To ask those of you with fussy eaters...

[CupidStuntSurvivor]

...whether you think your child had a varied diet as a baby while being weaned?

Just reading up on a few bits after a night feed and my brain's subsequent refusal to go back to sleep.

The stuff I'm reading echos what my HV has been saying and I try to stick to...expose DD to as many textures, flavours, etc as I can while her tastes are developing and I'll be less likely to have a fussy eater when she's older.

But most accounts of fussy eating I've encountered seem to come as a sudden problem rather than one that's extended from weaning days, if that makes sense?

Or am I being daft in my sleep-deprived state and it's actually most children go through a phase of fussy eating despite not always being a fussy eater?

Should be tasted

ps I blw ds due to my issues and he is 4 and not been fussy really except for not liking meat in chewy form but he is fine with that now. he loves all sort of food.

Another one who thinks fussy eaters are born rather than made.
DS1 was a nightmare to wean, only ate porridge, baby Danone yoghurts and one flavour of Hipp jars. Despite me having a freezer full of home cooked purées! I was so worried and felt such a failure, especially when friends children were tucking into Sunday roasts, etc.
DS2 on the other hand was a dream, ate everything I gave him, often just puréed up our own meals, it was wonderful.
When he was about 2 he rapidly ( not quite overnight but within a few weeks) started refusing things he had previously eaten happily and would gag on them and vomit if I persevered.
They are now 12 and 10 and remain fussy.
DS1 will eat a few more things, DS2 survives on plain pasta, a limited variety of fruit and veg and lots of cereals (not the high sugar ones). His protein comes mainly from milk. He has often gone to bed hungry rather than eat his dinner and does not get treats unless he does. Food does not seem to feature as a priority in his life! He is a bit underweight but is growing tall and has plenty energy so I try not to worry too much.

I have a fussy eater who ate a huge variety during weaning. Every flavour under the sun, all kinds of textures. Fussiness started suddenly at about 2.5yo.

I have what could be described as an extremely fussy ds1 and dd who will eat literally anything you give her. They were both BLW and we cook from scratch.

Ds1 has AS and sensory issues regarding food, no 'wet' food, 'crusty food' sauces, sweets, ice cream, cakes, crisps except Organix puffs, the only chocolate he will eat is buttons. He will only drink milk or water, he won't entertain potatoes in any form, mash, chips, jackets... He refuses to try veg but will eat peppers, if any food is touching on his plate he won't eat it, we even have to peel the skin of sausages before he will entertain them.

If he could would live in ham sandwiches but only if they're made with Warburtons bread and it has to be the Orange one.

For the first time ever he asked to try a cupcake out of a batch we had made. No cream, no frosting, just the plain cake. He ate it but wouldn't try the 'crust' as it was 'too crusty' I wanted to jump for joy.

People look at us when we eat out as we generally take him a pack up, he wouldn't eat otherwise and no amount of cajoling, bribery, encouragement even threats of removing his fave toy worked. We pick our battles carefully now.

I believe fussy eaters are born not made.

They are certainly born rather than made.
My DD was tricky from as soon as we tried solids and now is very " fussy" ( hate that term it sounds like she just wants to eat chips all day or something) but DS took to solids very quickly and eats or at least trea most things.
With DD the problem is mainly textures but also the circumstances - she struggles to eat at school as the dining hall is loud and messy and people spit food out etc. luckily she does eat a balanced if quite limited diet.

I always read these threads with interest as until she was 8.5years old DD was a brilliant eater. Then we had 2.5 years of an incredibly restricted diet so much so that we got to spag Bol on Monday, plain chops on Tuesday etc.

I have always home cooked everything. Now at 11 we are coming out the other side, but slowly.

DS was weaned on a variery of foods and is very fussy.
I think he might be a supertaster, and he has a problem with the texture of certain foods (pulses make him gag, for instance).

I don't mind as long as his diet is healthy (ie he will eat raw carrots and peppers if we are having green beans), but it is a massive bone of contention with DH, who thinks he should be forced to eat what we are eating, even if he end up throwing up in his plate.

I have a good experiment that proves a lot of it is about the dc.
I have Id dtds - clearly I weaned them exactly the same with the same foods. One loves meat the other barely touched it for 3 years and now only if it's been in the slow cooker. One likes cream cheese but the other can't stand it.
Dd1 hates carbonara (which I love) and that has developed into hating white sauces. She has tried it so many times but at 4 I said she must have 3 mouthfulls to truly taste it and if she didn't likw it I wouldn't make it again. She didn't like it - but will politely eat at a friend's house if she has to.

DD was difficult to wean. She also refused to drink from a bottle or cup for 2 years. She's very fussy now and will vomit if she tastes (or smells) something doesn't like. She has sensory issues related to possible ASD so that's probably why.

My DS has always eaten everything put in front of him and has an insatiable appetite.

They have both been fed and weaned exactly the same way.

I was a fussy eater. It shocked my mum I had a very limited diet and my mum never gave us processed food so that wasn't the 'cause'. I am now much less fussy but it took until I was in my teens. DS1 is very fussy too. Like me as a child he also has a limited appetite. I would have gone hungry rather than eat something I don't like. DS1 is probably further along the ASD spectrum than most. I do worry about his diet but I am very healthy despite my limited diet as a child.

The potato thing is frustrating isn't it Bunny. Mine's the same, no potatoes in any shape or form. Sandwiches are imoossibly limited too, we can't take him to a cafe, he doesn't like eggs either do no to omelettes etc. He eats a lot of garlic bread when we eat out, but we do have to check menus online first, all he'll eat of regular restaurant foods are pizza, pasta and curry. Luckily what he does eat is reasonably balanced, but it's hard fitting his tastes round the rest of the family.

I have 3 blw babies all fussy to a certain extent now. DS (3) is the fussiest and I reckon he was the most likely to reject food as a baby as well. But they all ate far more as babies then started to restrict as toddlers.

I try not to worry about it because I know that I was similar as a child and I eat everything now! As a toddler I loved stinky cheese, ate nothing but cheddar as a child, now adore cheese again...

It's the area of parenting that I messed up. Two of my four kids are fussy and I think my parenting didn't help. My kids are young adults now and are all lovely, hard working, funand polite individuals so I must have got some things right but food isn't one of them.

My DC had lots of different foods as babies - all freshly made and healthy. I was really careful they had a wide variety of flavours and textures. I fell down with their food when they were toddlers - 3 and 4 ish. I had my DC very close in age and I think. I just got a bit lazy and choose the foods I knew the four of them would eat rather than keep on pressing foods they were less keen on. My DH is also fussy which didn't help.

The ate healthily - just about but the range of food was too restricted. Even as adults my two fussy eaters don't eat all sorts of things. They still eat healthily while they are away at Uni. They are slowly improving.

As I said, Efficiency, it is genetic. You didn't mess up anything.

The varied tastes as a baby thing is bollocks. My DD was a great eater when being weaned. Now she is awful. DS is great so I know that it wasn't something I did.

My ds has autism and sensory processing disorder. He has a very restricted diet. Until he was three or four he ate quite a varied diet but at age four he restricted down to eating very few foods. Weaning was very difficult because he didn't like different textures so there were difficulties from the start. Now I would say he has a food phobia that developed around age three to four. Dietician says I should accept him as he is. He eats from most food groups (even with his very restricted diet), takes an iron and vitamin supplement.

DS isn't a fussy eater now, just normal really I think. From about 2 - 4 he was very fussy though, despite eating a huge range of food while weaning and until he was 2. I think most kids go through a phase of fussiness.

I suspect there are lots of different reasons, not convinced it's always genetic though I accept what posters have observed re sensory issues.

What many of the posters on this thread have in common is they certainly made a variety of foods available and at a certain point, usually the toddler years, child started rejecting some foods. In a lot of cases the child improves over the years as they are still being offered the variety, see parents and siblings eating and maybe become more open to trying.

However I know a number of parents who would admit to being fairly fussy eaters and have only ever offered their children the same foods they themselves eat. So if a toddlers diet is already limited before they hit that "no don't like it" phase and they are never introduced to new tastes and textures they will likely continue to be fussy eaters. One of my friends was like this with her son, she says so herself and regrets it. Her son is now 25, still a very fussy eater and is about 5 stone overweight because the limited foods he will eat tend to be high fat and high carb.

I have two nieces in their teens for whom pot noodles, chicken nuggets type foods were standard meals when they were 2. They are still a nightmare to feed but it seems to be because so many foods most of us consider everyday items are alien to them.

DS was a champion eater until 2yo - even his nursery commented on his acceptance of different textures and flavours. Now he pushes everything away and demands cake (which he only rarely gets and only after we've had our meal). He eats well at nursery and has vitamin supplement. Hopefully it'll pass.

My DS was a fantastic eater as a baby. When he was 14 months, he was prescribed antibiotics for bronchiolitis, and perhaps it was a coincidence, but I blame the antibiotics for making him a fussy eater. We tried everything, even getting him involved in cooking family meals. He loved this, but still wouldn't eat! He basically lived off Weetabix, marmite on toast,olives, potato waffles, veggie sausages and frozen peas and sweetcorn, the odd fromage frais (no yogurt) and packets of raisins, until he was about 4. However, he gradually became more adventurous from about 6 or 7.

DS has never eaten much, he was happy to eat tiny amounts of everything when weaning but now he'll eat very few foods. I just don't make a fuss and let him get on with it. He'll snap out of it eventually I hope.

I think exposing them to lots of tastes and textures is the best way, but I don't think it will automatically mean that you won't have a fussy eater for a year or two. Go with the flow is probably the most effective way, everything relies on the personality of the child anyway.

Thanks for everyone's input, I really appreciate it. It's really interesting reading all of your experiences...I think I only personally know one mum with fussy eaters who believes it's an extension of what she fed her first two during weaning (first was exclusively puree and struggles with anything without very soft texture, second exclusively blw and apparently won't go near any soft foods, currently combining the two for child number 3). Yet I know plenty of mums with fussy eaters.

The only thing I've found so far that DD (10mo) won't eat...green lentils. She's an absolute dustbin (and built like one!) so it would be a huge shock to the system if (or perhaps when, judging by these responses) she becomes fussy.

I was curious about how true the health visitors' views were about varied weaning diets being key to children becoming unfussy eaters, but will definitely fret less about it now. .

My DD wasn't a fussy eater until just after she turned a year, the only thing she wouldn't eat up until then was potato and parsnip, she was also BF which some people believe can make it easier to introduce new flavours. One day she literally decided that she didn't like cheese after a year of absolutely loving it, she also decided she didn't like beetroot or broccoli which she had previously loved. She has a bit of a texture aversion and isn't keen on chewy things and decided she didn't like purees as soon as she started finger foods. She's getting better now, I've been gradually reintroducing foods and sneaking foods that are still tricky into her, e.g. Monday we had 'pink pancakes' with beetroot in them and sometimes she has 'dinosaur juice', which is basically a spinach and banana smoothie.
I think the fussiness is a tiny part neophobia but mainly toddler stubbornness and asserting her independence.

Ds19 ate everything as a baby .
At around 3 or 4 he decided he hated everything . Still a very fussy eater, he cooks for himself as I'm sick of cooking the same shite.
Ds17 very fussy baby eats everything now .
Ds13 has eaten everything all along

I'll be damned if I know why ??