To just not give my 7 year old dinner?

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Tl;dr - my son doesn’t care about eating and won’t eat anything new. Help!

I have a son who is a really fussy eater. He's always been the same. He just wants to eat pizza or breaded chicken, or cereal.

He was like this from a really young age. People used to say that he'll eat when he's hungry, but he never seemed to give a shit! He's always been happy to go without a meal, it's like he totally unarsed about eating! He also rarely snacks, and he's equally as fussy about sweet food!

We've tried all the usual things - reward charts, giving him choices, letting him watching tv while he eats, tried being firm with him, being super relaxed about it, but nothing works! He basically decides he doesn’t want to eat it even before he’s tried it. So when he does eat it he just regurgitates it tries one small piece and says he hates it. So he just goes without, which he’s more than happy with.

So now, I’m just giving him whatever he’s very unfussy brother has for dinner. Today was pasta in cheese sauce and peas, he tried one piece as usual, then says he doesn’t like it. So I’ve said nothing else at all then, which is fine with.

Thing is, he can’t just keep missing dinner, which is what is basically going to happen. How can we get past this?

For ref, on a normal day;
1 or 2 bowls of wheatabix or shreddies with full cream milk
Lunch- either marmite sarnies if packed lunch, or small pizza or chicken burger if at home
Dinner- chicken burger or small pizza (depending on what he had for lunch)

An occasional apple or biscuit for a snack.

FYI - no SEN or anything

What can we do? Or what type or professional can we see about this? So at a loss 😩

Basically you are feeding him chicken nuggets or pizza every day. Stop doing this. Pizza once a week and chicken nuggets twice. Also if you fill him up with two bowls of weetabix he won't be hungry at lunch time. One bowl of either Weetabix or Shreddies, if he is still hungry just fruit. Just offer him normal meals at each meal and he chooses to eat it or not. If you have not filled him with cereal he will be hungry so more likely to eat it. My niece was like this but when my sister was ill she stayed with me and in two weeks she was eating normal meals at every mealtime. A child will not starve themselves. Sorry to say this but you have made child like this by accommodating them OP.

My BIL ate virtually nothing but rice krispies and oven for about a year and a half as a child. MIL said she tried everything. He was deemed healthy though and the doctor said it was better that he ate something rather than nothing.

As an adult he eats everything bar sweetcorn. I'd feed him what he wants rather than power struggle over food.

There are ways to sneak extra nutrients in, via pizza source and even sweet chewy vitamins tablets

He could have sen. One doesn't know really....

I dislike the don't feed him approach...

Best thing is to have more of a selection of foods presented in different ways, eg caterpillar cucumber with teeny slivers of carrot... Along with selection like tapas...

Rather than one big meal...

Everyone takes pics.. Don't ask him too... Be OK if he doesn't try new stuff.. Don't turn into battle...

Play, doc said something similar to me once...

Also some dc will get used to eating very little and will starve themselves!!

I’d work from where you are now by serving what he will eat and going with the gradual introduction of something new - ie his usual meal with a head of broccoli or a couple of peas. Add the broccoli to each main meal for a week or two then change over to serving usual favourite meal but with the peas. When these two new additions are (hopefully familiar and unthreatening) introduce another new food and slowly try to build up his menu of ok stuff to eat.

My DD and DGD as well as one of my DBs had very limited diets but all grew out of it with age. My DB ate chips, chocolate biscuits and orange squash for over a year apparantly as a small child. He has a very varied and healthy diet as an adult though. PayIng minimal attention to his eating and appearing as unfussed as possible (soooo hard to do, I know) is absolutely the best approach. As long as his growth and health are ok I’d not worry and just go gently, with neither praise nor disapproval over trying/not trying things until he hopefully grows out of it.

God yes to Hellofresh!
DS2 was a bit of a nightmare growing up but he absolutely loved getting those boxes and helping to cook the meals. I don't know whether its the excitement of unpacking everything or the colourful instructions but he was eating bulgar wheat, kecap manis, allsorts! who knew!!
Shame its so fecking expensive.

OP my DD has always been a bit fussy, although not as bad as your DS. But it definitely got a lot better from 9-10 upwards - she will now eat tomatoes, olives, mushrooms and avocado for example, previously considered foods of the devil!

It gets better.

I have a ten year old ds who used to be painfully fussy - he is still limited but 2 things made a big difference for us. First we started talking about what different foods actually do for you. Eg porridge is like a warrior that fights bad guys (cholesterol) in your body. Or meat has protein that makes muscles. Lettuce has fibre that helps you poop and water to keep your brain working. Fish helps your eyes etc

Secondly we started growing food and discovered that ds will try almost anything if he has seen it grow from seed. Through this he discovered that he liked strawberries and corn (win!).

He’s also more likely to try something or eat something if we aren’t looking. So praise is not helpful for him, rather we just say something like “oh you ate the fish, you’ll be amazing at maths tomorrow”.

You have my sympathies. It’s exhausting.

My stepdaughter eats a very small range of food (quorn or chicken nuggets, boiled potatoes, chips, baked potato with beans, sausages, fish fingers, sweetcorn, cucumber, apples, bananas, yoghurt). I think there's probably enough there to cover most nutritional needs but it is SO limiting. Unlike your child OP she will eat most sweet things. I have improved her diet i think by mostly giving her the healthier things from her list. We have tried to encourage her to eat different foods but it can be exhausting. Her weight is a concern, we don't offer her any 'bad' snacks at all and she never complains. She lives with us 50% though and her diet is pretty bad when she's with her mum.

What has helped though, is doing a 5 a day challenge where we all 'compete' to get at least 5 a day. She's the same age as your son OP, don't know if that idea would help you.

Caringcarer- I totally understand what you're saying about the two bowls of cereal. We don't always give him this, only really if he's eaten well the day before, but sometimes I like the fact he's eating something!

The whole "they'll eat if they're hungry thing" is not as simple as that though, as many others in this thread have pointed out. He really won't eat if I deny him meals! He genuinely doesn't care, in fact I think he sees it as a bonus!! He will eat cereal the next morning (only one bowl if he's not eaten the day before) and be happy as anything after that.
He's gone without dinner entirely tonight as he didn't eat the pasta I gave him, and he's been running around and laughing downstairs, loving life! It's like he doesn't need or care about food.

I actually think it could well be a sensory thing, especially after reading what so many others of you have said.

And we're defo going to do the introducing-things-slowly approach loads of you have suggested. Keep things largely as they are, but start giving him potatoes/veg etc with his dinners as and we can.

Thank you all so much for your advise, it's been really useful and greatly reassuring 🙂

Caringcarer
Are you seriously suggesting op gets her ds to live predominantly off just shreddies? Not all children respond to this. It depends on the reason.

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Don’t worry. You’re doing fine. Broccoli and peas are good. My dd lived on eggs and nuggets. She ate spaghetti bolognese as a toddler, went off it. Then ate it again so that was 3 meals. At that age I made the sauce with lots of veg - 500g mince, courgette, onion, carrot then blended to a purée. I still dice it super small now. Then slowly slowly I added in sausages to try and so on. Only adding something new to try every couple of months, making sure it would be on a good day, not tired etc.

Over the past 18 months her repertoire has expanded more and more. Remember she’s just turned 11 so that was only from 9 1/2. She’s not eating olives and suschi. But will eat a range of composite meals, fajitas. She loves chickens tikka masala. That could be one to try because it’s sweet. We introduced this by going to an all you can eat Indian place, which also provides pizza when she was around your ds’s age and went with friends the first time, whose ds knew the place and like ctm.

This is/was my son. He is now 19 and at University. He was totally disinterested in food. I use to get all the idiots saying 'he'll eat when he's hungry' but he just didn't so if he was served something he didn't like he just didn't eat it and actually ended up fainting at school and had to be taken to hospital.

I would ask him what he'd eaten at school and then he'd say pasta, sauce and strawberry mousse. He's come home and I'd givehim a bagel with cream cheese (which he liked) but he'd take a few bites and then say he wasn't really hungry and intimated he'd had a big lunch.

After the fainting incident I got the school to do a food diary and it turned out when he said he'd had past, sauce and strawberry mousse what he'd actually had was one pasta shell with a smear of sauce and a half teaspoon of strawberry mousse. No wonder he fainted he basically wasn't eating anything!

Eventually for a whole year when he was 7 he had sausage, pasta and sweetcorn for every evening meal. Eventually even he got bored and as a result I managed to introduce chicken and some new vegetables and found a recipe for pasta bolognese that he liked.

Anyway as I said he's now 19 is the healthiest person I know. He never had a day off school sick in 14 years, has loads of energy and no health issues at all. Now he's at Uni and mixing with new people I think he does try new things. He's very sociable so if everyone is going for a meal he'll go and will always find something on the menu. He doesn't make a fuss and like your son he just isn't interested in food.

Oh I forgot 2 tins of tomato on the spag Bol - makes it quite sweet.

I'm 40 years in and am having hypnotherapy for food aversions. I physically gag when I eat foods I think I don't like. What I'm saying is that it might not be that he's fussy, it might be texture.

I do wish my parents had sorted it out earlier though and I my two are treated more strictly than I ever was.

He will grow out of it to some degree.
Don't make mealtimes a battle.
DD and DSD are like this to a large extent. Tbh, I make them what they like to eat. DSD is older (20's) and ate a very restricted diet as a child. Millions of percent better now.
DD still rather restricted but gradually getting better - she's 12.
Both girls are healthy and acceptable weights..
As long as they are getting enough calories and broadly healthy I would say don't stress too much.

I suspect both girls may be supertasters and the texture of food is a big deal.
They both prefer dry, crunchy foods and carbs above all else.

Re-read all these through this morning- it's been so helpful. As I said, my son had no dinner at all last night, didn't care at all, In fact was pretty jubilant about being able to miss a meal, but now he has terrible stomach cramps and has been sick, so I suspect that why! Defo not letting him do that again...

@IHateUncleJamie - who do you see to get your child diagnosed as a super taster? I defo think we'll get him assessed for sensory issues. Is it an occupational therapist you need to see, or someone else?

Thanks again all x

I pretty much lived on baked beans as a child - my sibs would have pasta and sauce, or curry and rice. I’d have pasta and beans or rice and beans. No sensory issues, although I did hate the texture of overcooked veg. When I turned 10 I wanted to become vegetarian and my DM said fine, but you have to learn to eat vegetables. So I did.

You’re doing fine, he’ll be fine and will grow out of it. I eat absolutely everything now, except meat - stuck to being a vegetarian. I still like baked beans

I don't understand.. why aren't you just feeding him what he likes to eat? Stop stressing about it.

Look up Division of Responsibility. It's very appropriate for managing fussy eaters/sensory food issues. (It's not a behaviour system just a way of offering different foods)

One author on this problem suggested parents imagine someone was asking them to eat mud, so they could feel more of what it might be like for their child, who doesn't experience new foods as tasty and appealing. You sound like are on the right lines

How about make your own pizza.. every now and again put a few new topping on the table, tell him he can try a little but of each and the ones he does like he can out on his pizza.

He'll find it fun and it will introduce him to new flavours.

My nephew was like this until he went to university....now he eats really well and wide ranging. Met him for dinner the other night and he suggested Persian.

The mistake my sister says she made was letting it effect what the whole family ate. She wishes she’d just left him to his margarita pizza every night.

I was the same, ate nothing but custard and white bread ham sandwiches for years. Mum just ignored me . I got over it.

I would also get him tested for food intolerance - the 2 dc of different friends who were super fussy turned out to have allergies - Imo their fussiness poss comes from a negative association to food due to pain caused by allergens in food.