to give up trying to feed this child?

[ankar]

We had dd's best friend for a sleepover last night. The girls are both 8. My dd has done quite a few sleepovers before but her friend started only recently - a mixture of not wanting to initially and then wanting to but her mum being too anxious about it. Anyhow...she was finally allowed to come and it mostly went fine, the girls got along well and even did some sleeping.

However....this child would not eat anything! We really tried and had them make their own pizzas, decorate biscuits and offered lots of general snacks like fruit, yoghurt, crackers etc. She refused everything at first but then later on was obviously really hungry as she did eat a couple of pieces of apple, but that was all she would eat. I just kind of shrugged to begin with and thought she wasn't hungry, but then I realised that she was, but she wouldn't eat our food.

In the morning I made pancakes which she also refused. She looked at the plate and said "I don't like them". By then I was worried but also a bit fed up of offering different things for her to turn her nose up at, so I just said "Well that's a pity" and didn't offer anything else. When her mum just came to pick her up she asked how things went and I said fine but she didn't want to eat anything so I hope she's not coming down with something as she seemed to have no appetite. The mum looked at me quite cross but didn't say anything, then on the way to the car I heard the girl asking if they could pick up pizza on the way home as she was starving!

What could I have done and should I have offered her something else in the morning?

My daughter has a friend like this. She likes pizza, but wouldn't eat the pizzas that she and the other girls made. I know her, so I had frozen pizza in the house, as I suspected this might happen. I guess I go out of my way to have something she will eat, as there is no way that I can educate her, and my daughter likes to have her come over.

I hate fussiness, but I can't teach other people's children; I can only offer a variety of fun and attractive food which they don't normally see, and some of them take me up on it. I usually have something I know the fussy ones will eat on offer too, and I don't talk about their choices.

When ds has friends over I do go out my way to ask what they like to eat and accommodate them (within reason!), I dont pander to my own ds, but would feel unkind doing it to children who are guests when I dont know their tastes yet. I would not let ds's friends miss dinner and breakfast when staying, especially when they are only 8 and just venturing out on their first sleepovers.

I think yabu to realise a young child sleeping over in your house for the first time is hungry and not asking the obvious question - what do you like to eat?

Thanks....I gave her a choice in the evening but had sort of given up by breakfast as I could see the rigmarole starting again. Doesn't the adults fussing around trying to get you to eat something just become all part of the process and make it all more complicated? If my dcs don't want to eat I just say fine, don't eat.

The kids are fussy because of the parents attitude, by the way, in my opinion. You can't change the parents, so you just have to choose whether it is important to you for this child to be comfortable at your house. If it is, you can find out exactly what rubbish she eats at home, and provide an exact replica. (It is usually cheap rubbish.)

This happened to us last W/end. Well in a way...

the child ate nearly all our food instead.

Complained to parents about his 'treatment' told my son it wasn't the best sleep-over he'd ever been to.

This week his Dad is giving me 'evils' in the playground. Odd ball family that they are.

By the way, it was a perfectly normal sleep-over with all the usual treats/fun

op you can't please them all. Don't give it another thought.

although I have been fed up with the way ours went all week

I wouldn't fuss around at all. I would ask the parents, and have her junk just sitting there. It is usually something like white bread, frozen pizza, plain pasta. I wouldn't talk about it.

I think your approach is sensible and this child is probably used to being the centre of attention at meal times and getting what she wants when she wants. the request for pizza at breakfast time suggests that.
I'd just not have her back for a meal.

claraschu I think you are right. I don't know why this child is so picky, but she certainly controls her parents in every other area. I have seen her be extremely rude to her mum, though she was mostly fine with me. I don't let my dcs say they don't like a food however, especially if someone else has cooked it for them. I tell them that they can say something nice about the food but if they don't like it they keep quiet, try to eat a bit then just leave it on the plate with no comment.

But like you say, nothing I can do about how someone else wants to allow their kids to behave.

feminine I would have been fizzing about that too. Sounds dreadful.

2rebecca I do not really want this girl back again but she is dd's good friend so I am thinking a couple of hours after school only next time!

Yanbu a child isn't going to starve whilst at a sleepover for less than 24 hours. You offered her food and she didn't eat it. There would have been minimal options at dinner time, pizza which you know she likes or bread and butter and an apple. I would have offered the same at breakfast, pancakes or bread and butter and an apple.

It probably did the child some good to see that the world doesn't always revolve around her!

My daughter is 9 and will only eat very specific things ( no lectures please people who don't have one don't really understand the difference between a fussy child and one with real issues)
She likes pizza but only with certain toppings and she wouldn't eat pancakes, she is also quite shy so wouldn't ask for anything else either. When she goes to a friends house I make sure they know exactly what she will and won't eat and it's never been a problem so far.
However, if I picked her up and she hasn't eaten I would be more likely to be annoyed with her than the parent unless they had completely ignore what I had told them. Whenever DD is invited anywhere I explain about her eating habits and appologise and say that I understand if they feel they can't cater for her but everyone has so far - possibly because she only really goes to people's houses we know well.
Sounds like you weren't properly " briefed", which isn't your fault but I don't think that you can assume what is a treat to your children is the same for everyone and you probably should have offered something else for breakfast.

With making their own pizzas I did have to closely supervise mine when young as they'd be keen on wierd combinations or get the quantities wrong. I'd often also make 1 or 2 pizzas myself which they usually preferred to their concoctions as I had the balance right.
I'd probably have offered whatever cereals we had or toast when it became obvious she wouldn't eat the pancakes, but if you'd tried that the night before i can understand you thinking it was pointless in the morning.

Some children are very rigid in their eating and a one-off sleep over is not the time to try and change them. I have about three different children who come to my house who eat quite restricted diets or won't just eat anything put in front of them. They all eat bread though, so if all else fails, they have their usual jam sandwiches or bread and butter etc.

I do think you could have offered a choice of things in the morning- would it really have hurt to have offered toast and spreads, cereals or the pancakes? I would rather a child be happy in my house than be taught something which will make no difference at all.

I think the best thing in these circs is to leave an unmanned snack-bar.

When my DD has a chum - I'll often stack the table with fruit, veg, crackers, cheese etc - tell them to serve themselves when they get hungry & to leave the kitchen clean.

I often hear them snuffling downstairs about 11pm - but I don't have to get wound up about it, since they are independent.

I suspect she was way out of depth being at someone else's house, much more than I realised. I could have given her cereal....she probably would have refused though! I vaguely remember her mum mentioning making scrambled eggs before school which I really wouldn't have wanted to make having already whipped up pancakes. I like to do nice things for my dcs and will even make more effort with guests but revolving everything around them and catering to every whim is another matter. It's not her fault that this is almost certainly what happens at home, and not for me to tackle, but it's going to become more and more of a problem for her and very silly of her parents imo.

Don't refuse to have her round again. The advice with v restricted eaters these days is often to let them have what they will eat, not to continually only offer stuff they don't like and starve them into submission. If it's such a problem the mum should have said something but if she eats bread, toast or cereal and you didn't offer them for breakfast I can see why she wouldn't expect breakfast to be an issue.

Families differ so much. I've asked a parent what their child eats and been told "oh she eats everything - sausages, fish fingers AND nuggets!". Turned out that was pretty much it!

Kif I do make your own pasta in these situations- so plain pasta with bowls of ham/cheese/cucumber/pineapple/olives and let them get their own. I've only got one child who visits who wouldn't eat this- but as I say, he has the jam sandwiches anyway.

Op, I think you were a little inflexible about this. If I go and stay with a friend of mine, even as an adult, they always ask me what I would like for breakfast and outline the options. I think that's polite for a guest and doesn't mean your own children have to then do this every day. I would be quite crestfallen if my friend just decided we were doing pancakes and plonked them down, especially if I didn't feel like them.

I think to not have offered toast and butter this am was remiss and I would be annoyed if my child went to someone's house and came back having eaten two bits of apple, even if they were fussy/a pain.

I don't get this idea you should be improving other's children- to me, a guest is a guest and the idea is for your guests to enjoy themselves. You could have even offered apple again this am surely?

No I shouldn't be "improving" someone else's child (whatever that means) but it feels extremely weird to act in such a different way around food. Not just different from what my dcs are used to - we've never had a child who ate nothing before! All the other kids who come over love my cooking including the pancakes, and we have lots of dcs over.

As an aside....I REALLY don't get why parents get into the way of revolving everything around a child (I don't mean food, I mean everything). At some point the child is going to realise that the world will not do this....?!

It helps that my DD is capable of using microwave, going to the corner shop - I've been known to just give them £5 and tell them to sort out a sensible supper/breakfast etc for themselves. Power struggles over food are never nice.

I think you are being a bit unsympathetic.

We are only a few years away from when eating disorders become a major 'thing' - so dismissing a child's food anxiety as 'expecting the world to revolve around them' is harsh. Would you lecture a bulimic about starving children in Africa, or an anorexic about how they are ungrateful for the effort people have made to cook?

It is very common - even in NT population - to feel unable to eat/swallow under stress.

Personally I'd just have a quiet word with the mum about how lovely it was to have the daughter around and that you'd live to do do again but that even your children picked up on her lack of willingness to eat anything and that you need to have some ideas about how to ensure this doesn't happen next time as you felt at a loss of what to do.

ankar I just find your insistence on not asking a child what they would like for breakfast odd. As others have said, the mum probably did think you would offer toast or cereal and lots of children who are fussy eat those things. You didn't, she didn't eat, that's not really a successful visit.

Sorry, I'm not trying to make you feel bad, I'm sure you have lots of kids over and they love your cooking. I am surprised you haven't met a fussy child before, I have met loads!

I also think it's extremely unlikely she wasn't eating for attention. She would have been really rather hungry by breakfast and I very much doubt was enjoying any attention, more thinking about how she could get home to get some food.

She may be spoilt, her parents may handle it all 'wrong' but you don't know this for sure.

I think if there was a food anxiety the mum would have said something though. She also knew that her mum would get her a pizza on the way home so it didn't matter if she didn't eat breakfast.

But I will try to chill out and just ask her what she wants next time. I will not feel good about doing that but I will!

Kif I have a colleague in her fifties like this, she just can't eat/swallow easily when she's stressed. I have the opposite problem, sadly!

Well....you don't know what goes on in any other family, but her mum even says her dd is spoilt sometimes! I would say she gives the impression she wants to change things but doesn't do it.