AIBU to force my son to eat school dinners?

[TakeawayAgain]

Hi all, I apologise if this gets long.

Backstory, my DS (5) is a very fussy eater. Having started on home made Annabel Karmel recipes from weaning, he will now only eat Birdseye chicken fingers and potato waffles for dinner, cheese, strawberries, grapes, banana at a push. No other meats, no veg, no pasta. He will eat chocolate and haribo of course!

We met a child dietician 6 months ago and we have a follow up booked for 18th October but not much has improved in that time, he will now try a new food, albeit the tiniest little mouthful, without making himself throw up but will very quickly decide that he doesn't like and sticks firm with that decision.

He started Reception two weeks ago and we decided that we would try to encourage him to eat food available at school (not have a packed lunch as he did in pre school) and would review this at half term having got feedback from the school and the dietician. We thought that at 5 he is old enough to understand that there are lots of different foods out there to try and that he could try to do with new friends eating theirs. This hasn't gone particularly well but not poorly enough for me to consider packed lunches earlier than half term. However, due to a very early hospital appointment, my DM took my DS to school yesterday and when it came to choosing lunch, he threw himself on the floor and a proper tantrum (for info, he is not this kind of child and has never done this with me). The school have mentioned that they don't think he is eating enough during the day (although he is eating crackers at afternoon break so there are some carbs going in), he has breakfast before school everyday and then his delightful chicken and waffle in the evenings.

I feel that the school are going to try to push us into switching to packed lunches asap but DH and I feel that this would be giving into DS' fussy eating and letting him regain control. I feel trapped in the middle because DH feels very strongly about this and I suspect he will think I've given in if I start to make packed lunches. However, I don't know if the school are right instead.

Would I be unreasonable to ask the school to continue supporting our decision on this until half term when we will review the situation? Funnily enough we had a huge breakthrough this week when DS sat with DH and ate an impressive amount of plain pasta so perhaps that's making this decision harder as there is a glimmer of progress.

If you made it to this point, thank you for reading! AIBU and what would you do?

Well Takeaway - it might be worth talking to the school about Seeya's suggestion - see if they'll let him have a packed lunch as a back up if he really can't face the food that's on offer, but he should still try and have the lunch offered if he can.
No harm in asking - see what they say?

I remember at school unless you cleared your plate you couldn't play so circa 1976.

I married the 8 year old boy who ajways ate my food so I could play!

30 years now and he still eats my leftovers

don't worry op you sound like a parent who is doing their absolute best. I think you and your dh are trying to get a balance between being understanding to your ds, encouraging new foods, not rewarding bad behaviour, and a healthy balanced diet. what you said about the control wasn't chilling it came across as if you were worried that if you start letting tantrums dictate what he eats he will only eat Haribo for ever more!

he will be fine either way, dinners or lunches. my vote is still for dinners he has made lots of progress already and it's only week 2. what if he does eat more by half term? plus they are free. and they mean you don't have to make a packed lunch which will get boring for yoy to make every day.

you are his mum you know better than any internet random so go with your gut xxx

Hi Takeaway, my first thoughts reading your post was oh my god its not just my family! I also have a very fussy 4yr old just started reception and about to start school dinners(or not!). I'm worried about giving packed lunches as I fear that his choices with packed lunches will be as limited as his current diet. After reading the comments here I'm starting to think that it might be less stressful for him and the school if he does take his own lunch. I just looked at some packed lunch ideas and the NHS fit for life site has some good ideas, there is also a link to NHS weight calculator. Good luck with whatever you decide on.

Sorry SSD and LovingMyBear. Perhaps I am being too sensitive but the comment just made me feel like you think he is an inconvenient and unloved little boy when that couldn't be further from the truth.

I don't want to cause him anxiety problems relating to food, but believe it or not, I know a fully grown adult male who will not really eat much beyond chips and chicken nuggets. At Christmas, he will eat the meat and, at a push, crispy roast potatoes, I know this because he has been at my Christmas dinner table more than once.

I hate the idea that nutritionally he is lacking and that he has the potential to turn into that guy who is surely at a much higher risk of having health problems as he ages.

This is so fecking hard!!

I didnt get that at all from your posts, only a mum at her wits end and trust me we've all been there and still are sometimes

Bless him he's only little. I'd give him a packed lunch. The most important thing is to make sure he's eating something. I've got a fussy eater, DS2 is v picky, but he's a strong and healthy 16 year old now so it can't have done him much harm. I do understand where you're coming from, but it's really not worth turning meal times into a battleground.

Takeaway

You know what 3 out of my 4 kids now eat normally but I know dd4 aged 18 will have pasta or lasagna for xmas dinner!

Are we sad? No! She's beautiful clever brave and kind. She's going to uni next year after brilliant A level results and travelling the world from next month.

That's what's important.

This thread has been so reassuring! I felt like we were the only parents with a picky eater. My friends and family all have children that eat whatever is put in front of them.
My daughter is 2 and a half and barely eats. Toast, waffles, chips, chicken nuggets, dry cereal, scones. No fruit and veg, the only fruit and veg she'll have is a specific purple fruit pouch, only because purple is her favourite colour.
Dietician last year told us not to reduce milk as she wasn't eating enough, so she still has bottles. We've been considering reducing milk in the hope that she'll eat more but I know she won't. She would rather starve than eat something she doesn't want. At Nursery she refuses to eat what is offered at lunch and dinner, she only eats toast.

I really want to avoid food battles, but I'm so concerned that she doesn't eat healthily. I need to take a step back and let her eat what she wants and hope she grows out of it.

OP, I'm sure there is the odd adult who is still phobic about food. But I would say most kids do grow out of it.

I was fussy myself into my teens. Didn't eat pizza, pasta or rice. Basically ate meat and 2 veg type meals and did eat fruit so I wasn't nutritionally deficient. But I just wouldn't even TRY, say, a piece of pizza. Things started to change when my friends were celebrating birthdays at pizza restaurants etc so I had no choice but to try it if I wanted to join in. I discovered I liked it and wondered why I hadn't tried it before.

Then when I went to Uni and started cooking for myself I had to try cheaper food like pasta and rice and found I liked that too. I met DH and he loved curry but I had never had it before as my parents had a bit of an old fashioned diet and didn't eat it at home. Found out I loved that too. Just TRYING something new was a major thing for me as I had just dug my heels in before. Realising that it wouldn't make me throw up gave me confidence. And also I had the choice not to eat it if it made me gag - that was the biggie. I could cook it and not eat it if I really didn't like it.

Then, foreign travel helped. You HAVE to eat different things if you want to travel and eat out in restaurants. I'm 44 now and will eat anything except celery. I'm still trying things that I used to dislike in my 20s and 30s and discovering that my tastebuds have become accustomed to them and I really don't mind them now. Most younger people dislike olives and I did when I was younger. I love them now after repeatedly trying them over the years.

Maybe the man you know had never cooked for himself and has just insisted to whoever cooks that he won't eat anything else. Some adults are very stubborn around trying new food and say they don't like something when they just don't want to try it . He could be one of those.

curly we hoping uni will help dd too.

We are all good parents and we can't help our fussy eaters.

They are our wonderful sensitive food critics and so bloody what

Hope we can reassure everyone here that it is what it is and they are what they are xxx

Yabvu. It is not the schools job to broaden his eating. Feed him the pack lunch he eats and do the donkey work yourself with his evening meal. Instead of you feeding him what he likes every evening and letting the school do the hard work.

At this stage I would also let him have his limited packed lunches. Maybe with a teeny bit of something extra to try but better to do that at home really. If the school have flagged up that he's not getting enough calories then I would take that as the priority and give him packed lunches until you get to see the dietitian. School is such a huge transition, the last thing he needs is feeling hungry and stress over food on top.

I'm not really surprised that he cracked up when asked to choose lunch on a day when you were going to hospital and he'd been brought to school by someone else. He must have been feeling pretty stressed by the disruption and it may have been a "last straw" kind of situation.

The thing is that you are already doing the right thing by getting him to see the dietitian. Some things need to be "nipped in the bud" quickly but others are more a long slow haul. Getting your DS to eat a wider diet might be a process over years, and it may need him to become more mature so he can handle it, and you'll have to help him stay healthy meanwhile. It doesn't automatically mean he'll still be as restricted as an adult.

And another thing which helped my DS. He likes those survival programmes. You know, Bear Grylls, Ed Stafford . Where they have to eat what they can get, even if it's something horrid, for nutrition's sake. I think watching them eat a grub and pull a face and swallow and then just shrug it off made him think that maybe he could do that too. I used to joke about it if he pulled a face and paused when about to try a new food. "Come on, if Bear Grylls can do that with some yucky ants, you can do it with a mouthful of yummy lasagne!"

Purple, I can only assume that you have not bothered to read the whole thread. Had you done this, you will have already seen that we do try to introduce new foods all the time and are not relying on the school to do our job for us! In fact, we have just had a huge break through with pasta this week and we are so proud of him for trying it and eating several pieces without having a meltdown!

I have also said that we have asked the school to encourage him to try his lunch option but that if he decides he doesn't like it that is fine. I am not expecting someone to sit and monitor him for the entire lunchtime, nor force him to eat it.

True story... nephew completly fussy. He's a chicken sandwich (wafer thin) and chocolate spread eater. School pushed to try school dinners. Compromise is mum arrives school with pack lunch at pick up which he eats on way home!) and school make sure banana mornibg and afternoon break. End of week 2, he ate a full roast That week, and burger and chips Friday. His mum is Raging as never touch at home without complete meltdown (but obvs also thrilled and delighted!) you are absolutely doing right thing!!!

my best friend has a fussy eater and she did this and it worked for her DD. At the time I thought it was a bit mean but it actually worked. Within weeks her DD was eating so much better at home and at school.

I don't have any personal experience but my 2.8 year old has suspected ASD and certain food textures make her gag and she won't eat sloppy foods unless I feed her. Her sandwiches can only be marmite too. She ate anything as a baby I don't think I would do school dinners for her.

I have read the whole thread. I saw he eats breakfast and waffles and nuggets for tea, implying he eats this every day. I saw that you are regularly trying new foods at home too. But unless regularly translates to 'we give him a two course meal every night of new foods he won't normally eat' the school are getting the raw end of the deal and your ds is going hungry which will not help him learn. Why not pack him up and you feed him a 2 course meal of unfamiliar foods every night?

And if your child is under the care of a dietician you should be asking them. Not mumsnetters.

He does eat that meal quite often but just because I have said it's the only meal he will eat, doesn't mean it's the only one he is given. We also try to introduce other foods along side this such as carrots, peas, baked beans as suggested by PPs and dietician.

I have also been helping him pick meals at school that do contain at least thing he would normally eat.

I am fully prepared to accept that packed lunches may be the way forward but please don't assume that I am doing nothing to address this at home.

We have an appointment with a dietician on 18th October as I said in my OP. I needed advice given the events this week now so that I can try to decide what to do for the next four weeks until then. I don't think I can just call them up and ask before then.

I don't think there is anything wrong with asking on MN knowing that several other mums may have already been through this and have some points of advice. From the kind responses I've had on here, even when I've had a bit of a wobble, I don't think anyone else does either.

you don't need to keep justifying yourself op

My DS was/is like this (he's in year 2 now). We agreed with school that they'd encourage him to try the school lunch but if he didn't like it he could eat a sandwich brought from home. After a while of that we went through the menu with him and agreed which days he would have school lunch and which days we'd make him packed lunch.
My DD (just started reception) is fussy too but more 'normal' fussy iykwim. We've told her she's having school lunches and she's eaten them absolutely fine! I'm so happy!! Unfortunately DS is still no better 😪

Fruitbat

That is the only anecdote that sticking to your guns worked. My dd cried and starved herself. She didn't tell me about it for some time. My dd never ate all that after two weeks.

I'm not assuming you are doing nothing TakeawayAgain but there's a huge difference between a child facing a familiar meal with new things alongside it and the odd new meal vs facing a 2 course meal at school 5/7 days that will have many unfamiliar/unwanted foods on it, which will be quite overwhelming. Reception children often find lunch times quite overwhelming at the beginning anyway without adding food worries in.

If it's only 4 wks all the more reason not to change anything and let your ds have his familiar lunches and wait and see what your dietician advises. Other mums will have gone through it but they don't know all the ins and outs which your dietician will. Your dietician may say yes try hot dinners but they will be in the best place to judge whether this will have a negative effect or not on progress made so far. I would say it's better to wait, nothing will be lost through waiting, but forging ahead may make your son more anxious and hinder progress or even worse make your ds even less likely to try new foods. Why risk it for the sake of a few weeks.