to give him fish fingers for tea every day?

[KissingFish]

Our son is a crappy eater. He is 16 months old and has never explored wet food with his hands. He wont touch wet food himself and has no interest in using a spoon or fork. Up until about a month ago he let us spoon feed him his tea but that has now stopped and the only meal he will let us feed him is his breakfast and a yoghurt now and then. He will feed himself bread, toast, baby biscuits, baby crisps, peas, broccoli, strawberrys and grapes.

This is an example of a days food.

Breakfast: a bowl of porridge with a banana mashed in and a tablespoon of chia seeds. Spoon fed to him.

Snack: Natural Greak yoghurt (spoon fed) and a couple of strawberries or grapes which he feeds himself.

Lunch: Usually just a slice of plain buttered wholemeal toast. He wont have anything on it. Sometimes just a piece of bread and butter. He wont eat more than that.

Snack: Some more strawberries or grapes and some baby biscotti.

Tea: 2 fish fingers and peas. Somtimes followed by a spoon fed fruit pot, if he lets us feed him it.

Then he has a 6-8oz bottle of formula before bed. Amount depends on how much tea he's eaten.

Does this sound like a good amount of food for a 16 month old? He weighs just under 20lb and is on the 9th percentile, I think. He is very thin, you can see his rips and shoulder blades and spine. We have just today started giving him drinks of cows milk with his snacks to up his calories since he wont eat more.

Most other things we try to give him for tea he wont even touch never mind put near his mouth. Would it be unreasonable to give him fish fingers and peas on his plate for tea every night but also put tasters of whatever we're having for tea on his plate too? We tried this the other day and it seemed a lot less of a stressful meal time for all of us. He ate the fish fingers and peas and picked up some of the potato (which he wouldn't usually). He put the potato in his mouth and spat it out but even that was a step forward.

I don't see why not. If you are buying decent fish fingers then at least he's getting some protein. And if he likes peas and broccoli then serve them every night. It's most certainly not the worst meal in the world for a child to be eating every evening. Good idea to out some of your food on the plate too, hopefully over time he'll being to have tastes.

Have you tried cutting out the snacks and if he's really hungry by dinner will eat more? Also, what about some spread on the toast at lunchtime, a nut butter or something that'll increase the nutritional value of the meal but not be too different for him?

Might he try cubes of cheese served with his fruit snack? That would add a bit of fat and protein/calcium.

We struggle a lot with protein. He wont eat chicken or ham. That's why we put the chia seeds into his breakfast to at least give him a bit. Fish fingers is the only protein he will eat. We do buy the best quality ones and he does always have them with peas and sometimes also broccoli if we have it in.

He wont eat his toast with anything other than just butter on it unfortunately. Every once in a while he will pinch a bit of my toast with peanut butter on and eat a couple of bites but if I serve him it he totally refuses. He just turns his head away and whacks the food out of your hand with his hands.

It's all very frustrating.

The thing is, we know he likes a wide variety of food tastes because when he would let us spoon feed him he had everything we had. Now he eats very little :(

Will he eat ketchup with the fish fingers? If so you can make your own. Put allsorts in it and change it regularly this will get him used to different tastes

We've tried cutting out snacks and it makes no difference. He can be starving and still eat nothing :(

He's never had ketchup and I don't really want to give him it. I don't think he'd eat it anyway tbh, he doesn't like to touch wet food

Oh yea, I forgot, he will eat cheese sometimes too. So long as it is just the right amount. If you give him too much he wont eat it. It's all very confusing. He gets very stressed if too much is put in front of him at once.

Would he eat things that look like fish fingers? Chicken goujons for example? If so, could you trick him by making mash potato 'fingers' dipped in breadcrumbs and baked? Or even make your own fish fingers with a bit of mash mixed in, if you need more carbs in him? There's probably an awful lot of food you can roll in breadcrumbs without him realising

I think it sounds fine to feed him fish fingers and a veg he likes and offer other bits too. Just try and keep it stress free as that helps. Have freind with v fussy child who has got professional help who has been told to offer what they like with new things . But no comments and just remove if not eaten by end of the meal.

I think we are ok for carbs with the porridge and toast. Our main concern is lack of protein and variation really.
We gave him potato croquette the other day and when cut up it looked like fish finger so he did pick it up and put it in his mouth but after one bite he spat it out and gave us a very betrayed look :D We've tried the same with chicken. It tricks him enough to put it in his mouth but then he spits it out when he realises it's not fish. He's very tricky to trick unfortunately.

He will eat M&S plain scones but no other kind I think he's a food snob.

Long term it's no solution, but when my eldest was about that age he was an incredibly fussy eater. We used to get him doing little puzzles on his his high chair table and when he was engrossed, we'd spoon feed him which he was happy to do until he noticed you doing it and then stopped and rejected - sometimes he'd eat a whole meal without noticing.

You'll understand why I said it wasn't a long term solution.

Once he was a good proportional weight, we stopped and basically allowed him to eat what he wanted from his meals but took away most snacks and milk between meals - he caved after a couple of days and scoffed DHs bowl of beans. He was about 2 and a half by this point though.

Might your son like plain pasta? Cooked in a bit of stock, drained and a little butter stirred through just to stop it sticking. We progressed from that to being able to add grated cheese or tuna or a beaten egg.

I would give him fish fingers with a perhaps changing selection of the other stuff he likes, such as peas and broccoli. I would try to add something different (perhaps some of what you are having) on the plate as well so that he has the chance to try it too if he wants, but I wouldn't make a fuss about it, just leave all there for him to try.

If he is eating fish fingers and broccoli he is not doing to badly for nutrients so I wouldn't worry.

Sounds like my dd!
Will he eat eggs? I make a plain omelette of beaten egg and cut it into strips.
My dd would also allow us to spoon feed soup to her. I'd give her a bit of soup then let her eat her bread and butter.
She likes all kinds of soup so I give her lentils and use home made chicken stock too with a bit of chicken blended in sometimes.

M&s plain scones are the best though! Sorry no help, but to say at that age DS was very similar in eating habits, and although it's getting better it didn't change much until he started to eat with others at preschool.

I agree with keep offering.
I kept on putting things On dds plate with her fish fingers or egg and now she eats sweet corn, carrot and cucumber.
I also keep offering her whatever everyone else has for dinner. She eats a lot more variety of food now she's almost 3. In the past she often refused and ended up eating weetabix for dinner!

Plain pasta is a no. As is egg. We have tried most things, he just wont pick them up and throws them straight on the floor or has a complete meltdown :(

I've gotten him to eat eggy bread twice but that's it.

At least nobody thinks it's really bad to do the fish fingers thing then. We do just remove what's left and don't make a big fuss of it.

Have you tried salmon fish fingers? Might be a good way to get him trying new flavours but in a familiar shape/form

DS was a terrible eater. Worse than your DS. My DS is now 25 and fit and healthy despite still being a fairly picky eater by most standards. Happily we've had times to come to terms with his relationship with food:

a) he has a very small appetite: he just wasn't ever that hungry and still doesn't eat an awful lot
b) he is very sensitive to tastes and especially textures: he loves some things and hates others but often it's the texture that's the driver more than the taste

Your no-fuss encouragement to try new things is, IMHO, a great one and one I wish I'd found early on. He was encouraged to try new foods with an agreement that if he hated them he never had to have them again, so he felt safe trying stuff and gradually discovered new foods.

I just wish I hadn't felt such a terrible mother because of his picky eating.

What about macaroni cheese? You can put broccoli, ham, tuna, alsorts in it and maybe a splash of cream to up the calories?

The sample meal plan above doesn't take into account the fact that he doesn't eat all of the food he's given. He will usually leave about 1/4 of his breakfast and about the same of his toast. The only things he eats every bit of are the fish fingers and peas. We worked it out and he's lucky to eat about 500 calories in a day. How much should they be eating in a day?

We do think he just isn't excited by food which I guess in the long run is maybe a good thing but at the moment it's so stressful, yes, you do feel like you're a terrible mother because he wont eat.

He used to love macaroni cheese when he let us spoon feed him, it's a no now though, too wet so he wont feed himself it and he wont let us feed him.

Can't be any help I'm afraid. Sounds like you're doing everything you can though and making a great job of it.
Hats off to you! A picky eater would really stress me out! x

Could you try giving him a spoon to 'feed himself' while you spoon-feed him? My DS would not eat if spoon-fed at that age unless he had a spoon in each hand so he was 'feeding himself'. It distracted him enough to allow us to feed him and he learned to use a spoon himself quite early. It's very messy though

Sorry just saw you said he won't use cutlery. It sounds like you're doing a great job.

Pease have a bit of protein in them, so give him lots!

I remember constantly worrying about dd's protein intake, but she grew into it eventually. Cheese helped

Don't worry about the cutlery. Put it there for him and forget about it. He'll do it one day.

As a fish finger connoisseur, I recommend asda haddock fish fingers as being far better than the leading brands. The meat is very white, and even if you choose to remove the crumbs, there is still a reasonable portion of fish remaining.