Aibu to "starve" my 5 year old daughter

[Arrowfanatic]

Ok, hear me out.

As a baby my 5 year old ate a wide variety of food, she's my 3rd child and was the best eater. However as she has gotten older she has started to refuse more and more food. It has gotten to the stage now where all she will eat is chocolate cereal, shreddies, ham sandwiches and cheese and tomato pizza. She will eat crisps, chocolate, sweets and Apple's but "meal" wise that is it.

What do I do? I have never pandered to her, she gets exactly the same served up to her as the rest of the family and she just won't touch it. She is the most stubborn child ever. My health visitor said to refuse to cook anything she likes, that she won't let herself starve. Well that wasn't true, she went 3 days only eating cereal at brekkie and a sandwich for lunch. Would cry she was hungry but refused anything else until eventually on day 4 I relented and cooked pizza.

My aibu I guess is, would I be unreasonable to again refuse to cook what she does like even though I know she won't try to eat anything else. She's always coming down poorly, and gets sore lips and things which I'm sure is from a diet lacking in goodnss. I tried to get her to take vitamins, but she refused them totally.

Help me, I just don't know what to do??

MerryMarigold you would always make sure that part of the meal is something you know DC like, so if you know they like pasta and cheese you could serve pasta, bolagnaise (in separate dishes), cheese in a separate bowl, green beans and broccoli. All in separate dishes on the table.

Rest of family would probably take a bit of everything, someone may not like green beans so would leave them. Fussy eater takes pasta and cheese.
Nothing gets mentioned about what anyone is eating.

I would cut out the crisps, choc and sweets.

Litedinaco, but then it's not a healthy option any more. Cheese and pasta. Gold's point was that you only give healthy options so the child is not under any pressure to choose unhealthy options. Plus, OPs list was very limited so if you are sticking to only healthy options, the child is going to go hungry, or eat it. Which is what the health visitor was advocating.

Gold's point was that you only give healthy options so the child is not under any pressure to choose unhealthy options.

Please don't twist my words

What does they don't have the power to decide to eat an unhealthy diet unless you decide to provide it. What does that mean other than only giving them healthy options to choose from?

Merry

I think you're capable of understanding if you read the posts.

I've tried. I just can't see how it works in practise. I can definitely see how it may work with my non fussy eaters, but I can't see at all how it world work for my, or OPs, 'fussy' one.

I can definitely see how it may work with my non fussy eaters, but I can't see at all how it world work for my, or OPs, 'fussy' one.

That's OK. The OP can take what she considers useful from the thread, as can others.

Cheese is “healthy”. Pasta is “healthy”. To exclusion of course it is not a balanced diet, but the way to solve it is to take the pressure off whilst leaving the options on the table. The child may not choose anything other than pasta and cheese for ages, but one day may try a green bean. Once it’s their decision, rather than a requirement, it becomes easier to expand their repertoire.

In OP’s case it wouldn’t be pasta and cheese, plus extras, it would be tomato & cheese pizza, apple, then extras of other food. To begin with. For OP the issues are severe, but in the vast majority of cases it’s not quite so restrictive and you can successfully do family mealtime without pressure in the way Gold has outlined.

It is a ‘heathy option’ though, the option is pasta, bolagnaise, cheese, green beans and broccoli. So you’re not giving the option of crisps, biscuits, sweets.

That was just an example and it’s healthy as in its carbs and protein rather than sugar, for example.

It’s obviously not ideal to have a fussy eater but your alternative is to enforce eating certain foods which will create an unhealthy relationship with food for a lifetime, lasting long, long after they have stopped being ‘fussy’ and virtually impossible to undo.

Your job as the parent is to provide the healthy options, not to control what they choose to eat out of those options.

Usually, it is only a short term thing though and although lots of children do have a very limited selection of foods they will eat, most don’t and almost all will grow out of it.

Your example earlier of spag Bol ‘not being that great’ on its own just goes to show what a skewed perspective we have of food. Spag Bol is really healthy on its own- onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, etc with fats, protein and carbs.

I can definitely see how it may work with my non fussy eaters, but I can't see at all how it world work for my, or OPs, 'fussy' one.

It does work though, as it establishes a healthy, positive relationship with food-that is your aim.
It works especially well with fussy eaters as, with non-fussy eaters, although it’s important not to reward/punish food, you often don’t need to do anything, they just choose to eat most of what you provide. So you’re basically doing the same as what you would do with a non-fussy eater (giving them a selection of healthy foods and letting them eat and not stressing as you know they will eat most of it).
It’s just with a fussy eater, you often have to consciously tell yourself not to stress/worry over it and it can be really hard to let them get on with it.

Maybe re-read over the thread as other posters have explained it really well.

As an adult I have anxiety issues around food caused by my "faddy" eating as a child being badly handled. Left to my own devices I'm a good eater and cook and will try anything. As soon as I'm with people where there are "expectations" about what I'm going to eat I revert to the "faddy" child who wants to gag/vomit.

Some of the advice on this thread is marvellous. I wish mumsnet had been around 40 years ago for my parents.

I haven't read replies - I just needed to respond to the op.

Don't starve her, you may cause untold damage to your precious girl. Let her eat what she fancies for dinner, it won't harm her. She's got a lot of growing to do and needs all the energy to help her body do that.

Maybe if she has pizza daily for a whole month she will tire of it and ask for something new.

Does she have school dinners?