almost exclusively on bananas and bread for 6 months. He's still alive and now a 6ft strapping man).

definitely just leave it. ds1 has a cheese sandwich every day for his packed lunch at school (plus other stuff, obviously!). He's had a cheese sandwich every day since reception and he's now in year 5... No amount of persuading or cajoling will work - he only likes cheese sandwiches. It's not worth the battles when there are so many others to be had!

And at the weekends we all have poached eggs and bacon on toast so at least there's some variety for 2 days a week (even though those days are exactly the same...).

Thats true - she doesnt eat it on weekends so I suppose its only 5 days a week if we dont go out anywhere.

Agree - dont bother getting in to a fight over it. Five days a week Choo #1 has exactly the same thing for breakfast and lunch. Dinner and weekends are more varied.

I wouldn't worry too much but you could maybe occasionally 'run out' of chocolate milk and see if she will drink normal milk instead if you didn't want her to have too much. Worth a try?

My DS who's 14 refused everything but a very small variety of foods. Did all the cooking together stuff to no avail. He eats a very varied diet now. What I found over the years that whilst I couldn't get him to try other stuff his peers did and slowly but surely things changed. Nearly fainted the other day when he asked for a sausage sandwich!

When my son was in nursery he lived on spaggetti on toast for lunch.
He's in Year 1 now and I genuinely cannot remember the last time he ate that.
I didn't try to fight it, it did me a favour really, I didn't have to come up with innovative and interesting lunches.

With the exception of choc milk, which I'd cut out, I'd go along with it. Toasted teacake and cucumber is fairly nutritious. You could try adding one other item each day, eg cheese or ham or hummums for protein and making a huge fuss of her if she eats any of it.

Well if you've gone along with it thus far then no wonder she expects it all the time.

I would start by substituting one for something else - like the chocolate milk for plain milk. If she creates a fuss, just ignore her and praise other things like her eating her teacake and cucumber. Once she realises that you are completely ignoring her tantrum and that she is actually quite thirsty, she'll drink it. This might not be on the first day but don't be tempted to give in because all that will teach is that if she screams loud enough, you'll give her what she wants.

if she eats a varied dinner then i really wouldn't worry about her having the same lunch each day.

when i was little i took the exact same packed lunch to school every day for about 4 years!
i eat pretty much ANYTHING and always have done., but that was just waht I liked for lunch

It sounds ok apart from lack of protein as snowmummy says I'd bring along a babybel or bit of ham as well.