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?

brdgl, you seem somewhat hung up on the homemade pizza. If the OP had provided it several times before for children successfully and had been told that this child liked pizza, and if this child had participated in making it without saying anything about it, why should she necessarily have assumed that the child would refuse to try it at all? And, of course, she offered alternatives.

LtEveDallas I don't think there's anything unhealthy about those kind of chicken nuggets at all, is there?

OP could you please explain what is unhealthy and crap about chicken breast cut into smaller pieces, coated in breadcrumbs and oven cooked?

How many people have fresh chicken lying around the house ready to make into nuggets for the occasional fussy child? And why would you go through all the effort of making nuggets if your own children don't eat them?

And betcha if this child didn't like home-made pizza she wouldn't have liked home-made nuggets.

You don't get more basic or identifiable than a pizza tbh.

I can honestly say it wouldn't occur to me that a child wouldn't eat a pizza they helped make. And I'd have done the same tbh in fact I have done because the baking was part of what I had lined up fir the kids to do.

I guess I'd hope the kid would say while we made them then id have kept in fridge for me and asked what they'd want instead .

I'd certainly be more specific if my child only ate a certain kind of pizza, when telling people what she'd eat

She did not offer alternatives at breakfast.
She offered snack food (presumably "healthy and nutritious" snacks!) as alternatives at dinner.
Not very accomodating.

I think the OP is deluded if she believes half of what she claims about the hundreds of children she's had round that can't tell the difference between different kinds of cereal, or that they all loved her pizza.

ici: When children are old enough to go on residential trips they are often old enough to care about whet their peers do/think - this is how many fussy eaters gradually change

My point precisely.

Please tell me that none of you would start making homemade chicken nuggets after having made pizza dough and biscuits. Madness! We have a family joke about "princess moments" if one of the dcs is acting a bit diva-ish. My teen has turned it into a sarcy "It's not all about YOU, you know."

One of my twins, who's usually a completely non fussy eater would really struggle with pizza, cos he doesn't like melted cheese. We have all informed him how totally weird and socially unacceptable this is. I worry for his prospects in later life should nothing change.

So now we have established that we all need a range of cereal brands, breads and frozen crap? And to be psychic.

God , there's a funny old thing called talking which surely would solve a good chunk of the problem if the parents jut said.

Seriously it's not hard, if your kid only eats one kind of pizza say!!!

I didn't say homemade. I've just checked the packet of the chicken nuggets that DDs friend will be eating shortly (actually they are called dippers) and it says "100% whole chicken breast (responsibly sourced from family owned farms) rolled in breadcrumbs" and a choice of cooking them in the oven or under a grill.

I bought them from Aldi.

ici honestly? If it was a case of just saying "eat it" and being firm I really doubt there would be an issue. I sincerely doubt that a child would be put to bed on an apple and then miss their breakfast on a school trip.

No, in that situation, if it was a long trip, I suspect the school would be phoning their parents and consulting them about what to do, bearing in mind that menus would probably have been planned in advance taking into account the fact that schools ask parents to tell them if children have any allergies, eating disorders, and other problems. If it was just an overnighter and the child was refusing to eat, then so long as there was no indication that the child was feeling ill, they'd simply tell the parent when the child was collected.

When it's not a school trip, it's up to the parent to let the host know if there are any difficulties.

Oh and they are frozen.

ici: My point was that it is a gradual change and an individual process, which starts when kids get to that kind of age. Everyone has a different time scale for it (same as anything developmental). Some will be ready to try new things only a lot later. And some will never be able to. Schools should know this.

As for breakfast, well tbh of the mum was due to pick her up then having had the third lot of food turned down i can't say I'd be reeling off alternatives unless the kid was under three and couldn't say.

Some of you lot must run some kind of buffet service or have entire bakeries in your houses cos here there just aren't that many alternatives

She did not offer alternatives at breakfast.

The thing is, though, we have no means of knowing whether the child would have accepted any alternatives. What we do know is that, when picked up, she wasn't asking her mother for toast or cereal or scrambled eggs, she was asking for pizza.

I really don't think dcs with severe SN could have been accommodated on at least one of the trips my dcs have done. I don't know what they school would have done. The whole class went - they didn't have to but they all did. We just received info and it was up to us to decide if our dcs would go.

I've had young guests that don't like homemade pizza and one memorably who only liked "cakes from shops". One had a surprising passion for broccoli.

It is not helpful to get het up about any of this. I found it handy to keep a supply of frozen fish fingers in.

I have a child with severe sn, one with problems with food
One not bothered about food just eats

I make dinner when their friends are here, they eat it or they don't
They get offered crAckers or toast and whatever toppers they have. That's it. I don't feel bad

I know I said I was out but I just couldn't let this one go:

We have a family joke about "princess moments" if one of the dcs is acting a bit diva-ish. My teen has turned it into a sarcy "It's not all about YOU, you know."

Your DCs are not coming over well either, OP. They sound incredibly judgemental. I wonder why that might be?

I have no idea how I would feel in that situation zzzzz. But it was quite a basic and remote trip and was challenging for all the dcs in some ways, without adding extra concerns in.

zzzzz, your anger is self-induced. Neither I nor anyone else has suggested that disabilities amongst children are rare or "other" (in fact, I have very good reason to believe the opposite), neither have I once said that disabled children mustn't be discussed in a discussion that doesn't specifically involve a disabled child. I have simply pointed out that it is not fair to assume that someone you don't know would discriminate against disabled children on the basis of no evidence at all. And I have suggested that, if you have a child with difficulties, whether diagnosed or not, then you let other people know about them if they are going on a sleepover - for the sake of the child himself, ffs.

Op I agree, you asked mum what she likes, she said pizza, so you cooked it. She dident eat it, so you don't go cooking another meal, madness. Toast, crumpets, cereal, fruit and yoghurt a are all good alternatives. As long as they have something in them, it's only for one night!