To be sick to death of cooking....!

[WhenLifeGivesYouLemonsx]

Cooking homemade meals from scratch and my toddler just doesn't want to eat it!

I cook everything from scratch, like chicken goujons, lasagna, creamy pasta bake, shepherds pie, etc. as I like to follow a strict budget if possible so I only use premade if I am short on time or if I am ill/had a long day at work.

For some months now, my DS2 just downright refuses to eat anything. We have dinner around 6PM. We (my husband, me and my son) all eat together and he eats on a big plate like we do and very rarely he will pick stuff of it.

He won't eat it if it is shepherds pie, lasagna, cow boy hash, fish, or any vegetables unless they're peas! However he does eat oven cooked chips, chicken, lamb grill steaks... anything that we have from the oven basically!

When I was as young as he was, if I didn't eat what was there then I'd go to bed hungry. That's what I feel like I'm doing to him! If he doesn't eat it then that's his loss as I'm not going to cook something crap from the freezer cos it means he knows he'll get what he wants.

Typical meal plan :

Breakfast: 7:30AM
Porridge with chopped bananas and some jam

Snack: 10AM
A rice cracker

Lunch: 12PM
Turkey sandwich, mini cheddars, cheese cubes and a yogurt

Snack: 2.30PM
Pear and some strawberries

Dinner: 6-7PM
Anything homemade which he barely touches

Do I keep preserving or am I feeling him too much during the day? I'm worried about him not eating enough he is already skinny as it is! He drinks a cup of semi skimmed at night time before he goes to bed and sometimes after his morning snack if he wants to have a nap.

Give him his dinner earlier and let him have his tea while you are having dinner.
As long as he has a dinner i wouldnt worry what time its at.

I agree, it's too late for dinner and he's probably tired. Can you move it forward slowly?

I tend to feed my youngest (4 & 6) at about 4.30pm and then my older two and Hubbie eat about 5.15pm.

I note you say a big plate. Ours all eat off a (largish) side plate still. Just an idea but it looks less daunting.

I'd also say it's late to eat. And do not go down the road of cooking something else. Just persevere with no comment. He won't starve.

One of my kids didn't eat after about 2pm til he was about 7.

It wasn't so much what the food was, but when it was served.

From age 2 til 6 he settled into having porridge and fruit for breakfast at about 6:30am, a hobbit style second breakfast of a sandwich and fruit and yogurt at about 9:30am (packed to take and eat at kindergarten and in the break at school as he got older) and a coked lunch.

He wouldn't eat again til the next day even though he sat with the family for an evening meal at 6pm.

It was probably quite a healthy way to live actually, and by age 6 he was very fit and playing a ridiculous amount of sport, hours and hours per day, still without eating dinner even though it was always put in front of him... Something of a pity he now eats like a very typical 12 year old and is less active.

Another of my kids couldn't stomach food before midday and is still the same at 14.

Could you look at timings? He's having his big meal very late, at 12 hours after breakfast - perhaps he isn't hungery in the evening and should have his cooked meal at lunch.

Well, I have a one year old and the advice is that toddlers should be offered snacks between meals. My daughter doesn't always want a snack and I don't force it if she doesn't, but to those doubting whether snacks should be offered the current advice is that they should be, and the NHS page on feeding toddlers sets out a list of suggestions of snacks that are suitable for toddlers to have.

My daughter also picks at her evening meal (she's one) and actually come to think of it she does eat much more consistently at lunchtime so perhaps she just wants her big meal then!

Thank you all so much for your input! Really appreciate the responses. I will be giving his main meal around lunch time, then a small meal / snack at dinner time. I think that'll be better as at lunch that is when he is usually ravenous.

Agree the main meal is very late, I would have thought he would be in bed by 7 pm.

@crimsonlake I wish lol. He used to go bed between 6-7pm when he was 1, but since he hit 2, he doesn't go bed till late because he doesn't fall asleep/keeps getting up. But today he will have his main meal around lunch time so I know that way he has eaten proper food for the day. I will let you all know how it goes :o)

There is a scientifically proven inverse relationship between effort taken to likelihood of being eaten by a child.hand nobody told you this?
Also get tiny pots and freeze stuff bung it in the microwave. That was you don’t have to eat bland pasta too.

Oops sorry.posted too soon. Too much fucks are given on mumsnet about family meals imho. So long as he’s getting a rough array of food groups at this age don’t worry!

Really don't worry!! He's doing fine IME! I have 3 very different sorts of eaters- all doing brilliantly healthwise and are not deficient nor have weight issues.

The more pressure you put on yourself to 'get it right', the bigger the issue becomes.

Offer a good assortment of food throughout the day and one day he will sit and eat and enjoy an evening meal. With my eldest, this was pretty much from being a baby, my second from about aged 8 and my youngest could not give 2 hoots about meals (aged 6) and would much rather pick and snack. (Buffets are his idea of heaven- Christmas was a dream for him!)

Admittedly I haven’t read the whole thread, but my toddlers issues came to mind when I read your first post. He was very slow onto finger foods and had an incredible gag reflex which meant until he was about a year he would only have purées (he would want other foods but would be sick when he tried to swallow).

Anyway, now he is 15 months and he loves finger foods but he still can’t handle lumpy foods. He will try them but then choke when he tried to swallow - even though he can bite off a bit of food, chew and swallow just fine. I’m not 100% sure why that is, perhaps a sensory thing.

So at the moment he tends to have to have either smooth soups/purees or finger foods but he can’t have anything lumpy. Which means if I do a cottage pie for us, he will still have it but I have to whip a hand blender over it to make it more manageable for him (and then he goes mad for it!). It may sound gross to us, and I know you LO is a bit older but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth investigating?

Also, I would say that his last meal is a little bit late but not massively so. Maybe 5-5:30 would be better but it’s not like your eating at 8!

And snack wise, they aren’t particularly stodgy or high calorie so I would say that’s fine. Little ones at that age are very good at self regulating, so unless your feeding him lots of crisps and choc I would say your fine. They need the snacks as their little bellies don’t hold much at any one time and they expend a lot of energy running around like headless chickens all the time!

All my four were rubbish with eating dinner until well into junior school: basically I made it, they ate it or they didn't, they had some yoghurt or fruit and that was it.

They are all well grown, healthy eating, unfussy people now. As long as their other meals are fine I wouldn't worry.

Why are you not giving full fat milk though?

At that age the recommendation is full fat milk, not semi skimmed. Dairy fats are good for toddlers, our health visitor said to me “cheese is great for toddlers, even though adults need to be careful how much they eat”.

I agree dinner too late, mine eat huge breakfast and lunch and more of a snacking tea. Also they need full fat cows milk twice or three times a day.

I just asked DDs to try a few mouthfuls of what I'd made, give lots of praise when they did (and eventually sticker charts when they were old enough) and then gave them bread and butter when they were being fussy. Also does he enjoy feeding himself? Might he like things he can dip and nibble at? The main thing is for mealtimes not to turn into a battleground.

I'd cut out the snacks, no need and as previous posters have said adjust mealtimes accordingly if possible. Carry on with the homecooked foods as you are, you're doing a great job, don't forget to freeze extra portions to make life easier. My DC are 8 and 9 and have only ever had home cooked from scratch meals at home, bar pasta and pizza, which is what they have when they have playdates. They're excellent eaters but I've been lucky that they're not fussy at all.