Do your toddlers eat what you eat?

[ghostpop]

I'm in a bit of a rut with my two, heavy rotation of meatballs, spaghetti bolegenese, cheesy pasta, sausages and fishfingers. Oh and homemade pizza.

I know people always say "just give them what you have!" but AIBU to think it's not that simple? This week me and dh have had halloumi salad, a spicy curry, tuna steak, a morrocan chicken stew thing (which I did offer leftovers of to the kids but they didn't touch it).

We eat together at the weekend so they get introduced to stuff then but in the week I just offer what I know they will probably eat tbh.

What are your meals that you can share with your toddlers?

Mine eat mild curry and rice, salmon and rice, chicken and chips, mini roast dinner, stir fry (withoutbthe veg), fish and chips.
It is hard yes to find food everyone will enjoy. They are fed at school/nursery in the week so eat with us at the weekends.
Easter holidays are going to be a challenge!

We literally do share everything with DS (20 months) and his favourite meal is a curry and he loves stews too.

Past week's meals were:
Chilli con carne and rice, goats cheese and pesto risotto, pizza, spicy tomato and spinach spaghetti, sausages and Mediterranean veg and tonight we will be having chickpea curry.

I feel like we have a rotation too!
Shepherds pie
Bean burgers
Veggie bolegnese
Sausages and mash with veg
Chicken and leek bake
Jacket potatoes

Are our fail safes!

I go through phases of offering them things like salmon and then give up cos it's bloody expensive and just gets wasted

I try to eat the same at least 3-4 times a week but in reality it still means cooking different versions. If we have stirfry for example I’ll cook the children a simple one and then cook another with loads of chilli and garlic for me and DH. They like bland food... we don’t!

Mine are 3 and 9m, they both eat what we eat. Something like salmon I'd just take a little of each of our fillets and give to the kids and give them lots of veg

We also have a rotation, very similar stuff to you. For a start she eats earlier than us and like you the things I like she doesn’t like (spicy). I don’t worry about it at all. Your meals sound fine.
Annoyingly she eats everything at nursery but if I cook the thing she rejects it. So I made a menu board thing she chooses what she wants from a selection very like yours.
I don’t remember toddler hood but I was a terribly fussy eater up to around age 21🙈having said that, food in the 80s really was shit!

When I'm making a curry I have this thought process: "oh I'll make it very mild so then the kids can have some...oh they won't bloody try it anyway....I'll chuck ten chillis in"

halloumi salad,
fairly sure 3 year olds can eat halloumi and salad veg?

a spicy curry,
Just make a mild curry, server there's, then add the spice for you and DH

Tuna steak,
Again, fairly sure you could have given a toddler some if your tuna to eat

a morrocan chicken stew
Not sure why a child can't eat chicken stew....

My DD eats some of same things:
Sausage and mash
Lasagne
Spaghetti
Fish cakes
Shepherds pie
Chicken and gravy with mash
Chicken in a creamy mushroom sauce
Roast dinner
Pasta bake
Meatballs
At weekends we’ve tried her with fajitas (without the spice) and a few other things.
I send my DD her meals to eat at childminder so I do a mixture of what we eat along with a few bulk meals made every so often and put in the freezer.
Your and DHs food sounds much more interesting than our mid week meals though!

Dd eats what I eat and long may it last such a relief

She’d eat your weekend list, but doesn’t have sausages, pizza and fishfingers

Yep our toddler and baby probably eat 90% of what we do. I'm all for no faff, preparing one dinner is much easier. As other posters say, if you want spicy, dish theirs up and add the spice afterwards.

Following. We're struggling with dinners.
He used to eat everything and now it feels like he eats nothing.
So I'm constantly thinking "do I give him our food and let him go hungry or feed him something he will definitely eat"
🙄

I've always just made curry and chilli con carne as normal with quite a bit of spice and mydd eats it happily. Just start off a little bit less and add a bit each time.

My dd eats what we eat 99% of the time: this week

Chicken madras
Chinese curry
Chilli con carne
Full roast dinner
Enchilladas
Fajitas

DS is 2.5 and on similar rotation to yours at home (except ours is fish fingers, sausages, omelette, chicken pieces, pizza, plain pasta)

He pretty much won't touch anything with sauce which makes it hard to share meals. He won't eat salmon which is a shame, and isn't keen on beef.

Weekends are ok as we eat breakfast together, might go out for lunch on Saturday then we are trying to do a Sunday roast all together.

Hopefully it'll get easier as he gets older! By all accounts he tries most stuff at nursery!

*halloumi salad,
fairly sure 3 year olds can eat halloumi and salad veg?

a spicy curry,
Just make a mild curry, server there's, then add the spice for you and DH

Tuna steak,
Again, fairly sure you could have given a toddler some if your tuna to eat

a morrocan chicken stew
Not sure why a child can't eat chicken stew....*

I offered them the stew.
I guess part of the problem is we eat separately in the week as dh gets back late, heated up tuna steak is a bit rank.
Don't people normally put chilli in at the beginning of the curry?! I suppose I could put it in at the end.

A typical day is

Porridge or eggs

Lunch stuff like: Salmon / white fish / roasted vegetables / potatoes / courgette / tuna / cheese / raspberries

Dinner: stew / Bolognese / roast chicken / whatever big meal we’re having

We have the same thing about 50% of the time, but it's more down to timing than DD (2) not liking what we're have.

Often we go out in the afternoon and get home at 5. She needs to eat at half 5 so has leftovers or something from freezer that I've batch cooked earlier, with pasta or rice. That means it only takes 15 minutes to make with minimal effort so I can keep her entertained. When DH gets home I then have time to make us a "proper" dinner to eat after she goes to bed.

We all eat together so they get roughly what we're eating, although I normally put at least one thing I know the 1 year old likes on the plate (lots of her meals come with carrots!!). If we're having something spicy I serve hers before I add spice, the 7yo has the same as us now. 1yo doesn't like everything we do but she'll give most things a go, and if not there's always fruit and sometimes a biscuit afterwards, so I don't worry.

DS eats with the childminder 4 days a week. The weekday he is home he eats at 5 so has something for him.
At the weekend we all eat together at 6. We all have the same abd he eats what he will of it

We're probably about 50/50. On nights where we get home late from nursery and it needs to be quick and something I know they'll eat, it's something kid friendly. So that's 3 nights. Other nights I try to choose things we can all eat. So over the next few nights it's cottage pie, chilli and probably a roast. I'm currently contemplating whether to try them with paella but not sure they'll go for it. Will experiment. If they refuse something I always have something like beans on toast for standby.

Mine did until about two, would eat anything at all. Then almost overnight he started to reject everything and now lives on bread and fruit and peas.

I’ve always loved cooking & trying different flavours etc, and have really encouraged DD (nearly 2) to do the same.

However, she mainly just eats bloody pasta for dinner!

I cook varied things for us all, and we all eat together at the table. She usually helps me prepare dinner too (chopping / peeling etc).

She will often just have a few mouthfuls or whatever it is (unless it’s pasta of some kind!) and then say ‘no! No more’ and push it away. I find it so frustrating, and have to try so hard not to be annoyed and make a big thing of it.

Mine did until about two, would eat anything at all. Then almost overnight he started to reject everything and now lives on bread and fruit and peas

Ha finally my people have joined the thread

Generally toddler eats what we do, from your list he'd eat everything except the salad bit of halloumi salad (won't est lettuce/raw toms). On days he's at nursery and eats without us we often have something he's not a massive fan of e g salad or stirfry. I sometimes serve slight variations on a meal for him, so if we're having broccoli, I'll put a bit on his plate but also peas/green beans etc so I know some veg will get eaten (and hope that one day he'll eat a bit of broccoli...!)