AIBU with my daughters dinners?

[TheScreamingfrog]

I just don't know if I'm doing the right thing..
DD(just 5) is being very difficult every dinner time unless it's sausages/fish fingers etc.
I have had enough of mealtimes being a battle ground. Every meal she will declare that she hates and not want to touch a bite. This resulted in massive amounts of coercion from me and I am sick of it.

I have recently told her that it is her choice if she eats dinner or not and that I will not fight her. If she does not eat it there is nothing else till breakfast. She has just done this with risotto.

I suspect it is all about control but I guess I am just looking for ideas or reassurance that I am not acting like a witch. If it's relevant, I am a lone parent of nearly 2 years and exH tends to always take her to Morrisons for tea or give her foods he knows she loves.

I desperately want her to grow up with a healthy attitude to food so she doesn't end up spending ? of her life on a diet. She is a normal weight and has no problem with breakfast and lunch and apparently is fine with school dinners. I am sure she saves it all for me.

Advice and perspective welcome please!

You seem quite sensible in your approach.

If you want her to feel more "in control", offer her a choice before you start cooking.
Would you like pasta bolognese or lasagne?
Would you like risotto or rice and veg?
Yes, it's the same meal being offered, but she has the choice!

Our rule is eat it, or don't eat it, but don't complain. There is no alternative. If he has been picky, I make sure there's a safe dinner to fill up on every few days.

He's always offered a bit of everything and is free to try it or leave it. If he comments, I tell him that one day he'll like it, and it's there for him to try incase it's that day.

Try one of these for eating with chop sticks. My DC like to eat any rice dish with chop sticks, too.

DS (almost 4) has just started to go through this, whereas before he would eat everything I gave him. He has always turned up his nose at any attempt to give him nuggets, fish fingers, fries and he actually loves hot curries, spicy food and just gets whatever I am cooking, so I don't think it's not liking as much as a phase, as he'll often turn his nose up at food he has gobbled down in the past. During the week he gets what he is given and that's it, as he gets a full hot meal at daycare, so if he only picks at dinner then it's not such a big deal, and then weekends I make sure that he gets at least a couple of things on his plate that he never refuses along with something new.

My view on it would depend on whether it is a genuine and enduring dislike. When I was little, I always hated things with big chunks of meat in them, the dislike never changed, and I'm a veggie now as an adult. If my parents had fed me this, then I would have went hungry. Children are entitled to have likes and dislikes just like adults.

Where I would lose my patience is if it is just attention seeking behaviour, e.g. if your child loved food x yesterday and now refuses to eat it. I would never say they can have nothing though - if they don't eat a meal because of attention seeking behaviour, then let them eat boring but filling foods like bread, apples, a bowl of cereal etc. No child, no matter how bratty, should ever actually go to bed hungry.

You are absolutely doing the right thing, stick at it

Oh how I remember this battle well & I feel for you as it is stressful as hell until you recognise it for what it is - it's their little control game, mine took it to the n'th degree in that it was not only what she would eat, but how many spoonfuls - everything was treat like poison, even though it was often her favourite foods & she demanded to know how many spoonfuls she had to eat before she could leave the table - she would then try & barter me down on how many

I had a classic with mine - we went on holiday & I promised myself that for 2 weeks I would not allow myself to be dragged into this game as I was on holiday & needed a break from the stress of it

Day one in the self service restaurant, she starts demanding to know what she could choose to eat, when I made suggestions, she refused everyone & so it began - after a few minutes I said, "you know what, I'm on holiday, I'm on strike, so I don't care what you eat, eat any rubbish you like, or don't eat at all, your choice.

The look on her face was a picture - she then stood up on her chair & threw a tantrum, screaming that I was a rubbish mum because I didn't care if she ate properly, playing to an audience who were now looking at her, she went on to tell them all that I would just let her eat junk food for the rest of her life & die young, so I was a rubbish mother & didn't deserve kids - she was good at drama - DH & I were trying hard not to laugh & I knew then I had cracked it - is tucked to my guns & just shrugged "but you keep telling me you are a big girl now"

Day one she deliberately piled her plate with nothing but chips

By the end of day 2 she was choosing the things she actually likes best, which was fish, salad & vegetables & we never looked back.

I would recommend a book called "Vegetable Glue" it's just a kids story book, but aimed at them understanding they need to eat veg & it went down well with mine.

She's now 12 & eats an exceptionally healthy diet, breakfast this morning was a bowl of strawberries, banana & pecan nuts - her choice

She does occasionally slip back to my needing to cajole her with some things, but it's clearly an attention seeking comfort thing when she's feeling down or unwell, she's owned up to that

Good luck & it will pass

Rockin That story had me in stitches, I think me and DP would have laughed too if one of our daughters pulled such a stunt

OP I have adopted a similar approach with my nearly 3 year old. We usually eat together at the table and she gets what we have. Even if she's not overly keen on it there is always something on her plate that she will eat. If she says she doesn't like it then we simply say "it's okay, if you don't want to eat it that's fine, but there's nothing else - it's your choice". No pressure, but at the same time we're letting her know that we won't be making her anything else. We will do the same when DD2 is old enough to understand too.

I try really hard not to coerce, but I will admit I am sometimes guilty of it. I can't help myself sometimes, and yes it can make things worse so I don't know why I do it.

My mum is terrible though, there have been a couple of times where DD1 has gone there for dinner and as my mum's serving up she will turn around and say she doesn't want it. My mum will then make her something else. That would NEVER happen in my house, and it makes me think well no wonder I was a fussy eater as a child and now as an adult because she totally encouraged it.

Just leave her to it. My three year old is ridiculous at dinner time. He was howling the other day about the carrots on his plate while eating them by the handful out of the serving dish
My rule is eat or don't eat but no moaning about what you don't like and you still have to sit at the table. It has been a hard slog but after persevering with this for over three years my four year old now eats potato, carrot and broccoli.

Has anyone got any ideas to replace the rice, pasta, noodles and cous cous that dd won't eat? I am not doing chips, potato shapes crap or boiled spuds every night.

I'm not liking my kids at the moment so severely lacking in patience.

Find would a piece of bread be an acceptable carb with a meal? You could also do a batch of boiled or mashed potatoes and pop them in the fridge then micro a portion at meal time.

Failing that put the pasta or whatever on her plate and ignore if she doesn't eat it but offer nothing else.

I seem to be buying a lot of naan and making focaccia lately just to fill up the hungry boys and make sure dd eats something filling. She doesn't particularly like mash but will sometimes eat it. She will eat spaghetti bolognese but not lasagne, or any other pasta shape .

Thank you Penfold.

I've been having a similar battle with ds 3. I now put his food in individual bowls and he dishes up what he wants to it. It is exactly the same as everyone else but in his head he is getting to choose. It's interesting to watch him eat now, as he will try a mouthful from each bowl before he puts it on his plate. Meal times are a lot less of a battle now.

A little update.
Tonight was much better. We decided together on spaghetti and meatballs which I know she loves. She helped me chop the peppers and mushrooms for the sauce and when I dished up she supervised her plate. She went on to eat her dinner perfectly happily.
Thanks again for such wonderful thoughts and advice and stories too.
I know it's early stages but the mood is much lighter here!

find as well as bread would she eat baked potato? Or homemade potato cakes? She can make them with play doh cutters, dd was insistent round ones were nasty.
It could be texture, dd would only eat rice if it was basmati or fried, or very fine noodles. Just used to stick the rice in a non stick pan for a minute. She only started eating normal rice when she decided it was ok for curry etc to touch it, thus disguising the texture.
Tbh though I tended to look at her diet over a week instead of a day, she'd have lived on white carbs and cheese by choice, so I'd just double up on her protein on the meals she would eat plenty of.

It all levels out usually. We used to laugh at dd and her 2 friends, give them all the same meal and dd would eat the carbs first, one ate the protein first and the last would eat anything crispy first. and then they'd say they didn't like the rest
They do all still have similar favourites but eat meals normally and none are remotely fussy. Easy for me to say now but with how dd eats now it seems impossible I was once at the 'oh I've just given you these peas and a meatball because they look like a head now, but you don't have to eat them' stage