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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

For fussy eaters to drive me crazy?

209 replies

MrsPreston11 · 25/01/2018 13:31

Kid in my daughters class (not SEN, that I can sympathise with) is the fussiest eater ever.

To the point I won't have her over for dinner.

Just eats plain pasta, peanut butter sandwiches (has to be certain PB and certain white bread, of course) and chicken nuggets and chips but of course alllll the sweets.

I feel like every fussy kid I've know has had that as their menu.....

I just cannot get my head around it. HOW?

My only assumption is that the parent feeds them what they want for a quiet life. Unfair?

Or am I being totally unreasonable and missing something?

OP posts:
mustbemad17 · 25/01/2018 18:10

What am guessing you have no clue about fussy eaters? It's like saying kids who won't drink water are being pandered to, they'll drink it if it's all that's given. Or until they end up on a drip in a hospital bed 🙄

Lizzie48 · 25/01/2018 18:16

That's not true, What, my DD1 would rather go hungry than eat something she doesn't like. We have tried that. She has so many other issues related to being adopted that we have to play things carefully. She's already very slim, as is DD2, who is less fussy, and I'm wary of pushing her too hard and giving her an eating disorder.

Lemonnaise · 25/01/2018 18:22

I have an incredibly fussy DD but she does eat certain vegetables, most fruit and covers all the food groups

I'm sorry but that is not a fussy eater. I hate when people do this.

Alicely · 25/01/2018 18:22

Iv never met an adult who enjoyed their first cup of coffee or lemon or red wine but over time your pallet changes and develops. So long as her parent are regularly encouraging and introducing new foods I'm sure she'll grow out of it, but frustrating when you try to arrange play dates!

Chocolatesprinkledcrumpet · 25/01/2018 18:28

Actually, a few researches have shown that picky eaters are picky and keep to plain foods as their livers aren't mature yet to process more complex food that adults or even older children wouldn't think twice about. Think if someone offered you fugu fish or bitter almonds? Now add to that a lack of capability to verbalise your apprehension. One good example is a child's refusal to eat carrots/spinavch, which was the veg of choice many parents always pushed, but actually anything more than an ounce of carrot or half a portion of spinach pushes the levels of vitamin A into dangerous zones, especially for underdeveloped liver. If I had a picky eater, I wouldn't worry, rather invest into some good multivitamins (Wellkid seem very competent) and wait for about age 7-9 when the whole problem usually miraculously dissapears.

KERALA1 · 25/01/2018 18:30

I also feel abit eye rolley but know I am being unreasonable and hide it and serve up the plain pasta or whatever.

Sympathy to parents dealing with this both mine good eaters and know I would have found fussiness tough to deal with and would have got frustrated. We love food and planning, cooking eating together we do a lot as a family having someone not participating and only eating plain pasta would be abit sad.

There is something that annoys others about fussy eating. It's generally an unattractive trait that makes your life more difficult so feel sorry for them and their families

Lemonnaise · 25/01/2018 18:30

Urubu

How strange that most fussy eater only eat "treat foods" (pizza, pasta, biscuits, bread, sweets)... I mean, how big a coincidence is it

What are you talking about? My fussy eater will still eat some healthy foods, not many but some, she doesn't live on the foods on your listConfused. Getting her to eat bread is a battle by the way so your list is wrong. And I've never heard ever that pasta is a 'treat' food.

Lemonnaise · 25/01/2018 18:34

DC of fussy eaters tend to be the same parents who have dc who "won't drink water because they don't like it" 🙄 next they'll tell me precious dc isn't keen on breathing

Well there it is. The most stupid and ignorant comment on this thread.

ShastaTrinity · 25/01/2018 18:39

DC of fussy eaters tend to be the same parents who have dc who "won't drink water because they don't like it

It's not just children, I read some adults pretending they could not drink water. I mean, come on..

Urubu · 25/01/2018 18:40

Ok, I see that my comment How strange that most fussy eater only eat "treat foods" (pizza, pasta, biscuits, bread, sweets)... I mean, how big a coincidence is it might have been a bit strong.
I didn't mean all fussy eater, I meant some, and in my experience most.

Liking apples but not pears for ex is a dislike, fair enough. Declaring that you don't like a soup because it is green (experienced several times with DC's friends) is a bit strange considering all green veg don't have the same taste.

mustbemad17 · 25/01/2018 18:41

Not sure who posted that re breathing Lemonaise but i agree with your sentiment. My then 4 year old DD ended up in hospital on a bloody drip after three days of refusing water. Yeah, they'll eat/drink if pushed enough. People need to get their heads out of their asses

deadringer · 25/01/2018 18:42

A lot of genuinely ignorant people on here. As I said uptrend i was hospitalised as a child because I was so underweight. If it was a choice of eating the food I hated (all fruit, most vegetables, potatoes, most types of meat and all fish) or going without I just wouldn't have eaten, I would have starved without intervention. I am the 12th of 14 children and the only fussy one, and we were poor growing up. We didn't have pasta or pizza, very rarely had biscuits or cake, I mostly survived on cereal and bread and cheese, which I was allowed to have when I came out of hospital after a stay of several weeks. Up to that time my father insisted that I eat what I was given. Having a very limited diet is miserable, but being forced to eat food thar is literally sickening is absolutely horrific.

Urubu · 25/01/2018 18:44

Lemonnaise I class pasta as a treat food as most DC I know will choose to eat it every day if given a choice - even though their body needs a balanced diet and different types of food.
Treat food for me is 1) food that a very high percentage of the population likes 2) food that shouldn't be eaten in too high quantity if you want to maintain a balanced diet.

JassyRadlett · 25/01/2018 18:45

Parents with fussy kids, they'll soon eat once the realise there's no choice and they get hungry!

^^Person who hasn’t had the manners to read the thread before bestowing their brilliant wisdom upon us all.

We’ve currently got DS1 bumping along the bottom of a healthy weight but by god it’s hard work. We had a pair of long haul flights recently where we were in the air for 24 hours with a 12 hour layover. That’s all it took for him to drop from health to ‘Christ, has he been ill?’ And yes, he’ll go hungry rather than eat something he doesn’t regard as ok.

I’m another who knows the difference between a kid who is truly difficult with food and one who just tries it on but is fairly normal about food, tries a wide range of things and will eat a rejected food when he gets hungry. Because like many folk, I have one of each. DS2 is an ace eater most of the time. Particularly loves clams in a chili sauce.

The combination is not without its own challenges.

clumsyduck · 25/01/2018 18:46

I'm lucky ds will eat most things but the odd thing he doesn't like he can be absolutely adamant he won't eat it without even trying it ( pulling faces making the sick noise etc ! ) even though I'm fairly certain he will actually like it so it if a child has it in their head they won't like something it can be very difficult to reason.

He has a few friends who are picky eaters and so when they have been over for tea I have just checked what they will like and made something I know they will eat it's no big deal at all and nothing to do with me

Lizzie48 · 25/01/2018 18:48

Tell that to Italian people, Urubu, they eat a lot of pasta. Smile

ShastaTrinity · 25/01/2018 18:49

The refusing water is interesting. Whist again there might be a minuscule amount of children with a medical condition, most children -
and adults - will have been given a choice of drinks at some point, then and only then decided they only drank squash, or fizzy drinks.
Don't give anything else than milk or water to your kids, they won't even consider they might not like it.

Bluedoglead · 25/01/2018 18:50

My fussy eater only drinks water or milk.

Lemonnaise · 25/01/2018 18:52

I'm with you OK, just eat it, it's not going to hurt you. Parents with fussy kids, they'll soon eat once the realise there's no choice and they get hungry! Try it

OK I take it back, this is the most ignorant post on the thread. "just eat it, it's not going to hurt you"...tell that to my child who vomited over the table eating something I begged her to try.

Terramirabilis · 25/01/2018 18:52

Being forced to eat foods I didn't like has given me a permanent, visceral aversion to them to the point where just the smell of them makes me feel sick. So my parents' theory that forcing me to eat things by making me sit there however many hours it took didn't work out so well. That's why I never make my DS finish anything as long as he's had a couple of bites and I don't make him clear his plate.

JassyRadlett · 25/01/2018 18:55

Treat food for me is 1) food that a very high percentage of the population likes

Oh yes. Absolutely. Very scientifically sound. Do you also declaim mainstream music? If that many people like it, it can’t be any good. On principle.

2) food that shouldn't be eaten in too high quantity if you want to maintain a balanced diet.

AKA ‘most things’.

Most people have a middle ground in the food spectrum between ‘some (not all) vegetables’ and ‘treats’.

I think we call them ‘foods that are fine in moderation’.

Sharonthetotallyinsane · 25/01/2018 18:59

I eat pasta most days. I’m not overweight and very healthy. Hmm

JassyRadlett · 25/01/2018 18:59

The refusing water is interesting. Whist again there might be a minuscule amount of children with a medical condition, most children - and adults - will have been given a choice of drinks at some point, then and only then decided they only drank squash, or fizzy drinks.

Though of course the first choice comes when water is introduced, against the established, sweeter drink. So it’s possible the preference/aversion is established that early. I agree that other options are introduced at some point but I wouldn’t assume we know the journey to how they got there.

Disclaimer: DS1 would only drink water and milk for a very long time. The medicos looked at us like we were bonkers when they told us to give juice and we said he wouldn’t.

He was introduced to —crack— squash in A&E. Grin

JassyRadlett · 25/01/2018 19:00

Strikeout fail!

NoMoreUsernames · 25/01/2018 19:01

I'm with you OK, just eat it, it's not going to hurt you. Parents with fussy kids, they'll soon eat once the realise there's no choice and they get hungry! Try it.

No they won't, you're just not getting it. Food avoidance/restriction is an eating disorder, which often stems from medical difficulties in babyhood, some of these kids have a real fear of food and for them it will hurt them as far as they're concerned, they literally think they will die if they eat a certain food. Yes there's a scale and some are more affected than others but it's not that rare actually just not very well understood by many as this thread has shown.

Liking apples but not pears for ex is a dislike

Not necessarily, it's probably to do with texture. Mine will eat about 5 different fruits, if and only if they're very underripe. Pears are too soft generally, soft/soggy food is a real problem for many restrictive eaters.

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