To think trying to fix a fussy eating toddler is a complete waste of time and effort?

[Bubbinsmakesthree]

I know all the advice - present them with a wide range of different foods, don't make a fuss, pander, bargain etc. No substitutions, they either eat or don't.

Yet again this weekend has involved:

-massive tantrums over food presented
-attempts to throw food /cutlery / push plates off table
-messing around with food but not eating any of it
-trying a bite and spitting it out
-multiple meals where he has eaten nothing at all.

He eats NO vegetables whatsoever. He will only eat about half a dozen meals, mostly basically crap food.

I am fed up of trying, fed up of cooking food that ends up spat out or on the floor, fed up of keeping my cool at meal times, fed up of his shitty moods because he is hungry as he's eaten nothing at all at mealtimes.

AIBU to sack off the whole thing and feed him beans on toast and bananas every bloody meal and save a whole load of stress because I am seeing no results at all from persevering.

I recommend the childens book Daisy Eat Your Peas. Makes me laugh even thinking about it and a good way to help you both relax.
You are not being unreasonable. I decided with 2nd child that I would not ever argue about food as its a complete waste of effort.
Just cook what you like for yourself and give them a taste. Don't bother with Annabel Karmel style meals specially prepared for baby unless you really have nothing else to do.

like campfire smoke I also have twins, and treated them both the same, and one was born to fuss over food and the other wasn't.

i just ignore the fussy eater. she's a healthy weight. she can have fruit and bread as a standby. or bits of vegetable. when she goes on play dates and parents ask how to cater for the kids i tell them to ignore her or give her a carrot or some tomatoes.

she is nearly ten and seems to be growing out of it.
so my advice is ignore.
some battles aren't worth it.

Toddlers are programmed to be hyper conservative. Some are more fussy than others.

Keep offering stuff but dont get worked up about it. A fussy toddler will have to see a green bean on its plate at least 20 times before they'll even put a finger on it. Putting in their mouth is 18 mths down the line. Actually eating a pile of green beans, well, you need years for that ha ha!

My youngest wasn't a totally dreadful eater but not very adventurous either. He wouldn't really eat fruit or veg at 3, just pots, peas, strawberries, bananas and for some reason broccoli has always been absolute fine. [if broccoli, why not a carrot? Or a humble green bean?! Who knows ...]

But very gradually he has expanded his repertoire. He was given fruit to choose at snack at preschool so he started eating apple as well as nana as he was hungry. Then last year he started eating satsumas (I nearly fainted with shock). He now also likes mango and pineapple but that is a recent development.

Now he is 5.5 and is much less fussy and willing to try stuff. I put a carrot on his plate and a piece of spinach as well as broccoli. And incentivise ("try a bit and you can have pudding!" she says cheerily while inwardly sobbing). And he will try, these days, whereas there would have been no way when he was little.

He still won't eat cucumber tomato or pepper though which is a bummer as I want to put those in his lunch. I will have to put him on an incentivisation programme in respect of those too but I can't be bothered. I put a little of them in his box anyway, exposure therapy and all that. One day he will eat them if bribed with something and gradually it will become an acceptable food.

Anyway my advice - no, don't expect a toddler to be adventurous nor get upset that they will only eat three things. On the other hand its not fixed forever, and its always worth offering a little bit of an off-limit food EVEN IF YOU KNOW THEY WILL PUT IT ON YOUR PLATE STRAIGHTAWAY. It still counts for something in the getting used to it stakes.

And never pigeon hole by saying "Freddie doesn't like tomatoes." No. He just doesn't like them YET. You gotta play the loooonnng game.

I watched a full plate of poached egg, beans and toast hit the floor yesterday because I gave him the wrong bloody fork!
Its a tough gig, this motherhood

When mine got fussy I found that arranging the food in a smiley face worked.

E.g. Carrot nose, mashed potato smile, meatball eyes, that sort of thing. Sounds odd, but it worked.

Probably too late to be useful, but DW and I gave fruit or cut veg for snacks (and had the same for our own). Crisps, sweets, biscuits, chocolate weren't kept in the house. I believe that meant the kids didn't expect them and were happy with other healthier things.

Well I am reassured by some of the tales of toddlers who have grown out of it relatively quickly - but also alarmed at those about fussy eaters who have persisted well into childhood and adulthood!

He's not as bad as some seem to be - apart from the lack of vegetables I can fashion a roughly balanced diet from the few things he will eat and I keep on trying him on more challenging stuff. He has licked a cherry tomato a couple of times over the past few days which has made me quite excited!

Being a bit of a foodie it pains me more than it probably should as it saps all the joy from cooking and eating. He loves cake so I like tracking down healthy-ish recipes that we can bake together, we get through a lot of carrot muffins!

Oh thank god for sensible people!!
The guilt of this tortures me every day with my awkward fussy kid!

I feel SO bad, I am very laid back about what he eats, give him what he wants 60% of the time, some negotiating with healthy stuff which works but I always feel I should do more, be more firm, take charge, be more forceful, be a good parent but I get nowhere so just take the path of least resistance.

Sigh

Just wanted to say I have 2 fussy eaters and feel your pain. Husband works late so family meals only happen at weekend, which is a shame as I am sure seeing us eat a variety of foods Is a good influence on DD. If she won't try something I eat a bit first and sometimes this convinces her to have a go. Sometimes she will like it sometime she won't. DS has sensory issues and nothing will make him try something he doesn't want to. I keep trying me things but give s side dish I know they like so at least eat some of their dinner. Helps keep me sane.

I went a middle way: served the same variety of meals that I would otherwise have done and just pretended not to notice if they only ate parts/sulked/didn't eat. they have both grown up into good healthy eaters

(obviously you can only do this if your child is NT + there is no risk they will put themselves in hospital)

I have found putting a little on her plate at a time beneficial. So three chips, three bite sized piece of chicken and a spoonful of peas, the top it up as she eats.

In my experience it was pointless to try and fix. I tried all the advice and it just resulted in more stress and tears.
He got over it himself and now and at age 5 he's not bad at all.

I think that my son has got an incredibly sensitive sense of taste. I think they call them super tasters.

when he was about 3 or 4 he refused to drink water that didn't come from our tap (we live on a farm and have a well with our own water). we decided to call his bluff. I set up 10 small glasses of water from loads of different sources - bottled, from nannys house, from grandpas house etc. I made him taste them all. he correctly spotted not only which one was "his" but also nanny and grandpas.

So after that we realised that trying to hide food was never going to work and that basically we just had to go with it and stop stressing.

Yes to beans on today and banana, he will move on. If he is still on that diet by the time he goes to university, sue me.

I have 3 kids.

#1 was a hideous eater. He existed on bread, yogurt and bananas for about a year when he was 2/3. He's 8 now and we have become gradually tougher as he has grown. Now he is old enough to understand that he is required to try everything but he chooses whether he eats or not. There are no substitutes so sometimes he goes to bed with no dinner. He's absolutely fine and eats so much better now.

#2 was a brilliant eater but some fussiness developed as he got older, about 4/5. Same rules apply to him as to #1

#3 is another awful eater. She's 3 and her diet is limited. Having said that, she eats a good lot of carbs, fruit and dairy and some meat/fish. It's really just veg she's almost completely missing. Yes, it's not as varied as we want but she gets nutrition! She often goes to bed with an empty stomach when she refuses dinner but it doesn't affect her sleep and she's fine. We've learnt not to be afraid of letting her choose within our parameters and we are confident that she will improve with age, as her brother did

I've just read a brilliant book called first bite; how we learn to eat by Bee Wilson. It was all about the science and theories behind why people are fussy eaters and how to overcome it. Quite a big book but very easy and enjoyable to read. She wrote about a scheme called "tiny tastes" which has been very successful at getting the most fussy eaters to try new foods. It seemed quite simple, just sticker charts and pea-sized amounts of the vegetable, it might be worth looking it up online.

There are quite a few ideas here I might try when DS is a bit older (if he hasn't improved) - he's not quite at the stage where I can reason with him to 'try one taste' or have any sense at all of why it's important to eat healthy food.

I feel vaguely reassured that we've probably got the balance right(ish) between working within the parameters of what he will eat and trying to push his boundaries a bit.

Dd and her friend now both 23 were fussy eaters in the extreme at time. I tended to pander and feed her what she liked. Her friend's mum was much tougher than I was and her friend was "encouraged" to eat a variety of things. Nowadays both of them eat reasonably well with dd eating marginally more variety than her friend so whilst the results were largely the same I suffered far fewer tears and tantrums and stress.

I was blamed by family members for having 2 fussy eaters, as 2 fussy eaters meant clearly I was doing something wrong.

Have done exactly the same with dc3, he is not fussy at all. He eats all the lovely food I cook!

It is luck.

He also sleeps as well and therefore he is my favourite

Would also say it's better to have a good relationship with food, and eventually the fussiness can be overcome as they get older. Both elder children are now brilliant because I didn't go batshit crazy like SIL did that they were eating the 'right' foods when they were tiny.

It is awful isn't it. My dd would only eat sugar given the choice.
I now let her go hungry until she is desperate for lentils.
At a push I will put the tv on and then she doesn't care so much what she eats.

I don't think I know many toddlers who have not gone through this. It's so normal!

My boy is 4 now and eats SO much more than he ever did between 2-3.5.

He eats cucumber, carrots, broccoli and sweetcorn now whereas before he would never touch anything like that. Plus hidden veg in sauces (tomatos basically as he wouldn't eat those on their own). Plus things like salmon, roast meat like chicken etc.

I swear, I didn't do anything different - his tastes just widened.

Things we did:

1. always eat together, and the same at the weekend (they are at nursery 4 days a week so only have snacks afterwards). This does mean your diet is a bit limited to what the whole family will eat though, but it was a compromise worth it for me.
2. always serve something I know he would eat so he can eat something (ie a jacket potato with cheese, sweetcorn, cucumber sticks, garlic bread)
3. Joke around a bit with things like 'who can eat a carrot the fastest' - this really worked. Everyone get one on their fork and GO!
4. try not to stress (this is HARD).
5. watch meal times and snack times - don't let them snack too late and don't leave dinner too late (over hungry/over tired = cross).
6. Put everything into serving bowls and everyone 'helps themselves' - they do this at his pre-school and it makes him feel really grown up and gives him independence. Again this has really worked and he eats loads more.

Good luck!

If it's any consolation, DH made me take our chicken-nuggets-chips-and-peas-only toddler to the GP. Once the GP had finished laughing he pointed out that DS wasn't exactly fading away and to just go with it.

YANBU!! have a fussy eater is utterly soul destroying and unfathomable if you haven't been through it.

my 3.5 year old lives off plain boiled pasta with butter and parmesan. i do offer her different things but always have pasta in reserve as she will hardly eat a bite. never eats meat or fish. eats a lot of fruit but no veg.

i've tried every trick in the book including all suggestions here and nothing works. i'm past caring. plain boiled pasta it is!

At a push I will put the tv on and then she doesn't care so much what she eats.

our pediatrician recommended this in desperate times. it does help.

Farfar - I had a plain boiled pasta child!

Don't worry, all will get better. DD in question is now 6 and now has pasta with sauce