To see how long they can go without food?

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

Half joking title... Posting here as I know ill get a decent perspective on my very minor problem.
I have two DS who are 4 and 2.5. They are, like most tedious small chn, picky about what they eat. Fine. Normally I make sure there's one thing in a meal they'll eat eg we had curry and rice - they won't touch the curry but will eat the rice etc then I let them have yogurt/fruit/custard for pudding. Or something more exciting if we have it in.
However - they've started getting to the point that they won't even eat the rice. And I'm also sick of them refusing to eat anything new. Ever. They won't even try a mouthful of unfamiliar food.
So should I refuse to give them anything other than their main course until they try it? And hopefully they'll get so hungry they'll actually eat it? Or are they too little for that?
They're also shit sleepers and early risers so we worry about them going to bed hungry...

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

Curry was just a meal example - we really aren't they exotic and eat pretty 'normal' foods. And not strong curries either.

[AdoraBell]

I would do something boring like the rice for them, not suggesting nothing else for them, and have whatever you want yourself.

Don't talk about it, just give them their food, sit down with your food and start eating.

They may well want to try what you have. Let them try whatever sparks their interest from your plate.

[Jw35]

Twolittle I think after reading your next post I would take the fruit and yoghurt away. Yes it's healthy and good to eat something but I think your instinct is correct. They know they can fill up on it!

Why don't you try this approach 'right kids, fruit and yoghurt is just for mornings now at breakfast' that way they haven't lost out but it's not a pudding? They are young enough to forget they had it after a few weeks. Then just do dinner and no alternatives. It's dinner or nothing.

[wiltingfast]

Well I say if you are not hungry for dinner, you can't possibly be hungry for dessert/treat etc. I don't insist plate cleared but I do want an effort made. If we have something new/unusual I want it tasted.

I am encouraging. I talk about the food. It's colour, taste, texture, smell, I get them to have a sniff if nothing else. I say things like sometimes you have to try food a lot before you like it. I might say something is v strongly flavoured but do they want to see/ smell it before I eat it(eg mustard, horse radish, olives, blue cheese).

If they say they don't like it (they often do) I shrug and praise for sniffing or whatever and say maybe you'll like it next time. I mmmm and loudly enjoy my own food!

I try really hard not to care if they eat or not. Ime it doesn't help to be anything more than vaguely encouraging. But no alternative meals and no treats if no effort.

Hth!

[IceBeing]

depending on your budget you could try a more smorgasbord approach? We have a little salad around at all meals and fruit as well as whatever is for main. If we have pizza we have a few different ones...so different things to try. IF we have curry then again, maybe two flavours and rice (plus salad and fruit).

Another thing you could do is have fruit and yogurt first/ everything together. DD will often eat something 'boring' or 'disfavoured' after she has had fruit or tomatoes....if its going to be eaten anyway there is no particular reason to go in one order or the other.

[wiltingfast]

Plus 2.5 yo have v small appetite. Be sure you aren't offering too much too close to their main meal. Even milk can kill an appetite.

[MarmiteAndButter]

I know you don't want to get tougher, but if it's fruit/dairy intake that worries you, just give that at a different meal like breakfast? Make that the main bit of breakfast which would be a lot more healthy than most sugar loaded cereals.
Vegetables are important though. Do they really not eat any?
We have just come home from holiday in a very rural part of Austria. We were the only Brits there amongst the Austrians and Germans. Now, they have un-English ideas about breakfast as it is, and the other 120 kids there were all eating raw carrots and tomatoes and melon and Parma ham and dried sausage and seeds and dried fruit and musli and scrambled eggs and about 30 different types of cheeses. Those little kids just went for it.
It did make me think what we are doing that is so different when not one of those kids were balking over eating what we never grew up with?
We have been going to the same hotel for six years now (we are and always have been the only English family!). My kids now thankfully branch out from the coco pops and toast, but they'd possibly feel embarrassed not to when the kid next to them is eating cold meat and smelly cheese 🙄 followed by eggs and fried pepper.
I don't know what the answer is, and maybe some German MNer will now appear and say her kids are fussy too, but in six years of going and 120 kids each time all eating breakfast, I haven't seen it.
What are the Europeans doing that creates such seemingly adventurous eaters?

[IceBeing]

holding pudding (even fruit and yogurt) up as a reward or treat is a seriously bad idea. Food isn't a treat it is fuel....as any number of overweight people (myself included) really really wish they had been taught growing up.

[FingerOFudge]

These days we do more like what you're suggesting, but when they were little like yours we had meals that had lots of bits rather than one pot - so they could eat e.g. rice and carrots and leave the bits they didn't want.

The one thing I didn't want was a power struggle, or those conversations about liking/not liking certain foods. Meal times are family times, not endless negotiations or tedious food opinions (I know plenty of adults who think their likes and dislikes of foods are an interesting topic of conversation. No, it's not, it's childish and spoilt IMO!)

[Whattheuh]

3 DCs here.dinner is the same for everyone,there is usually no pudding.occasionally yogurt if they are still hungry.If they don't like something it's not a problem,there's no fuss,no request to "at least try it" or anything.They can eat the part of the meal that they do like,or go hungry.they only went to bed on a empty stomach once or twice.They eat almost everything,obviously they are allowed their own likes and dislikes,so if there's something they truly dislike it won't be the main course iykwim.

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

Jw35 that's what I'm thinking might be best. Would I then only cook things I'll know they'll eat? Do as I do now and cook some meals they definitely will eat and some they might eat part of?
I should get them more involved with mealtimes as a previous poster has suggested. I really should. I'm far too slapdash and rushed at mealtimes for funny presentation of food. But I should try that too. Hmm. Lots to think about.

[wafflerinchief]

I agree with some other posters, my next move would be to move the yogurt and fruit earlier/to another meal, then only offer the main but relax about it - if they've eaten what they usually eat anyway earlier in the day, if you get them to eat some dinner it's a bonus. try leave at least 2 ideally 3 hours between last food and the dinner option.

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

I totally agree icebeing which is why I'm annoyed we've ended up where we are. Interesting idea just putting everything out together.

[wiltingfast]

Definitely do not limit your menu to what you "know" they will eat! They will never broaden their palate that way!

[IceBeing]

two we go through cycles of reverting back to standard main and dessert thinking and every time it leads to stress and arguments...and we remind ourselves and go back to only putting out 'good food', everything out at once and choice about what to eat in what order...and then we all calm down and DD actually eats better as a result!

Give it a shot - but also give it time to work - kids don't generally want to eat the same thing all the time...and will branch out once they feel confident!

[Knitmyshickers10]

Oh god my two are like this now at 15 and nearly 13!

15yr old DS is, and has always been a complete nightmare with food.
Will only eat pasta, chips, fish and other junky type food eg kids meals like nuggets, pizza, burgers etc. Will not eat any potato unless it's chips, salad, vegetables, curry, chilli, casseroles, stews etc. He won't eat what I call an adult type meal at all.
13 yr old DD is also very fussy but generally eats the exact opposite of DS meaning there's only about one meal I can cook (spag Bol) and they will both eat at the same time.

Bloody nightmare the pair of them and I'm sick of moaning about their toddler like eating habits....

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

That's quite a good idea waffler- at least I know they're eating something ok.
They eat no vegetables at all. Tomatoes in pasta sauce. That's it. I do put it on sauces and whizz it up sometimes but that's not a solution I like. I'm not expecting them to eat a range of veg but they need to start trying some. Maybe hunger will drive them to eat them?!

[Enkopkaffetak]

Another one who says stop the desserts. I am always surprised by how many seem to think dessert yogurt or fruit is needed after a meal. Simply serve what is for dinner ensure there is 1 item they will like and can eat as far as possible. Then leave them to it. Once they realise that there is no yummy pudding/dessert/yogurt/fruit to fill up on they will in the vast majority of cases start to eat.


I also never gave reward for trying new things like in attention or focus on getting them too. They got a simply " point to their food and say try x" and then we continued with the conversation.. After 5 mins if they had not tried it we did " dont forget to try x" and back to conversation no focus on the child. After a while they got there was no attention on them eating no attention on if they didnt and none on if they tried. They tried new stuff.

I grew up with dessert being only something very occational and 100% a treat to get. I am always surprised DH feels a meal is not a meal unless he gets dessert. It has taken me years to teach him that this is not needed in your diet. I am still working on realistic meal portions when you dont get a huge bowl of stodge after but we are getting there :)


Then no offers of toast/yogurt/ fruit / cereal later if they have not eaten dinner. Once all that is a norm on the table then the wast majority of NT children eat. Many parents who tells me that their kids would never touch x y z children have eaten it at my table. Then gone home and resumed the refusal to eat at home as they simply get attention for not.


In my opinion you also give your child a far better foundation of a good diet if they do not think dessert is a part of every day life. A better foundation of you teach them trying new things is a normal thing to do. A better foundation of what a meal is meant to be like if there is conversation and enjoyment of one another during the meal.

I know this wont be a popular opinion I also know plenty who will tell me " my child would never do that she / he is sooo stubborn" I also know some will claim they never give attention at table their child is still like this. I have 3 friends who claims their child dosent get attention for not eating yet I have witnessed them so focused on the child and what they are eating they can tell you to the spoonfull how much their child had. Any attention is good attention for a child.

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

So ice, for example if you're having pasta would you put out a bowl of pasta, bread, salad, fruit, yogurt? And the kids choose what they have and how much? In whatever order? Or would you not put yogurt and fruit out? Or pudding type food generally?

[FreeButtonBee]

I only do fruit after meals - maybe once a week, yoghurt or a proper pud. If no proper effort is made to eat main meal then only a 1/4 portion of fruit is given. The mantra being 'no hungry for dinner, then not hungry for fruit'. I can generally tell if it's a proper dislike or just fussiness.

And only one cup of milk at bedtime, no topping up with that. No milk or juice with meals, only water.

I often do a buffet lunch partic at weekends when DH is around. Have successfully gotten DTD to eat cucumber through sheer relentlessness! I also ask them to smell or lick new things to see if they like them and talk about how sometimes we like things more as we get older. I have also used eg tomato ketchup to get DTD to understand that tomatoes are in other things she likes, eg pasta sauce. Still doesn't eat raw tomatoes but it's a work in progress!

[wiltingfast]

Re whizzing veggie sauces, we moved on from this by gradually reducing the level of blending, moving on to just mashing it a bit to now, where we don't whizz at all.

Personally i just wanted to hit a point where they ate our family meals. So I didn't really go for putting anything on the table I didn't want them to eat.

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

Budget is definitely a consideration. I meal plan and shop to a fine point and don't like food going to waste which it tends to when doing more buffet type meals. We never do then smelling or trying to lick new foods actually. Mealtimes have become so tedious that it's a case of sit down, eat ours if we can then abandon ship. God what a mess we've got into! No wonder they don't try things a

[FannyTheChampionOfTheWorld]

If they eat whizzed up veggies, tbh I'd exploit this all I could. So there'd be pasta with disguised vegetables, branching out from tomatoes, a couple of times a week. Then I'd also think about stews cooked long enough to disappear the veg, maybe soup too.

[DancingDuck]

I had a very fussy eater - due to severe gastro problems and ASD. We found the best thing was to have a range of help yourself foods on the table and to say he had to choose something from the carbs (rice or naan or French bread) something from the protein (chicken tikka, plain unspiced chicken skewer or dahl) and something from the 5 a day (veg curry or carrot and cucumber pot) That way we all had a family meal together but he had more control over what he tried. They say DC need to try something new 20-30 times before they'll accept it. In ASD DC or really fussy eaters, that's more like 200-300 times. DS eats anything now. You'd never know he lived for about eight years on white bread, cheddar, humous and peeled sliced apples.

[wallywobbles]

We did crudities (carrot and cucumber sticks) as kind of a starter/side dish which they liked with Mary Berry sauces (ie full of sugar). Thanks to Mme Berry they also like salad. We talked about colours, and why eating lots of different colours was important, because they had different vitamins and nutrients in.

We did thick soups, and mixed root veg mashes quite a lot. So maybe more courses, but lots of veg in there somehow. They didn't like the soups and mashes but could eat them.

They have to try everything every time. Not until they were about 6 though. Tiny amounts. And finally at 11 the eldest DD is discovering she likes loads of stuff!

Any complaints I would cook a large pan of pasta on Sunday and they would get it plain for every meal.