To ask for help with my son's eating

[manandbeast]

AIBU to ask for help with my son (6) eating.
He will only eat a very very limited range of food - eggs, pasta, anything beige basically.
He's neuro typical but just fussy.
My husband wants to put a plate in front of him at dinner and just sit there until he finishes it, which seems quite a harsh way of doing it?
Has anyone had any success getting their child to eat a wider range of foods in an encouraging way?
Does anyone have info on what experts recommend?

Have you heard of 'ARFID'?

www.foodrefusal.co.uk/uploads/8/9/5/3/8953410/avoidant_restrictive_food_intake_disorder.pdf

My DS (8.5) is fussy as hell. (I was too at his age.) DH and I have a united front in that we don't want mealtimes to turn into a battlefield, but we will ask him to try new things a few times a month (tiny amount, often accompanied by tears/massive stress). Last year's project was for him to eat plain pasta, any shape. Yes it basically took the whole year. He loves travelling and we explained how his fussiness makes it difficult for us to travel and go to restaurants. Between DH and me we had been saying "this is getting embarrassing, we just can't have a child who won't even eat plain pasta". Something that worked well for us was an expert saying it takes up to 40 times of seeing/trying tiny bits of a new food for a fussy child to adapt. Another thing that worked well was presenting him with a tiny portion of, in this case, plain pasta, when he was famished. Imagine a day of swimming and hiking. And to get him to actually ask for more.
We are currently experimenting with a taco buffet type meal, lots of different veg & things in bowls, plus the 'strange smelling' beef mince he won't touch. So far he's accepted hard taco shells filled with beans and we couldn't be happier. We're building it up slowly, getting him used to different combos, smells, colours and textures.

P.S: I should add DS is a healthy weight but quite anxious and neophobic in general. A combination of carrot and stick works well for him. Very different from his sibling who will try most new food things without hesitation, go "OK I don't like that" or "ooh, I like that" with no anxiety and just move on.

I used give mine a number.. .. and as long as he had that number of mouthful it was ok.... I was judge if the mouthful was big enough..... still some things he can't swallow.... but.... if I say sternly 3 mouthful he'll get through it.... at 6 he should get enough from 9 or 10 big mouthful.... if he likes it he'll eat more... my DS will eat as much broccoli as I put in front of him... weirdo.. . ... this does work for us.... I do avoid the stuff he really can't stomach.. .. tends to be textural rather than flavour.. ..

My son is the same. I find that putting all the food out on the table and letting him serve himself helps. He actually put a piece of kale in his mouth the other day - didn't eat it, but still! Meal times have been a source of anxiety for him ever since he started solids. I personally wouldn't recommend your husband's plan - I was the same about food as a child, and was pressured to eat food I didn't like. I had (and still have) a plethora of food anxieties. Without pressure, there is a possibility of me trying something new, although some days, I really can't face it and can only eat 'safe' foods. I do have a very varied, balanced diet these days though!

My oldest has struggled with trying new foods and we have had success with a couple of different techniques. One was when he was going to start school, we talked about how he should practise trying the things on the menu so that he would know which ones to pick when he had lunch at school. With a focus on a specific outcome, he was a little more motivated to try things (we made sure that the first few things he tried were things he was almost guaranteed to like, including things like chocolate etc which had previously refused to eat.)

Recently, he has begun to try new things motivated by plain old bribery - he gets money for trying something new, with a bonus if he likes it (to encourage him to 'want' to like things and go into it with a positive mindset) and a smaller sum if he tries something he has already tried before to check whether he has changed his mind or not (bonus payable for these as well).

He has gone from 'hating' eggs to wolfing down omelettes several times a week, discovered a love of watermelon which saw him eating an entire one over the course of last week and generally being a lot more positive about the idea of trying new things. When he flags a bit, we spend some time looking at the next thing he wants to buy with his 'earnings' and talking about how many things he would have to try to buy it, and that galvanises him into action!

It might not be for everyone, but we have found that this approach has had the effect of making him actively want to try new things which has made it a lot easier for all of us. It also puts my me and my husband in the role of people who are helping him to achieve his goal, rather than parents nagging about trying food that he has no interest in. Plus, he's learning about maths, he types up a spreadsheet to keep track of what he's tried and he has chosen some really cool toys that I get to play with!

Things that you've probably heard of/tried but might work:

Letting him serve himself from dishes on the table
Involving him in shopping/prepping/cooking the meal
Cooking his favorite meals but with the proviso he tries 1 mouthful of a new food on the side
Not making a big deal out of it
Limiting snacks so he's hungrier at meals
Making a meal plan for the week with his input but including 1-2 new meals a week

Not all at once, obviously!

Don't try the 'it t on front of them and don't let them leave the table til they've eaten it' thing. My mum did this with carrots when I was about 12 and it was hell. It didn't work either - if anything it made me hate them more as I associated them with the whole ordeal! Didn' like carrots til into my 30s! And still jot that keen!

What works for my kids is bribery!! E.g. Eat just these two pieces of xx, then you can have pudding. Or - no yummy pudding til you've finished Xyz! No eat, ok pud! Or ... when you've finished xyz, we will go to (play park / softnplay / place of interest)! (But u have to follow through!!! No eat - no reward!)

Good luck, they'll get through this fussy eating stage!!

I had this with our daughter and I did it myself as a child, whilst my brother and my other daughter ate everything. Fussy daughhter and I both grew out of this in our late teens and now eat most things.

Kids can be fussy - my ds was fine til he hit 2ish - ate everything! Then fussiness arrived and it was difficult to get most food in him, loved pasta and pizza and sausages but that was about it! All meat became sausages so we had square sausage (beef), white sausage (chicken), round sausage (pork) and that worked for a fair while! When he hit 8/9 we tried getting him to be More open to trying new foods so deal was he tried 5 new things a week and then he got a treat. This helped. Next few years diet was still limited but he would try stuff. Luckily he loved homemade veg soup - so he had at least 2 bowls every week so least he got some veg in him! He is 14 now and his diet is only just expanding now! School lunches believe it or not have really helped! He comes home telling me he has tried all different types of things!

He went away for 10 days and I was so worried he would be hungry - gave him extra spends so he could buy food if he needed . He came home having tried kangaroo and raving about the food!

He won't eat a lot of my cooking - I don't know why, (it's not that bad!) as I tested it once, he wasn't going to a mates for tea and I gave the mum (a friend of mine) a lasagna or something I had made - he wolfed it down and said it was lovely and came home telling me I need to make lasagna like his mates mum as it was delicious!

Don't force him to eat what's put in front of him - it will just make meal times into a battle. Meal times are all about communicating with each other and catching up on peoples day/problems/worries/successes. Make it into a battle and you will find your child doesn't communicate with you as well

Your DH would be horrid to do that.

I have two dcs. One is fussy, one isn't. The fussy one has an incredibly sensitive sense of smell and taste - this drives her fussiness. She doesn't even like chocolate cake 😱 She also had quite big tonsils which means certain textures bother her when she's swallowing.

She will try stuff when she joins in with me when I'm cooking. I will also put "new" or previously rejected foods in a small bowl and ask her to have a bite. She's much happier at that then trying to force anything. She's 5.
My oldest was fussy but grew out of it at about 5. He won't eat everything but he will try.

I've decided to relax about my 5 year old. She eats fruit, veg and meat/fish which is the main thing.

Please don't let your husband do that! I spent many a mealtime crying or retching. And it didn't make me eat or like the foods I was being forced to eat.

A lot of children of 5/6 won't eat vegetables and will only eat a very limited foods. I agree with other posters. Absolutely don't let your dh do this. If your ds has ARFID, the advice seems to be to not make a fuss either way, just to put the food out. At 6, I used sticker charts and included eating vegetables as one of the categories. Sometimes I would encourage dd to try something new. Sometimes I'd put food on her plate to try. As she got older, she tries more things and will try off our plate and now sometimes asks to try things. She ate a mouthful of stir fry vegetables a couple of months ago but doesn't want to eat them again right now. She eats cucumber but not the soft middle for example so it can also be about getting the texture right.

If fruit veg is an issue do you have a garden? Maybe you could grow some food with him and the whole process of growing, harvesting and preparing his very own foods would inspire him to eat them? My DS loves vegetables more than anything else in the world and I fully believe it's because we grow so much of our own and he's been involved in that process since he was about 7 months old.

Oh and she doesn't like food mixed together. So she will now eat a burger and lettuce with vinegarette but on two separate plates so try putting things in separate bowls. The other day dd ended up with 3 plates as she wanted to try a fried egg (she eats boiled ones but first time fried).