About my non eating child?

[Tenlittlepiggies]

I’m kind of despairing, my nearly 3 year old is so fussy with food it’s now verging on ridiculous.
He’ll currently only really eat dry things like crackers and crisps. He will sometimes eat just crackers for breakfast. He’ll occasionally eat an apple and sometimes peas. It’s becoming so stressful, as every meal time most of the food gets thrown away. We’re not a particularly well off family, so it’s really soul destroying to see all that perfectly good food being chucked in the bin.

Is anyone in a similar boat? He’ll eat sweet things like chocolate and mini marshmallows too and ice lollies.

But won’t eat sandwiches, cheese, pizza, wraps, pasta, any type of meat, he’s recently even gone off fish fingers and chicken dippers which he used to eat when we were desperate.

Check with your GP.

I've no suggestions but this must be really tough.

I just wanted to reassure you that whilst I can appreciate his diet is very limited and there's a whole host of foods youd like him to eat, he's actually not doing too bad.

Crackers - great staple. Have you tried making your own? Chia seeds are packed with protein and I've seen a few toddler recipes with them in. You can also sprinkle chia seeds in most meals when he does have them.

The fruit bars are usually oat based which is perfect for fibre.

Smoothies - great for fruit consumption (obviously better to eat whole but hey, a smoothie is a great introduction to fruit)

Chicken dippers - yes it's processed but most people eat the odd processed food. It really isn't the end of the world.

Have you tried making flapjacks? They're high in energy and packed with oats (and chia seeds if you want).

Would he try a homemade muffin? Peanut butter cookies?

Flapjacks may be a good idea. They're easy to make too, even with a little one.

My DD has ADHD and ASD and I don't think she can actually tell she's hungry. So she is very prone to "hangry". We make the flapjacks and then I leave them in a tin in the kitchen overnight. Oh no! I say. You ate ALL of them .

She's 8 and basically made of chicken dippers and tomatoes.

Why are you throwing food away? Assuming it’s the same food that’s on your own plates, why don’t you just eat it?

We regularly put out a plate of food that DC refuses. Then we end up making toast or potato waffles. Hard fruit always gets refused but berries get eaten. Cheese strings get eaten more than plain cheese. Plain yogurt is sometimes eaten and sometimes not. The GP said it’s a phase and just feed whatever they’ll eat and keep offering different options.

My son was the same. He’s never been a big eater even at birth he never wanted to feed. Would have slept through the night from day one had I not woken him to eat. By the time he was on solids every meal was a battle. He eats a very small variety of food. He’s now 14, still the same. I constantly remind him to eat. I’ve no advice! In 14 years we have tried absolutely everything.

Please please please please speak to your health visitor before your GP. We have zero training in child behaviour and picky kids.

@Clocktopus

If he doesn't eat, don't give him anything else either.

Yeah, don't do this. This runs completely against all advice given by professionals such as dieticians and paediatricians and all you'll do here is create more problems.

One of my DC doesn't eat much and our dietician says this:

• don't make food a battle, it is only food

• offer a meal, allow a reasonable amount of time for it be eaten, and then take it away without comment

• don't persuade or bribe or beg, never ever give a punishment in relation to not eating

• the main meal of rhe day should have two courses, both given at the same time, with no conditions attached. So dinner and a piece of fruit or dinner and a yoghurt. The idea is that you're taking the control issue out of the equation and, in theory, the child gets enough calories across the two courses

• every meal should have 1-2 "safe" foods that you know your child will eat so there is never nothing suitable on their plate

• if nothing is eaten then nothing is eaten. Try and stretch to the next mealtime of you can but if your child seems particularly hungry or its going to be a long time until the next meal (e.g., from dinner until breakfast) then around 30-60mins after the rejected meal offer a basic snack, the break between the meal and the snack means they're not connected, it's separate

• two cups of milk (breakfast and evening) plus a good multivitamin can cover a lot of deficits

Excellent advice here.

I’d also suggest looking at foodchaining as an approach to very, very gradually offering new foods.

Op, what is your child's weight like? My sons just been diagnosed with arfid. Via the dietician (through school nurse) . He is also asd. His diet is toast with clover. That is all he eats.

Does your DS have any other "quirks" or unusual behaviours? I would contact your HV to ask for full developmental assessment, as well as advice re encouraging more varied foods. Try to be relaxed at meal times - my partner had difficulty with this - though he has quite a controlling personality. Advice from Ikeameatballs is spot on. With my son, I'm happy with anything new he tries, even if it's a sweet thing or just a slight variation on his norm - it's still progress in my eyes.

Surely a GP would just print off the standard advice given by the helpful poster upthread and refer to a dietician maybe - what's the problem? We all know GPs are the gatekeepers to all the other services - doesn't mean we expect them to know about every problem - ours certainly knows little about ADHD...

@Sightlinesandsolutions - may I ask what your background is? What qualifies you to give such outdated advice with such confidence?

OP, my daughter is actually much 'worse' than your son and I completely understand the constant worry that they're depriving themselves of viral nutrients, etc. I've actually had to force myself to chill out about it or I'd be getting upset and fretting literally all day every day. I leave a plate of food out for my daughter to eat - some foods I know she will eat and some new ones. She sits at the table with me/us for three meals a day and I make her a plate with food from our plates. We all say how yummy it is, etc, but don't pressure her to eat it. We say she's allowed to not like things but she has to try them first, even if it is just licking it. She gets a reward (sticker) every time she tries a new food. If she doesn't eat at meal times she has the plate of food to snack on when she wants it. Since I relaxed about it things have become much easier (for me!) She's growing well and exceeding milestones so far so I'm not overly concerned. I just don't want food to become a 'thing' that she knows upsets me/can manipulate, etc. Just try to see it as an irrelevance, almost. Change won't happen over night but hopefully it will come.

The GP referred us to a dietician whose advice was, 'just keep offering her three meals a day, just continue with what you're doing'. Worse than useless. I'd advise joining an online group of parents who have been through similar rather than the GP to be honest. Complete waste of time in our case.

My son was a fussy eater and hes now 16 and 6ft tall and v healthy. If hes eating all the food groups he will be fine.
Mine would only eat:
banana, apple
Sweet breakfast cereal. milk. Pancakes. Sometimes toast
Jam or nutella sandwiches. crisps. Fruit. juice. Choc.
Later accepted scrambled egg
Would also eat homemade pancakes. A lot.

Dinner:
Cheese on toast
Sausages
Potatoes
Brocoli
Carrots
Pancakes
Yorkshire puddings.

He hated pasta. Hated any sauce or and gravy ir any meat other than sausages. He did eventually grow out of it and Ive since met mums whose kids were even worse.

Remember pancakes are eggs milk and flour - all good food groups.
Also cake is flour, eggs butter and sugar. Also good food groups. Sugar gets a bad name but its good for energy and calories and helps get a lot of food groups into kids ie jam is strawberries. My kids teeth are very fine too btw!

@RonObvious they don’t

My eldest was the same. I sought advice which said to provide options at every meal but keep producing it every time they’re hungry if they leave anything.

So I knew they would eat crisps and cucumber for example. So for lunch I’d make a sandwich, with crisps and cucumber, some fruit, some cheese.

They’d eat the crisps and cucumber and an joie later say they were hungry. So out would come the sandwich, fruit and cheese.

Dinner time, same deal. They’d eat peas, so they’d get peas, fish fingers and mash.

When they then eat the fish fjngers, they don’t get away with not having them next time

Bribery also worked. Eat a piece of broccoli and you can have a biscuit. Next meal time, they’re served broccoli. No biscuit for that this time as they clearly like it as ate it before.

It worked very quickly and dc eats everything given now with no fuss.

@Tenlittlepiggies I could have written this! My DD ate anything until she was about 18 months old, she then became a nightmare with food despite never, ever having been given in to (ie giving her what she wants if she doesn't eat her dinner just so she ate!) the battle of wills that have gone on in our house are monumental! She is now 4 and we starting to come out the other side, thank goodness!

She has been going to a nursery attached to a school so school dinners were an option. I found that the turning point was when she started having school dinners with her friends. Her teachers all knew what she was like with food so were prepared for the dramatics and well and truly on board which helped massively.

You have my sympathies OP - there have been times I could have cried with frustration at the amount of waste occurring in my house but it will get better!

I have a child who I feel doesn't eat as much as I think he should. On his 3rd birthday I measured and weighed him and he was actually on the 50th for height and 40th for weight so not terribly off track (I thought he was).

I used to offer options if he refused the first thing I made - we stopped that and now he does eat better. I have embraced the 'I don't care if you eat it approach' and often he might not eat at the first attempt but will later.

My son loves crackers and asks for them at breakfast. He now approaches breakfast saying 'no crackers' before eating cereal. We have been consistent that crackers are not a meal item - only for snack time.

We try not to bribe but found the 'eat your lunch, breakfast and we can go to the park gets the eating moving.

Lastly two thoughts - last night by fussy son was trying to get into the freezer to get peas and was crying to eat peas (normally ignores all veg) and I was a terrible fussy eater and now eat a huge variety.

Sorry for the ramble but wanted to point you are not alone

Have you tried calling your doctor? I asked my doctor for a dietician referral and it’s made a big difference.

Ds has food issues especially with some textures. Have you tried different brands/types of bread? Ds will happily eat fake cheese sandwiches so long as it’s the right bread. DS eats sausages but for ages I had to peel the skin off. Again he will only eat a certain brand.
Getting food with a tv character on it has worked as hasn’t telling him the superheroes eat it.
Home baking it great as they can get involved. Get a bero book for the traditional recipes.

I have zero advice op, however, your ds eats more than my almost 3 year old, who eats almost nothing at all. He will very very very rarely eat tinned spaghetti bolognese (from Asda….nowhere else) and that is it apart from wotsits and what I consider to be junk food. He eats no real food and it breaks my heart and I can’t seem to get any real support and I feel like a complete and utter failure. It’s really really tough.

I have a now 18 year old with very restricted eating not autisic, he even now only eats chicken in various forms, chips , jacket potato and cheese pizza for dinner , he does eat fruit but no veg and drinks a lot of milk and snack wise lunches he eats a variety of things.
But he used to only eat sausages and cereal, chicken nuggets so I took him to a nutritionist sent to from the dr , who gave us some techniques to try
Dinners used to be very stressful we tried not feeding , bribing almost force feeding etc but ds would have none if it this was before we sought help.
Eventually with some help from the nutritionist we tried some other techniques and relaxed at meals and he got better.
I would speak to dr for advice for def even just for ideas or they may be able to refer.
My ds is better although still limited but eats a lot more variety and hes 18 now 5ft 10/11 so he must get enough ( he has vitamins for his age as well ) I don't think we got to see nutrtionist/ therapist for long enough though as it was starting to work and he is better but now i read about Food avoidance I think he poss falls into that but it didn't seem to be recognised then.

Hovis best of both is considered the least offensive bread type here.

@Sightlinesandsolutions not true my ds plays rugby and football so would be training 3 times a week and playing a game of each plus sporty at school and was an outside child at that age , we walked to and from school etc etc
He would still not eat a thing if he didn't like it or maybe one nugget and avoid everything else
So its not if they get enough fresh air

@ Sightlinesandsolutions
There is also absolutely no reason for a three-year-old to be getting a bottle at bedtime. Needless calories and absolutely loads of sugar.

What a load of rubbish. OP is giving her child MILK at bedtime!! Not a bloody full sugar coke.