To think that 2 hours is far too long to eat a small bowl off porridge?

[Smileybutstressed]

We have DSD (5) staying. At times her behaviour is a challenge (all with all 5 yr olds) but she has hardly eaten a thing all the while she's been here.

She's still sat nursing a bowl of porridge on her lap now complaining that its now 'too cold' 'has hairs in' and 'I want coco pops.'

She has always been quite a fussy water but then I know that her mum and even my DP didn't have the best diets when she was small. DP says that they are a lot of takeaway food as his ex wasnt too keen on cooking.

I always make an effort to make everything from scratch. I grow my own veggies to save money and have always put veg on DSDs plate. My own DD (17 months) eats fruit and veg like its going out of fashion.

I always try an encourage DSD to et healthily. I've tried making a hedgehog out of a mango, fruit pizzas, she helps me cook tea every night but she still won't eat anything.

She started school in September an I thought that her eating habits would improve but to no avail.

Her teeth are rotting really badly and when we pick her up from her mums she always has a bottle of coke or fanta with her.

Struggling for ideas she will happily eat crisps, chocolate, chips etc but IMO they should be occasional treats not the norm.
She's quite overweight already and I know that kids are all so different and varying at this age but I just worry about her.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance

To be honest, you can do what you like but her mum is just going to feed her crap - so making her eat porridge is never going to work.

So go the middle ground, give her coco pops and at least let her have something. Find a breakfast she will eat and give her that.

myone so I have to pander around her and change OUR family dynamics to fit around her to give her some 'familiarity'? Erm no, the reason she is so fussy in the first place is because everybody has always given into her!

I don't particularly want my own DD eating coco pops so no I won't feed her them!

Oh, and agree re:being smug about your 17 month old.

Even my most extreme food issues child ate most things at 17 months. And yet less than 2 years later had a phase where she ate nothing but raisins for about 3 months. Just raisins (and not many of them), having had a wide range of acceptable (and enjoyed) foods when weaning. This came on rapidly, over a period of about 3 weeks - went from eating lots and well, to eating a handful of raisins each day.

Op, you sound great but sadly unless her parents see it as an issue there's nothing you can do. I would be tempted to tell her dad that if he is happy for her to eat crap then he does the buying and feeding.

But there are compromises between Coco Pops and porridge that you could consider? Next time do smooth ready-porridge with honey, nuts and raisins and let her put them all in?

As I've said not being 'smug'

Tbh making a fuss about this issue and trying to get her to eat 2 hour old porridge isn't going to help. Just provide her with meals, she either eats them or she doesn't. If her father then chooses to feed her crap in between that's up to him.

Part of your problem here is your DP. If he isn't going to back you up then you stand no chance.

Smiley, sorry, but you are coming across as very smug with your statements that your 17 month old 'knows' she won't get anyhting else, so eats up lime a good girl.

Try being so sure about that when it's your dd refusing to eat anything else. For extended periods of time.

You have tried and tried with your current approach to dsd's diet. It isn't working. You are the adult, it is up to you to fond an alternative solution, which involves your dsd feeling comfortable enough to eat something. You are allowing food to become a battle.

What hasyour dsd eaten this morning? What is she likely to eat for lunch?

She is a small child. She needs to eat something.

Oh God, the porridge Nazis are back.....

Look, just take the poor child to Tesco and help her choose some cereal you would deign to allow her to eat.

You absolutely cannot get away with starving somebody else's child on an access visit because you do not personally approve if her food preferences.

if her teeth are rotting and she is fat due to her poor diet, then there are BIG parenting problems. This is much more than a bowl of porridge.

I have no idea how you tackle this when you don't have her all the time.

no one should be drinking coke (it is toilet cleaner), let alone a child in this situation.

your partner needs to step up to his ex who is, to put it kindly, not coping. The child is suffering as a result.

I aren't starving her!! She will ask m to cook something especially then refuse to eat it.

Ill just feed her crisps an chocolate for the rest of her visit then because that is about all she will bloody well eat!!

Yep, agree, SaucyJack.

Porridge may well be the optimal nutritional breakfast. 2 of mine eat it happily every day. The third one won't touch it, so has an acceptable (imo) compromise.

My youngest weaned on broccoli stolen off my plate. He screamed if I didnt give him vegetables every mealtime. Will he touch them now he is 2.5? Not a flipping chance. But he will again one day, and in the meantime I keep trying, and find different ways to get veggies in him, because I am certainly not going to keep him sat in front of his plate for 2 hours with a cold rank meal he is refusing to eat.

I don't believe crisps and chocolate is ALL she'll eat. Come on OP, tell us some more things she likes and well suggest some meals. If you've chatted to her about this surely she's mentioned some preferences?

It isn't working and the girl needs to eat.

What do you honestly think the solution is,barring actually feeding her that is.

Seriously, wrong battle here.Coco Pops won't kill her.

Oh and btw,if you want to go off in your perfect little smugness,with regard to your daughter being a fruit fiend,you're meant to eat more veg than fruit.And let's not forget all those sugars and teeth. HTH

It wasnt me who kept her sitting over a 'cold, rank meal' it was DP.

Like I've said up thread, I've always given her half an hour to make progress with it and if she's jut messing about with it, it gets taken off. Same goes for DD

I think YA a bit unreasonable to be honest OP. You are making to many big changes all at once for a 5 year old, who judging by the extent of her dental decay has eaten a highly processed diet for a long time. I also think you need to be very careful as to how you approach food with her her on 2 counts. Firstly, very slow eating and feeling pressured/ a failure around food at a young age is the breeding ground for EDs. (Not scaremongering, I have an ED and was fucked up around food at about this age) so tread VVV carefully. Secondly, even though she's only 5, she will pick up on a subtle feeling that you are saying that how she lives with her Mummy, is bad, because if it's not, why must she have different food when she's with you? She won't understand and will feel upset and anxious. I've read your other threads and you do seem to have issues with the girl's mother. So please tread very carefully, those are big emotions for such a little girl.

My advice is to do 'satellite plates', we do this with our boys and it is very effective. When we want them to try new things, we give them a smaller familiar meal, then we put a tiny amount of the new element on a side plate, and say nothing about it. They usually follow us and and try it. If not they're not ready, so no big deal. Same as if they don't like it. Then we just repeat every time we eat the new food. If they like it and ask for more, the next time they have it as a main portion and no satellite, or maybe a new fruit or veg on the small plate.

Smiley, you need to look at this froma different angle.

You have to start where she is, and move slowly towards where you would prefer her to be, food wise. Otherwise the changes are far too big, for a child who appears to have big food issues.

When my dd was at her worst, food wise, we had to start from her even being able to tolerate the food on her plate. Then smelling it, touching it, licking it, etc. nine of which aided her nutrition at all, but al, of which were important steps towards getting her to try eating the foods.

Try a completely different approach - maybe try playing and painting with foods. Squish up raspberries and blueberries to make the 'paints' and use apple shapes for printing (like old fashioned potato printing). Do it with her, get you hands messy and casually lick your finger. Don't expect her to do it, or ask her to. But talk about what you can smell, what the foods feel like, and what they taste like. She may surprise you and do similar. She may not - it can take a while to build up to it - but it's one way of taking the stress out of foods.

Play with cooked spaghetti. Use drops of fruit juice to drip into water to see how the colours swirl. Again, talk about it, maybe stir it up with fingers and then lick fingers.

Just serving up completely different meals, full of (to your dsd) weird foods is not gong to work. It is was, it would have done so by now.

OMG there are some seriously nasty, nasty people on here being VERY personal.

I have come on here for advice and support not to be pecked and heckled!! She is my SD not my child so I could easily just bury my head in the sand and say 'not my problem' but I am concerned.

As for the 'smug' remarks. I kinda knew I would get shot down in flames with that. It's just soooo predictable of this site. I've always said that I would fill her full of fruit and vegetables before she went through a fussy stage so don't think that I am not anticipating it because I'm fully aware of that fact that its almost inevitable!

And by the way my DD does eat more veg than fruit. She has it with every meal as yes I am fully aware of sugars in fruit!!

BTW, you haven't yet "brought up" your 17mo to the age of 5. The 5yo used to eat porridge. Maybe, she was still eating it at 17 months?

Make less fuss about what she does and doesn't eat. When it stops being an issue, it won't be a device for attention-seeking. And make sure she is getting lots of attention. Being usurped by a lovely little baby would have been very hard for her, at 3yo.

^^ yet again the guilt tripping for making the choice to have another baby. She wasnt 'usurped' at all!! DD was practically ignore for the first 5 monts of her life because we were trying to keep a level of normality for DSD thank you very much

You certainly can't 'force feed' the child . ( not that I'm suggesting you would) but it must be really frustrating at meal times, your young daughter is not 'odd' it's just that she has had a varied diet available to her since she started solid food.
I would be careful with the amount of fruit ( a friends son lost four teeth due to too much fruit destroying the enamel. Their dentist suggested cleaning after fruit or a small piece of cheese to neutralise the acid in the fruit.
PS no 5 year is capable of cleaning there teeth properly!
I cleaned my daughters teeth until they were approx 11or 12 ( and yes they hated it, ) but they are now 29 and 34 with not a filling between them.
I on the other hand have fillings in every tooth and four missing due to poor oral health as a child.

Smiley, please listen to what posters are saying.

You need to find a different approach. The current one is not working. And meantime, you have a small child who is not eating much for extended periods of time, because you are refusing to give her the foods she will eat.

Even if your do then does give her snacks and crap,foods in between, this is setting up an awful eating pattern.

You say you want to find a solution. But you are not willing to compromise at all, and the only one suffering is a very young child.

I don't care that she is your dsd, I'm a step parent too, and I know how delicate that balance can be. But it is still up to,you, as the adult, to find a way through this that doesn't just expect your dsd to change everyhting she has ever known.

Why don't you discuss it with her. She's 5 so perfectly able to have a civil conversation about it. The same age as my DS.

Explain how xyz foods aren't doing her teeth any good or her health. Take to dentist who will back you up. Then sit her down and get her to write a list of foods she will try at each meal. So you can say coco pops are a no go, but what other options will she try. Then go from there. Each week try and get her to agree to add one more thing to list to try for breakfast/ lunch and dinner

Smiley, you can't just kick off, because you didn't get the mega parent accolade you wanted. You did come over a bit smug, and people picked up on it, and told you this attitude may be escalating the issue with DSD. That is giving advice and support. Noone has attacked you and every post has given advice. You flounced like this on another AIBU thread you started about wanting to have DSD on Christmas Day, when people didn't agree with you. If you find AIBU too brutal, maybe post in Parenting next time.