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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

How strict to be with DC about leaving food on plate...

145 replies

Ricekrispie22 · 29/09/2017 19:52

what do you do when your children don't like something you dish up for them? What is reasonable? What are the rules regarding leaving food in your house? Thanks

OP posts:

Ploppie4 · 30/09/2017 16:56

Sometimes I serve veg as a starter.

coddiwomple · 30/09/2017 17:04

That's my DS fucked stuffed then.

what does it have to do with anything? I am not raising your DS, I am raising my children, I know what they like, dislike and what they can't eat. In my case, carrots were just an excuse to push boundaries.

Ultimately my kids have a very healthy diet half the week (when they don't eat at school basically), and have manners. No one is making them throw up.

Nanny0gg · 30/09/2017 17:15

I am not having a child who doesn't eat vegetables either.

I genuinely don't like vegetables, if you mean carrots, cauliflower, swede, cabbage etc. The 'meat and two veg' type of vegetables.

I won't eat them. I hate the flavour, smell and texture. My parents made me eat them. I cried, heaved and haven't once touched them as soon as I was old enough to decide for myself.

What if the child is like that?

coddiwomple · 30/09/2017 17:25

I think you have decided that you don't like them! Vegetables have so many different flavours and textures, can be prepared and served in so many different ways, I can't see how anyone can reject ^everything".

I do believe that in most cases if you are hungry you eat, and you are used to a certain diet. I have spoken with friends living in Southern Asia and working with children and as far as I know, children who don't eat "vegetables" or "fish" are unheard of.

fussy kids seem to be quite a modern and Western thing.

Dixiebell · 30/09/2017 17:25

I am so confused about this approach of allowing the kids to decide when to stop because that teaches them to stop when they are full up. My ds1 is so fussy. If I let him decide what to eat, he'd never actually eat enough to get full up, unless I gave him a plate full of just sausages! There are very few things he'd choose to eat himself. I think saying he has to eat at least half of the mash, (or roast dinner, or lasagne, or pasta, or rice, or casserole, or chicken...anything but sausage and fishfingers....) is reasonable, or he'd barely eat anything, and waste away. Of course, he protests, by I feel it's for his own good, I don't know what else to do. I think people who are able to rely on their kids to choose themselves how much to eat really don't have properly fussy eaters... He's 7 and has been like this since about 18 months.

Dixiebell · 30/09/2017 17:28

And his younger brother and sister are not the same, so I hope that shows it's nothing about the way we've brought him up!

Dixiebell · 30/09/2017 17:29

And his younger brother and sister are not the same, so I hope that shows it's nothing about the way we've brought him up!

cochineal7 · 30/09/2017 17:34

I am with most here - I decide what and when we eat, but don't force them to clear their plates. I do encourage them to try new things. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When we were young, my mum always had the rule that if you serve yourself, you finish what you put on your plate. If you are being served and thus have no say, you may leave food on the plate. As soon as my kids are older, that will be my approach.

lalalalyra · 30/09/2017 17:45

I think people who are able to rely on their kids to choose themselves how much to eat really don't have properly fussy eater

I have to do that precisely because DS2 is so fussy. If there's too much on the plate it overwhelms him and he won't eat it. And no amount of 'eat half of this' or 'eat 6 peas' works with him. That simply turned food into a battleground and he refused to eat anything. Giving him control over his plate and knowing that today he can have a little bit, but tomorrow he can have more if he's hungrier has actually turned him into a better eater because he feels he has some control over his plate.

Rudedog · 30/09/2017 17:46

I don't make DD clear her plate - I like to make an effort and eat until she's full and eat a bit of everything. Quite often she will eat it all

Portions unless you are weighing it all out can vary too and appetite is different on different days/seasons. As long as she isn't complaining she is hungry later I am fine with her not finishing

I had a huge row with MIL once for not making her clear her plate - I had accidentally given her tons (only made pasta for her) she did eat A LOT / but making her finish the random huge portion I had accidentally given would have been ridiculous

MrsKoala · 30/09/2017 18:13

I wouldn't consider a child you could get to eat something they didn't want to eat fussy. I think if like you say Dixie and others if you can cajole, bribe and coax a child to eat something they originally didn't want to then they aren't really fussy eaters. For me fussy eaters are the complete refugees of most things, for which no amount of pressure (or only unreasonable pressure) would work.

Saying 'ohh a bit more mash and then you can have pudding' just sounds like a completely normal interaction with a non fussy child at dinner to me. That's just a child with a normal amount of preferences isn't it?

Sirzy · 30/09/2017 18:17

I agree mrs

Ds is truly fussy with a very restricted diet. He would simply not eat rather than eat something that he doesn’t want. Trying to persuade would just make issues so much worse!

There are certain foods ds can’t even sit at a table with let alone have on a plate in front of him!

MrsKoala · 30/09/2017 18:31

Beans and bananas cannot be consumed near ds1 Sirzy and Any wet food has to be positioned far away on the table. I put a jacket potato on his plate the other day and he had a meltdown because the middle looked like mash.

He has recently started school and some of the parents moaned to me about their 'fussy' eaters who ate virtually everything but had a few preferences. My ds eats 5 things and goes days without eating. Out of 3 weeks of school dinners there is one day where they serve chips that he will eat. I get when people say 'I'd just make him eat' or 'tell him he has to eat it'. Because if that worked he wouldn't be fussy!

MrsKoala · 30/09/2017 18:32

Refugees? Apols. I meant refusers.

Anatidae · 30/09/2017 18:34

Leave it. Honestly NO battles over food. It's creating huge problems for the future.

They shouldn't need to finish what's on their plate. They should be encouraged to try stuff and keep trying it. But never make them eat if they don't want to.

Dixiebell · 30/09/2017 18:43

I have spent years allowing him to eat as much as he wants, waiting for his range of choice to increase, it just hasn't. He still refuses to eat most things, and would never choose to do so himself. So yes, maybe he isn't as fussy as downright refusal despite anything, but I still have to talk/coax/persuade/argue him through every mouthful of most meals. I'd say that is fussy, it's not how his siblings are.

Also on the point of letting them stop when they're full...I mean fair enough if you have piles of good on the table, but I serve out reasonably sized portions for what a growing very active 7 year old needs. I try not to overwhelm him. If he only eats a quarter then says he's full, it's just not enough. He's not actually full, he just doesn't want to eat that particular meal. I don't trust him to make that judgement, that's what I'm there for!

RubyGoat · 30/09/2017 19:11

DD (5) is required to try everything on her plate, every time. But she is not required to finish it all - new foods take time & they are not all always an immediate hit; some take perseverance or "practice" as we tell DD, just like writing or riding a bike. We eat until we're full & stop when we're full, & there is no pudding if DD has left her main (unless it's a food she's still not keen on, in which case we don't push it).

My parents did things very differently. I am properly screwed up about food & I'm trying very hard not to pass it on to DD.

AtSea1979 · 30/09/2017 19:18

My DC eat everything they are given. They are good eaters and aren't fussy at all. When we go to parties etc they sit at the table nicely and don't disappear off messing about.
Having said that I know what they do and don't like so I don't deliberately make them something they don't like, for example salad. Frequently we try new things and they genuinely don't like it (halloumi, cous cous) in those instances they try it. When they were younger, the rule was you eat it all or don't get dessert.

Believeitornot · 30/09/2017 19:32

I think people who are able to rely on their kids to choose themselves how much to eat really don't have properly fussy eaters...

Hahaha. My dd is incredibly fussy and would refuse to eat meals at nursery, choosing to come home starving - unlike ds who ate like the other kids.

So I let dd choose how much she eats and ask her to try things. She's quite skinny but it's not unhealthily so.

Theycalledmethewildrose · 30/09/2017 19:39

I always asked my children to at least try everything. Now I'm lucky if they try one out of four items on their plate. They will either come to the table, take a look and say 'I don't like that' and run off or sit and try to bargain that they will eat 'three peas' from their entire plate. I refuse to participate in bargaining. It is not uncommon for them to ask for an apple or toast in the middle of dinnertine. I'm at an absolute loss.

So OP if your kids eat anythibg they are doing great!

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