Help! Fussy eater child - me and dad in disagreement

[Ifyoudontlaughyouwillcry]

This is the first time I’ve asked for advice, so your help would really be appreciated.

My son aged 6 is a very fussy eater. Background - was weaned to perfection, he had at least 8 fruit and vegetables a day - ate meat and fish. Never a problem. As soon as he started feeding himself all that changed. We are now at the stage that he will only eat the following:
Weetabix, Nutella on toast, yoghurt
jam sandwiches,
sausage and chips (definitely not mash or potatoes),
Spaghetti bog,
Jacket potato with beans
If we have a Sunday lunch he will only eat chicken and jam, with carrots and Yorkshire’s pudding.
Fruit is strawberries and pears.
Obviously he’s happy to have the odd sweets and crisps.
He point blank refuses anything else. We’ve gone with this, however it has come to ahead as due to Covid school dinners are reduced and basically he won’t touch any of it. We’ve held firm as basically I don’t want to send him 8n with a jam buttie, cake, fruit and crisps. It’s just a sugar lunch. He won’t eat any veg that’s put in his lunchbox. SCHool are aware and are trying to encourage him. This issue is I’m starting to cave in re the pack lunch but my husband wants to hold firm. He’s fairly easy going but he’s really worried about his diet - this all comes from a good place and we rarely disagree.
I’m starting to think we are over worrying about it. Would I be unreasonable to just let him have the pack lunch?
For info: he’s a normal kids, slim but tall, full of beans and doing very well at school.
Any help/advice is much appreciated.

@hereyehearye

I don't think his diet sounds terrible except for the jam sandwiches. Please don't send him to school with a jam sandwich. It's a terrible lunch. Everything else is fine to me but the jam sandwich. I would work on creating an alternative sandwich like a chicken sandwich or even cold chicken if he'll eat it.

And it does matter. Nutrition matters. Please don't give up. He may be doing well at school now but it's his development that will be affected by such a terrible diet and you won't know the damage is done until it's too late. Please do the best by your son by feeding him healthy and nutritious foods.

Slightly OTT over a jam sandwich

My 11 year old has always had a poor diet. He has the same lunchbox every day.
Wrap with sandwich chicken (no butter)
2 mini scotch eggs
2 mini sausage rolls
Bag of mini cheddars
Muesli bar
Pot of carrot sticks
Juice box

The only thing that always gets eaten is the scotch eggs/sausage rolls. He likes the other things but what he actually eats depends on the rotation of the sun, I think.

His diet isn’t great full stop (he eats raw carrots and raw peppers, apples and strawberries. That’s it fruit and veg wise) so I keep all of those things and try to make sure he has at least one item a day. He is very tall and ridiculously slim, but spends his time playing outside, cycling etc. He’s seen a dietician and they weren’t bothered as he’s clearly growing. He has NO will power when it comes to sweet stuff and we keep it in a lockable food safe so he can’t just gorge on crap.

What I’m trying to say is pick your battles where you need to. Lunch is the one meal of the day I just don’t stress over. He takes what works- there’s so much else going on at school I’m not adding to his stress or making him hungry as that won’t help his (already sketchy) concentration.

The other 2 meals a day, I try to make a bit more balanced but it doesn’t always pan out. We have a rule that if he doesn’t eat his tea he can have weetabix, plain toast or fruit. For mine, it’s very sensory. Part of his fussiness is around texture and also food sounds- he hates eating with others! It’s taken him literal YEARS to verbalise this though. It’s worth seeing if you can get him to describe why he doesn’t like some foods... We didn’t realise mine liked pepper until he said he didn’t because they were slimy and we worked out he’d never tried them raw because he didn’t like them cooked. Fist bump of solidarity for you. It’s hard!

Thank you Unicornpug x

I would send a pack lunch with a mix of things you know he will eat pluss other foods to make it balenced. If he spag bowl try adding different veg. Perhaps adding lentils to the bolognaise. Shop with him, can he choose a veg he wants to try or a new fruit? Look at recipe books, can he find so,mething he wants to cook. He doesn,t mean he will eat it but it,s a start.

You could try a ‘science experiment’ with him on a Saturday

Tell him you need to work as a team and find some more foods that he likes or can tolerate for his lunches. Get him to brainstorm some ideas and then add some more of your own. Make a big list. Make it a collaborative effort, make it silly and a fun game, maybe include DH and see if he will try some things he traditionally hasnt liked.

Get him to draw up a chart with the food options down the side and columns with delicious, acceptable, bearable, not very nice and absolutely disgusting.

Then make a tasting portion of each food and give him the chart. He needs to take two small bites of each food and then rank it. You dont get to see the results until he has finished. He doesnt get to see what food is what until he has finished.

He might surprise himself and you

I did this with my dc when we were in a rut and they found they liked tuna sandwiches with sweetcorn, one preferred butter, one no spread at all. If you find a couple of things he likes, you can always try riffing on that to expand things. Like my butter loving dc will eat almost any sandwich filling if there is a thick spread of butter on the bread, my butter hating dc is the opposite. Both of them will refuse to eat bread with any ‘bits’ in it.

Some great tips on this thread, especially dont make a fuss.
Im going to add to that - dont make a fuss either way.
So if you offer him something it can be like 'mm i love fish, hey wanna try some?'
He says no, you say 'thats okay, hows your xx'
He says yes you go 'okay here you go' and then ideally give him space to tell you what he thinks, if he doesnt say anything you can go 'hey, what did you think about the fish?' (Rather than 'did you like it?' Which is a yes/no question) crucially, do not all sit there in silence watching him eat the fish - take the focus off him onto something else.
If he says 'nope, gross' a chilled response is best 'thats okay!' And then change the focus off him onto you or someone else.
If he says 'it was okay' again, a chilled response like 'oh cool, you want a bit more?' And then again, take the focus off.

I am a former fussy eater and 90% of the fussy eaters i know were worse because of parents making a huge fuss either way, whether they tried something or not, whether they liked it or not. Too much pressure! All of them only got better when they were away from the pressure of the dinner table, where they could try stuff without judgement.

I am also a texture person - chopping stuff up finely can works wonders!