To let my 2 year old go to bed with no dinner?

[LittleMG]

My little boy will hardly eat any foods that are not cake and chocolate. Tonight I tried to give him a pasta and sauce type dinner and he’s having non of it. He’s is very even tempered and hardly ever has tantrums but he is really digging his heels on and will not eat it. He want a fruit pot (healthy but does this just show him he can pick and choose what he eats??)

I’m trying to be strong my family have told me he’ll eat when he’s hungry but he’s hardly had anything for lunch and I know he’s hungry 😢

I’ve just put him in the bath and he’s stopped crying and is playing. I’m sitting here I could cry I don’t know what to do I want to do right for my son.

Please can I have some advice x

I don't let my 2 year old go to bed hungry but he is autistic and has limited food choices. If he doesn't eat dinner we try a bowl of porridge before bed or a slice of toast with his milk. I wouldnt do an exciting snack but something filling otherwise he will wake hungry and upset.

I have a 16 mo with an equally strong personality (takes after me). I offer fruit with the meal and have no limits to either. Sometimes he’ll eat a whole packet of strawberries and not touch his dinner. Other times he’ll have 3 helpings of dinner and not touch the fruit. I only say no when he wants the pastries / ice cream - we only have those once a week

Give him realistic expectations and realistic consequences. E.g it is not realistic to expect him to eat all the pasta if he is rejecting it. Three spoonfuls is a compromise. Give him the choice; if he has three spoonfuls he can have a dessert of his choosing. If he doesn't don't make a big deal, he can have an apple or some other not particularly appealing fruit instead. Let him choose and follow through with the consequence. Don't throw away the pasta until after he goes to bed incase he changes his mind when he sees you are following through with his choices and wants to give it another go. Don't let meals become emotionally charged. He has the choices, he will make his own decision, just keep calm and follow through on the expectations

I would offer supper if he won't eat dinner but something boring like banana on toast and a cup of milk, porridge and fruit etc. Thats whay i used to do with my extra fussy first dc! Try not to let your stress show when he won't eat (believe me i know how tough this is to do) then calmly take it away saying 'oh not hungry that's okay' after making sure he is finished. One day he will eat it and you will find out what he likes as he further develops his tastes. Dc1 hated pasta at 2 but at 4 it is his favourite dinner. He has always been a eat to survive kind of child and i used to be at my wits end worrying but it got better op. It will get better, this is a phase.

I have four young children and I use bribery shamelessly OP, if I'm truly determined they have a bit of something. They all love cheese and fruit.. So a bite of pasta, then a bit of cheese or fruit and repeat, repeat.

If it makes you feel any better, my eldest would hardly eat anything until he turned about 7. Evenings when he was tired were the absolute worst and he would not try anything and I often had to resort to fruit and yogurt, toast or porridge just so he ate something. I used to feel so guilty and worried constantly about him getting enough nutrients and becoming poorly. He is now a strapping 15 year old who barely stops to see what he is shovelling into his mouth.

My dd, who would eat absolutely anything when she was small, is a different story.

Your ds will be absolutely fine.

@LittleMG
When my dd was that age she went through a faze and wouldn’t eat her sandwich at lunchtime, she wanted crisps. I took the crisps out the packet, cut the sandwich into squares/fingers and put in the empty packet, then produced the ‘crisps’ to her. She ate all of it every day and not a crisp in sight 😁.
Could you do something similar with pasta in a fruit pot container? Or something similar like that?
Also agree with pp about cooking with them and them choosing from supermarket - huge difference

A previous poster mentioned kids eat in colour. I have found that and my fussy eater to be excellent resources. Main things I have found to help are

Always give at least one safe (savoury) food included in dinner.
No pressure to eat any or all of it. Avoid just try a bite, or you can get down if you eat 3 spoonfuls as it gives them attentionand allows a battle. However as you know there is food they eat on the plate, there is no alternative at the time. Eat dinner or don't, their choice.
Don't use pudding as a bargaining chip. If you are having it with that meal, serve it regardless of how much main course they ate.
Keep adding new or yuk foods to their plate to continue exposure. If they say they don't like it and it goes away forever, they will never have a chance to change. Again, don't ask them to try it or mention it, just treat it as decoration.

At about 1.5, both my kids became extremely fussy, literally a handful of foods they would eat. But just keep calmly trying and offer balanced meals even if they are the same one a lot. Even wheetabix with whole milk and a piece of fruit has fibre and vitamins! Most kids come out the other side.

@Sidesaladofchips you are doing exactly the same. It really works. Variety it's the key. Ours it's 15 now but he still eats plates with bits just bigger bits 🤣

"The food our children eat" by Joanna Blythman is a great book with lots of strategies

If he was hungry he'd have eaten

I think you need to hold out because he's testing boundaries with you.

Give in and this will continue to be a problem. I know a little girl who mostly lives off sweets and she's on special medication because she can't poo...

You think your being mean to him, but you will be doing him more harm letting him pick a choose.

When mine was that age, if she didn’t eat her tea she could eat fruit instead. Don’t make food a battle, that’s unhealthy.

So what does he eat?

"Will hardly eat anything that's not chocolate and cake" is either unrealistic or exaggerated. I mean a parent that's considering leaving a kid hungry overnight is not providing cake and chocolate on demand are they?

Work with the foods he does like and build up on them. Accept that some things he will really not like and that's ok too. You don't have to make separate gourmet meals for him, but offer something. Toast, cereal,porridge ,fruit. Don't make it into a battle. Try some and if he doesn't like it move on. I mean he's 2, how much waste can there be really?

DD was ridiculously fussy, for a while she stopped eating completely and I had to reintroduce everything, including toast. The bloody kick in the nuts? She was never particularly hungry either. She was 3 and a bit when she finally liked pancakes , so it's not that she only wanted sweet /nice stuff either. Now she's 10 and she still abhors anything with tomato sauce in it.

When DD was going through that ‘stage’, I put her dinner/pudding on the same plate with a breadstick down the middle. MIL was bemused, DH was wtf....my answer was ‘it’s all going in the same place anyway’. She’d eat what she wanted, yes mostly the yoghurt or rice pudding first, but she’d always eat some dinner too. I never said a word, ever.
Please be assured that at 17, she doesn’t need it anymore.

I wouldnt give in and give cake.

Id switch meals around so offer something new for lunch and a sandwich for dinner.

My ds is 3, and has nights when he wolfs his dinner and nights where he doesnt want to touch it. I just say to him, you don't have to eat it, but there won't be anything else. And we all sit at the table and eat together, so usually he gets bored of trying it on and eats a bit. If he's genuinely still hungry later he can have cereal or toast or fruit. I wouldn't send him to bed hungry, but equally I don't want him getting the idea that if he kicks up a fuss he can skip dinner and just have pudding (not that we have that a lot here tbh.)

Just feed him. But explain to him what different foods do. Toast is fine it stops you feeling hungry but cheese makes your bones strong and vegetables keep you really healthy and give you energy to play etc. Then let him choose what he wants from the food groups. Toast and a home made banana milkshake would be fine. Or toast and peanut butter with a sliced apple or carrot sticks. Give him some information about why we eat different things and then give him apparent control so he can choose between two options that work for you.

My younger brother would only eat plain pasta with butter for a very long time and my Mum just let him eat that because it was easier than having him tantrum for hours. He’s 22 now and absolutely fine, eats all sorts. Main point being, they do grow out of the weird fussy stage! Glad you gave him some toast.

It's so hard, but try not to stress out over food as kids pick up on it, and become tense themselves which in turn kills their appetite.

Mine were incredibly fussy. What worked for me was never insisting they eat something they hated. A taste was fine. Food in serving dishes rather than plated up for them to serve also worked, as did keeping some foods special for grown ups only. As soon as they think they can't have it they want it. I'd begrudgingly give them a tiny portion insisting that they weren't really grown up enough. That's how I got away with salad in sandwiches which was a very good way of getting greens into them.

Also from about 5 I taught them about nutrition. My milk hating dc now drinks milk as they want strong bones when they are old. They understand about vitamins and minerals, which ones are in which foods and why we need them. Kids are inquisitive they like to know why. I can remember being made to eat things I didn't like as a child. I kept asking why and 'Because they're good for you' wasn't helpful. Had someone explained about nutrition I would have been interested and tried more things.

My dd is 16, years not months, and is incredibly fussy. As a baby she would eat anything but she had become fussier over the years. She loves most fruit and veg and is an amazing cook but she hates sauces/wet foods, hates strong flavours, dislikes fish and so much more. People have different tastes, she would hate to be served pasta and sauce, she eats pasta with cheese on when we have pasta and sauce. She is very healthy and is extremely fit. I learnt long ago to choose my battles. Some things are not worth loosing sleep over xx