AIBU to not offer an alternative if toddler refuses a meal?

[yorkshapudding]

I have an 18mo DC who until recently has always been a very good eater. She has always eaten whatever we cook for her and enjoyed a wide variety of foods. Now all of a sudden she has started to refuse meals. There doesn't seem to be any obvious pattern as sometimes she'll eat well, sometimes only a few mouthfulls and then there are times she won't even touch her meal, screaming as though I am trying to assault her when I put a plate of food in front of her!

She's physically healthy so I am assuming this is a phase she's going through in her development where she's pushing boundaries and trying to assert her independence. Having done a bit of research we've decided that when she refuses a meal we won't offer an alternative, just take it away without making a big deal of it. My friend visited yesterday and looked horrified when DD refused her lunch (homemade veggie soup which was previously a firm favorite) and I didn't offer her an alternative. She thought it was "cruel" and said I was wrong to deprive her of food when she's too little to understand why. It made me feel awful and now I'm questioning myself.

Am I being cruel and unreasonable to manage her food refusal in this way or is it my friend who has it wrong? I just don't want her to get the idea that if she refuses a meal she will get something she potentially likes better as surely if I do this the range of foods she eats will get narrower and narrower?

We had similar phases and I think often it was because he wasn't hungry or he was teething. Molars are evil! I always tended to offer yoghurt if he refused a meal. If it was teeth he tended to want yogurt even if he refused other stuff.

I suppose its up to you. After lots of spells of poor eating due to teeth and colds, there were days I was just happy to get something into him. Now that the worst of that is passed I offer meal then yogurt and leave it at that.

If I'm introducing new foods then
I always make sure theres a veg on side he likes.

It's what I do with my 15-month old.

TBH, I think at this age they're a little young for manipulative picky eating. If she doesn't want it, then she's probably just not hungry at that point in time.

YANBU. You're not a short order cook. Try asking her what she wants for dinner, offering 2 choices? Let her help with preparing the meal?

YANBU. If I offered bread or toast as an alternative, my children would eat toast at every meal! Meals aren't a battleground here, there's no pressure to eat but if they don't eat, they don't need anything else. It's quite normal for toddlers to eat very little some meals and more at others.

I think you are doing the right thing, and its what I've always done. I also put something on the table that I'm pretty sure they will it, even if its just a bit of cucumber or something, so I know they've had something but they don't think they are being 'catered for'.

If you made yourself something and then thought "d'you know what, I really don't fancy this" would you still force yourself to eat it?

I don't really think this is relevant as we are talking about an 18 month old not an adult. But since you ask, yes I probably would eat it or I wouldn't eat at all. There's a lot of food thrown out in this country (I'm guilty of it too) but I try not to do it just because I 'don't fancy' something I've made. If I'm hungry and have just made a meal, I'll eat it. If I'm not actually hungry that's different.

The OP's DC s a difficult one. I assumed when the OP said she wouldn't offer an alternative, she meant in terms of another meal. I think it's fine to offer fruit or a healthy snack if DC is hungry later. I also think it can be counterproductive and a bit pressurising to wheel out a hundred different options after a toddler has refused one.

At the moment, well, during half term anyway, DS 3.10 ate a good breakfast, a good supper and hardly any lunch every single day. He's obviously getting enough for him. In term time he tends to eat school lunch and no supper. Maybe 2 meals a day is all he needs?

When they're really young I'll try and coax a little but by the time mine were 18 months it was a case of 'that's what is for dinner take it or leave it'.
If they choose to leave it then they have to sit at the table until everyone has finished, no getting down early to play. Also there is no dessert and absolutely no snacks until after the next meal.

Don't negotiate - they won't keep it up for long. Both of ours eat what's put in front of them (within reason - obviously there are things they genuinely don't like and it's a bit U to force them).

Foreverything, yes I did mean not offering an alternative meal. If she asked for a snack later on I would give one but as I said upthread she's never been big on snacking and not sure if I should start offering snacks anyway even if she doesn't seem bothered.

Well then I think YANBU at all OP. If she is hungry you will give her a healthy snack? How is that in any way U?

I have always offered a meal that's not something they hate and left it up to them to eat or not. No puddings (not even yoghurt or fruit) except on special occasions or at someone else's house.

No snack until the next snack time (mid morning or mid afternoon), and then it's often fruit. If they don't eat tea (last meal before bed) it seems to make no difference to their sleep - they don't even necessarily eat a particularly big breakfast the next morning.

But I have generally healthy kids - I would find it harder to be that laid back if they weren't.

It's slightly different but my DD has had sensory issues with food since she weaned. She weaned late (wasn't interested in food at all)
She then wouldn't eat food with lumps, she would gag, it was horrible.
She would eat a mix of puree & finger foods between the ages of about 15 months to about 2.5 years.
She started to get a little better with food around the 2.5 years mark and now at 3 will try it on, she will pretend to gag, knowing that I would offer her an alternative, so I don't do it any more. I know what she will eat, and what she can't/won't so I refuse to offer anything else. She either eats her food, or she doesn't.
I have been told I am cruel for letting her go hungry, but I really don't think I am. I am setting boundaries. I feel mean sometimes though, but I know she is trying it on and when she is not.
Mothers instinct is the way to go.

I agree with you, not your friend.
I just used to remove food and not offer anything else, they eat if they are hungry after all!

Yanbu. You are offering her healthy, previously accepted food- you have entirely done your job and whether she eats it or not is her choice. If you are worried you could offer her something very boring before bed but I never do!

Haven't read whole thread... But DD started getting fussy/ refusing food around this age. It stressed me out and we'd often offer her an alternative (e.g. if she refused a main meal, I'd make her something else like eggs on toast). But that seemed to make things worse in the long-run. Here's what we do now, tactics harvested from friends who've been through the same and various books and blogs.

• We eat together as much as possible
• I always make sure there's something I know she'll eat/ like on the plate and offer new foods alongside familiar/ favourite ones.
• I put food in front of her and if she says she doesn't want it, I say 'it's ok, if you don't want it you don't have to eat it, that's fine'.
• I don't offer any alternatives, but always offer 'pudding' (fruit or yoghurt) after the 'main course' in the evenings.
• Keep on offering foods she's previously rejected (in a non-pressuring way)
• I've stopped encouraging/ cajoling her to eat

The last point, combined with saying 'it's ok, you don't have to eat it if you don't want to' has made a big difference. As did offering her fewer/ smaller snacks in between meals. Also, just changing my attitude and not worrying about it so much. She hasn't starved to death yet!

I never offer an alternative, but I do make sure there are a range of items on offer, so if soup was the main part maybe some bread/crackers and carrott sticks or something that way they are still eating what is in front of them but they are more likely to have something.
I also read somewhere that it's a good idea to offer a main and a dessert every time, again to ensure they have something, but dessert for us is always natural yoghurt & fruit so it's not a treat as such, just part of the meal.

If she doesn't eat take the food away. If she is then hungry bring it back again. Mine quite often ate meals 'second time round'.

We did the opposite and always had a back up of food our 2.10 yr old Dd would eat. I was scared she'd be hungry and in the early hell if sleep deprivation not sleep!! She's now a total table tyrant so you are probably doing the right thing. Wish I'd done what you're doing- suspect we wouldn't have made the 'rod for our own backs'. Some days all she'll eat is white bread-sigh!

DD sometimes just wasn't hungry. I think they sometimes just instinctively know they're not having a growth spurt.

Definitely not unreasonable. My younger 2 DCs went through this and we just toughed it out, doing as you describe. I was brought up this way, in a house where you are what you were given. So it seems normal. All 3 of ours are good eaters now, and when they visit friends we are sometimes complimented on their easygoing way with meals. And all 3 have nice normal BMIs. My MIL used sometimes think I was a bit harsh about insisting they are but she was diplomatic about it. I think you are absolutely doing the right thing. It's frustrating and hard work some days but it will pay off.

Apparently this is a developmental thing for this age - back in days of old when we were cave swellers etc this is when babies would start to be wandering/toddling around as their carers gathered/swept caves etc etc and a "fear" of eating something harmful/ more awareness of what they are eating was a great, great thing to have at the toddler age. So they will refuse stuff they previously enjoyed/ate. But there is no real need for the refusal now - but just an inbuilt totally random suspicion of what is going in their mouths!

Just carry on offering what you have prepared and yy do not offer an alternative (especially as you may get that refused too). Offering an alternative may confirm to your DD that she was right to have refused it .

However if you are worried about her not eating enough then sneak in a few snacks. Or work out some cunning ploy to overcome the refusal. She may be refusing but not really understand why. If you give her a "safe" way to change her mind she may well do. My DD at this stage loved cheese - so if she refused something (even though she may not have known why it was a big "No!") I said "Oh silly mummy, I forgot to put the cheese on, no wonder you don't want it." I would then sprinkle liberally with grated cheese. This gave her something to pick at/eat and also enabled her to "change her mind" as it were - it was OK to eat it all now as it had cheese on.

And remember, refusals and all, she will not let herself starve.

Mine used to eat stuff if I put grated cheese on too. I keep ready grated cheese in the freezer and put it on frozen. Helps cool things down too.

I might not have put it on frozen when they were toddlers though. I can't remember

It's not cruel, but you could be making a rod for your own back if she doesn't eat anything at all for the evening meal. I see a pp said it never made a difference to sleep for hers, with us it's generally been the opposite. If DD has nothing in the evening, she'll be up in the night whining for milk, possibly more than once. So we ensure toast before bed if nothing else, simply out of self preservation. I guess there's only one way to learn which category yours falls into.

Also, as pointed out upthread, most toddlers do have a narrower palate than they did as babies and there are solid evolutionary reasons for that. Unless you're very lucky, she is going to start refusing some previous favourites. It's just what they do. However I think at 18 months she's on the slightly young side for that to kick in so it may be due to something else?

I'm the odd one out on this thread but I do 't see why adults are the only ones who get a choice in what they eat. At 18mo I let my DD look in the fridge and chose between 2-3 alternatives. She went through really weird phases, from a month of no meat, to a month of meat and nothing else, but now at 4yo she eats most things and I respect her choice that she does not like a very small number of things like mushrooms or sugary desserts.