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?

Oddfod, for every m/c child undernourished from being fed on mung beans there are probably 50 children raised on beige foods only who will become adults at higher risk of cancer and heart disease from a severe lack of fruit and vegetables in their diets. My nephew is like this. At 32 he only eats 2 vegetables: sweet corn and carrots. No whole grains, no fish, no leafy greens. His diet is really shit. I know some children 'branch out' with their diets as adts but many don't. It's not a good thing.

I've found this thread completely fascinating.

I think the OP has had a hard time (but I have a little sympathy with the posters who've pointed out that it's coming across a little hard-line and unsympathetic about fussiness in kids). The only point where I (and most others) would have differed was at breakfast, but honestly aside from offering toast or a bowl of cereal that's all - and she was going home soon, so not at risk of starvation! I too would be a bit bemused by a child who hated pancakes, but then mine are monsters about them. I'd have offered the toast, though.

I have two pretty unfussy DC. If asked for dislikes or whatever I do say "they eat everything". However, I know that if they are presented with actual choices at someone else's house ("What would you like for tea?") DC1 in particular will act as if only sandwiches on white bread are acceptable, and DC2 would demand cheesy pasta. At home we have pretty much mostly cooked-from-scratch stuff, with some fish fingers and frozen pizzas etc too, and eat a wide variety of carbs, proteins, things-in-sauce and things without etc. Like most of the rest of you, I suspect. But I don't offer a choice, and if they eat they eat, if not then they had the chance.

Sometimes they eat with more fuss than other times - there's stuff everyone's not so keen on, after all - but they know the rules at home. So actually I prefer them to go somewhere where the rules are sort of the same, as I know how they'll react to that (which is mostly to eat it!). Where they are given too much choice they just graze in a nibbly fashion wasting lots, which I find annoying. I really would not care if they came home hungry from somewhere if they'd been offered a reasonable meal and chosen for whatever reason not to eat it. Up to them! (But I wouldn't buy pizza on the way home, and they wouldn't ask me to...)

Kids are weird. I would have the weird fussy eaters over again, of course - I'd just grill their parents more about preferences beforehand, as this time was unsuccessful. I can't honestly believe all you posters claiming you'd cater to different options once you'd already cooked one meal and it wasn't eaten. Really?

Haha no really just spoilt fanjo (we're related)

I'm sure there are LesMis. But the fact is that some people who consider themselves clued up on nutrition don't know what the hell they're doing.

I hope my DS doesn't get heart disease. But he might. Better than having to be drip fed eh?

Rabbit,sorry..I was talking about the girl Scheherazade was discussing :)

I would have offered a limited choice of other things. Even crisps, fruit, cheese, cake. Icecream. Yes. She was a guest and a child (the dd's best friend) so I would have wanted to at least try to spoil her a bit.
She might have still eaten nothing.
The key for me is that I wouldn't have been so annoyed by her refusal as to "give up" at breakfast, which is the easiest meal to offer a choice for. Even on a busy work/ cm drop off morning there's a choice here of toast, cereals, fruit, leftover boring-no cheese added- tortilla, cake.

Sadly being related doesn't rule out judging SN as spoiltness, everyone thought my DD was just spoilt til she was about 4.

Not saying you are guilty of this rabbit, obviously I don't know you or the child.

Oh haha I thought you were giving my SIL licence have her dd live on hula hoops and dry bread with the crusts cut off!

But the OP did offer extras - from the original post "decorate biscuits and offered lots of general snacks like fruit, yoghurt, crackers etc. "

So I wouldn't have done more than that.

Friday tea-time: pizza (refused), a decorated biscuit, general snacks (yoghurt, crackers, fruit)

Sat morning: pancakes (refused) BUT I'd have offered some alternative then.

Ds loves crusty bread. 100 % sourdough rye is his fave. He's not keen on toast..

Seriously, I'm still hoping to hear more about this pizza.

It's "delicious", don't you know, brdgrl.

That's really all you need to know

I think the dd's friend was expecting dominos or whatever.
I'm sure the ops pizza was lovely. But as has been said many times one pizza is very different from another and for children especially.
I was at someone's house once and was told we were having fish and chips. I bloody love fish and chips, from the chip shop. Their (sort of) home made version was tasty enough and of course I gratefull ate it, coz I'm a grown up, but I was disappointed
The poor kid had probably been fantasising about "her" pizza for days. No woder she asked for it on the way home.
And as that was 10 ish? It could reasonably be called a discussion about lunch tbh.

Amanda - of course the child didn't say she didn't like lumps at 8 months - she simply spat them out. And continued to spit them out. So the mother - rightly, at this age - went back to purees. The thing is, she never got the child off purees, because when she offered more solid food at a later date, the child refused it. And continued to refuse it. She finally went to the doctor when the child was nine, due to her unclear speech and was told by the doctor that it was because she'd never been given food to chew. That was when she was referred to the speech therapist, and basically told that her child had to eat something that wasn't mush.

It was simply easier for the child to shovel her food in with the spoon, rather than learn to use a knife and fork - her parents tried her with a knife and fork, she tried, she couldn't get the food in fast enough, she cried, they gave up.

And exactly what Rabbit said in her earlier post.

So that's really not about being spoiled and pandered to is it then?
It's about a parent who, for whatever reason, didnt make the move forward with food and eating.
I would suggest there are other issues at play on the case of a child who at the age of nine has never eaten anything other than a purée and for that to only be discussed at that point with a GP.

Sounds like they went through a particularly difficult time with weaning.

I'd be inclined to be sympathetic to them.

I'm highly sceptical that a child of 9 with no other issues just eats purees because it's easier. It's so far beyond 'normal' that it does suggest other issues, whether they've been diagnosed or not. Not chewing and speech issues can be co-morbid, but it's not always the one that leads to the other. Often, it's one issue that leads to both.

Exactly..and still having issues using a knife and fork at 15 but great pencil use.. Doesn't add up.

Sorry, but do you seriously think the OP should have offered am alternative meal? Bit of toast maybe, but you think she should have rolled up her sleeves and done an entirely different menu?

And pizza is pizza is pizza. There ain't that much difference between them.

On the topic of pancakes I am prejudiced as they are a treat here Also I get deeply pissed off with kids who tell me they "don't like this" (eight isn't a baby, it's quite old enough to be polite) as opposed to those who are polite but clearly struggling. The former I have tended to tell with a bright smile "that's dinner, darling" and the latter "you're finding that hard going, of course you don't have to finish it".

All of which presumably opens me to the same brickbats being liberally slung at the OP. Thank god my kids are bigger now...

I would suggest verbal dyspraxia at very least

I don't think anyone was suggesting a different meal. Just is ole snacks, Evans on Prost or whatever she might be happy to eat that was quick and easy.
But the main point was that it's unreasonable (IMO) to get so pissed off about her not eating the pizza.
And to then give no choice at breakfast.
And to consider it reasonable to not invite her dd's best friend back for a sleepover because ner manners weren't quite up to the mark or because the op thinks the mother is too indulgent.

Yes they did. A poster suggested that they were snacks and op should make her another meal!!!
That snacks weren't good enough

Ok. Fair enough.
But I think it's the unneccessary intolerance of the child's food refusal that's been the bug bear for most YAbu commenters.

My guess would be oral hyposensitivity and comorbid verbal dyspraxia too, fanjo. No 'perfectly normally' developing child fails to eat lumps because they are too lazy to chew. I can see that overanxious parenting where there has been no advice might leave a child stuck in that pattern because of hypersensitive gag reflex scaring them both early on. But there was definitely a problem other than wilfulness early on.

Of course it is entirely possible that she is also spoiled. But spoiling a child doesn't leave one with indistinct speech and an ability only to eat smooth purees. Or there'd be a great deal more of that about.

At least one poster has suggested an alternative meal.

I might, if feeling generous, offer toast. But I don't agree with the fantasy that this poor little poppet had been eagerly looking forward to a specific (unspecified) brand of bought pizza and was shattered by the reality of a totally different pizza experience.