to ask what your DC eat for breakfast?

[Hoptastic53]

I'm having trouble getting my six year old to eat anything for breakfast. The past few days it's been just a multivitamin and a yoghurt. She used to eat toast and fruit but is fed up with toast now and no longer wants fruit at breakfast time. She doesn't like anything cooked like eggs and won't try any cereals. What do your DC eat?

Yogurt smoothies , with fruit and chia seeds
Toast with peanut butter and banana
Boiled egg and sliced tomatoes with fresh basil
Granola with milk and berries
English muffin toasted with cheese
Oatmeal and Nutella
Oatmeal and peanut butter
Cheese and fruit with pulla
Hard tack and cream cheese

Lunch is strawberries, cucumber, cream crackers and peperami. I'm wary of feeding her it twice (any of it for breakfast) because then she'll be likely to stop eating it at lunchtime.

Evening meals are a real struggle. The only cooked foods she eats are occasionally sausages and mcdonalds chicken nuggets. Other than that she might have some cucumber, peppers, carrot sticks, chorizo and banana or pineapple.

Just a thought, OP, but has she been tested for coeliac disease? My young DS became an unbelievably fussy eater for the two years before we finally got a coeliac diagnosis (he was seeing a paediatrician during all that time who never thought to test him).

During the time he was undiagnosed, he got very fussy about food and cut out a huge range of things (including a lot of bread-based products) - I think the intestinal discomfort caused him to just not be able to handle much food. He also got very lethargic (which was due to anaemia from malabsorption) and also irritable!

Anyway, once he was diagnosed and on to a gluten-free diet, he gradually began eating more things and now has a pretty good diet. And is full of energy, weight back to normal range (from low weight) and growing normally.

Just wanted to mention it in case it could be a factor.

My not quite three year old has porridge with jam. we have daily discussions about how much jam should go in the porridge.

I know generally smoothies aren't as healthy as they are marketed. But if she is really fussy do you think blending some fruit (strawberries, peaches etc) with yoghurt would work? I know it's higher in sugar than recommended blah blah, but the yoghurt would make it filling, and you could even get some oats in too.

A yogurt is a good enough breakfast, serve some fruit with it? Or put some dry cereal on the side if you want to bulk it out, then they can eat it seperate or stir it in.

One of mine had to be awake for a while before he got hungry, he also hated milk so cereal with milk or porridge were out. He also went through a stage when bread products were too much effort!

Funnily enough he loved pesto pasta in the morning, he didn't care if it was hot or cold. Peas or sweetcorn could be stirred in, sometimes i would put a few chunks of cheese in, or cucumber on the side. Not really suggesting that for you but if they like something and it's easy then why not.

He would also have a yogurt, dry cereal or yogurt drink in the morning. It wasn't really until he was getting on to 6 foot that breakfast became important, even now he can be awake for a couple of hours before he eats. OK then he really eats! School days he's happy to eat dry cereal still.

Sorry - I just read all the earlier posts suggesting smoothies and your posts saying she wouldn't eat them

Thanks Strange, I'll look into it.

Mmmm this thread has made me so hungry is it morning yet

My now teen daughter went through phases, as most do. Dry cereal, then milk separately. Crackers, dry. Apple slices with nut butter. Then the rice porridge phase. Baked beans. As long as it was fairly low in added sugar i was happy. She's not a fussy eater now. Although still loves her dry oatcakes and pint of milk for brek.

I agree with honeylulu

I even read an article which said that breakfast is overrated and it actually makes you more hungry throughout the day.
I hated being forced to eat first thing especially cereal and toast.
My girls usually have a banana and some milk, sometimes multigrain hoops, or eggs, somedays nothing at all because they're not hungry and wait till snack time at break to eat.
If she's satisfied with a yogurt and she eats well for the rest of the day, then I wouldn't stress over it.

DD1 (6) has a drink of fresh apple juice, berries and either buttered bagel or buttered toast. DD2 (3) has the apple juice and berries and usually cereal like cheerios or rice crispies though has been partial to a buttered bagel recently.

Just baked breakfast muffins. My whole family love them and you can use dates/raisins or apple to make sweet with very little sugar -if any (today's batch are stuffed with apple and rhubarb from our garden with granola sprinkled on top). They freeze well as no-one bakes every day!

This morning my 5 year old grandson requested sweetcorn....yes, sweetcorn.....he ate everything on his plate.....try an alternative...if a certain appropriate age then give them a choice...let them decide possibly whilst shopping at the supermarket ..

Dd has Porridge and tea, Ds has cornflakes and orange juice.

I have a 1 year old and a 15 year old, the 15 year old is fussier so I will use her examples

On a school day:
Muffins
Pancakes and fruit
Granola and yogurt with fruit

Weekend
Spicy beans and chorizo with bakes eggs or a variant of
Spinach and baked eggs
Potatoes fried up up with egg
Dippy eggs and asparagus
Pancakes and fruit

Please get her tested for coeliacs a GP friend's DD had always been not much of an eater and much smaller & less lively than her sister... diagnosed in her early teens, went gluten free and completely transformed grew like a beanpole! Parents felt awful that it had taken so long to diagnose but never had any clear symptoms. I do feel for you, it is such a tricky thing when they don't eat much, it becomes such an emotional rollercoaster for the whole family

Ds1: boiled egs or beans .
Dd: cheerios of cornflakes
Ds2: weetabix or porridge
I've stated making smothees some mornings for them and they all love them. (I hide veg in them too ...shush )

Mine has baby cereal because they are a baby so not a very helpful answer! In your situation though I would be tempted to try and just double up on the yoghurt. Easy to say but it really is just a phase, and what you've described with the veggies for lunch/dinner sounds healthy.

Fresh warm rolls with cold meats, cheese and honey.
Fresh coffee to drink.
Fresh fruit.
When the children were too young to eat rolls, I used to feed them fresh fruit mashed with natural yoghurt and honey for breakfast.

DS is only 12 months but his favourite breakfast is a weird 'baby muesli' concoction I invented. It's a plain formage frais, crushed up cornflakes, raspberries and blueberries all mixed together. He also like pinching DHs bagels with cream cheese.

My brother used to hate eating first thing in the morning so DM would give him a smoothie and a cereal bar to have on the school bus.

Her diet is really very limited and you say she is lethargic
I think you need some professional help tbh, it's no good the dietician saying 'just give her what she eats' if she doesn't actually eat anything! I'd want a second opinion

In the mean time will she have shop bought smoothies?
Cereal bars? Nutri grain ones are really soft and easy to eat (Ds1 has sensory issues too)
Does she drink milk?
I know you said she eats sausages, can she have a sausage for breakfast?
Would she eat a sausage roll maybe?
DS1 loves cream crackers too and we've recently discovered he likes rice cakes too (think they're a similar texture) she could have a rice cake with her yoghurt

Just try to find things in a similar vein that she already eats

As for her lunch, would she accept an extra slice of cucumber/extra strawberry if you talked to her about it? Maybe along the lines of 'you're a bigger girl now you're growing up you need 1 more?' And keep increasing slowly?

sympathies OP I know how hard it is

school days cornflakes or yogurt and fruit.
Sundays always scrambled egg on toast!

My son doesn't eat eggs due to allergy but loves egg free American pancaked

Thanks No Capes. The dietician and paediatrician won't do/advise any further until she's officially underweight. I agree it's stupid. She only weighs a stone more than her two year old sister (who eats three times the amount she does.)

She'll only eat sausages once a month or so. She'll eat sausage rolls with the pastry removed but only from a particular butchers and only on the day they were cooked!

I managed to get her to have a cereal bar and small glass of milk this morning. It's sweeter than I'd like but at least it's something. I like the one more idea, I'll give it a try.

I've looked into coeliac disease but she doesn't have any of the symptoms.