Is DS’ diet really that bad?

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Please be kind.

DS is 2, will be 3 at the end of the year. His daily diet is usually

Breakfast: weetabix or rice krispies/corn flakes

Morning snack: an orange or a yoghurt

Lunch: Ham sandwich with an orange or yoghurt (whatever he doesn't have for snack) and some wotsits or quavers

Afternoon snack: 2 biscuits or a small packet of chocolate buttons

Dinner: pasta/pizza/ sausage and mash with carrots/fish fingers/chicken nuggets/ the occasional McDonald's happy meal (probably once or twice a month)

Dessert: ice cream or a small chocolate bar

Then he sometimes has chips if me and DP have had a takeaway, and he isn't asleep yet.

The only fruit and veg he'll eat are oranges and carrots. During the day he does drink water or apple juice and has a bottle of milk before bed.

We recently stayed at my mum's as my mum said that he shouldn't be eating those foods and his diet is awful.

Is it really that bad?

I would say there are some easy switches to improve his diet. Cut out the juice and just offer milk or water. Don't give crisps at lunchtime or the biscuits as a snack. Make the afternoon snack fruit, vegetables or crackers with cheese/hummus etc.

For pudding I'd try to switch to something healthier- plain yoghurt, unsweetened custard or rice pudding, you can add some fruit to sweeten these and they get a good portion of fruit + dairy.

The other area to work on is dinner, this will be trickier as your partner is giving him pizza when he refuses other foods. I'd be pushing for him to eat what you eat 5 out of 7 nights a week, no giving in to pizza though.

@Redruby2020 I don’t know why people use UC as a reason to eat poorly, some of the most nutritious foods are incredibly cheap. Just some from our ‘saving for a deposit’ and ‘on maternity leave’ food budgets:

Yoghurt & flour pizza bases.. 10p per portion.
Kidney bean and carrot burgers.. 14p per portion.
Lentil Dahl.. 28p per portion.
Kidney bean and coconut curry.. 38p per portion.

The list goes on, obviously you put something with the above but that can also be cheap. A whole cabbage is what 45p in lidl, quarter it slap some oil on and some garlic and roast it.

Good food is not expensive.
Things can be cooked in the evening when kids are in bed and warmed for a few days after. Most things freeze well.

I’m not saying life isn’t tiring, it fucking absolutely is, but nutritious food is not expensive.

I would not be offering crisps, biscuit's, chocolate and junk food everyday??! So yes to me that diet looks terrible - sorry!! Needs lots more veggies, beans/lentils (or meat) and fruit.

To be honest I home cook all food for my baby, at night as I work during the day. I don't give processed food it's so bad for us all

@Redruby2020 I agree it's tough when you get in after 6. My top speedy tip is to put vegetables directly in pasta water when its cooking (peas, brocolli, and sweetcorn work well) and to stick raw salad veg like carrots or peppers on the side of any beige oven food (My 5 year old eats it all, my 19m old occasionally licks a bit but at least I figure he's getting used to the idea of it).

You have a DP problem. Stop indulging the child, offer him what you have, end of.
Stop the biscuits, crisps, chocolate - no nutritional value and a complete waste of good money. Limit yogurts, ice creams, pizza and McDonald.

Much too high in fat, sugar and salt. (Ham and sausages).

He eats pizza so you could make your own (much less salt/fat) with a home made tomato sauce which contains hidden veg (blended in onions, peas, beans). If you make spag bol , soups or cooked mince from scratch, you can hide plenty of secret veg in those too. (tinned tomatoes, onions, peas, lentils, beans, potato, celery, ).
A stick blender is very useful for disintegrating vegetables in to a sauce/paste where they can't be recognised.

Better than sausages, burgers and ham (all high in fat salt preservatives )

Fresh raw fish can be wrapped in foil and baked in the oven , only takes 20 minutes. You could try him with canned tuna in a pasta bake.
canned sardines mashed and spread on toast finger.

A chicken leg (wrapped in foil) cooks quickly

Eggs ( boiled, scrambled, baked; raw eggs mixed in to rice pudding before cooking, egg custard.

Fingers of cheese with HM tomato sauce to dip them in

Cheese scones

You are a great mum who cares about her child and he is lucky to have you op x

As he likes orange food (carrots and oranges) give him this soup, can be as orange as you like

Lentils, onions, red or orange peppers, fresh or canned tomatoes, carrots; all sliced.grated, cooked up together and blended with a stick blender. You could include chopped raw chicken , invisible when blended.

You can then add some milk or yoghurt.

I’m afraid your mum is right OP, it is awful. You need to cut out the quavers, wotsits, biscuits, chocolate, ice cream and McDonalds or at least reduce them significantly. Does he have ham every day? That is really bad for him. You need to reduce the processed crap and give him proper meat.

I think you need to have a proper chat with your DP about improving DS’s diet and agree that you’ll all eat together and eat the same meal. Don’t give in when DS protests. If he’s hungry enough he’ll eat it. But it isn’t fair to have DP sat there eating something different - how can you explain to him that it’s one rule for DP and another for him? You need to be consistent and stick to boundaries.

Seen far worse and seen a lot better.

Yep it's bad. Especially for one so young.

Sweets/crisps/processed food shouldn't be a daily feature in anyone's diet. Even worse for a 2yo.

I haven’t read the whole thread sorry. My suggestion will be to keep what you are doing at the moment but sneak in fruits and vegs with them. Then change one processed food at a time. My kids eat a huge variety of fruits and vegs and it did take time to get there.

I think if you remove the choc, ice cream and apple juice from his diet it would be a big improvement. You can then work on dinner time. Don't give up on the things he doesn't like. Toddlers are notoriously fussy but they are also contrary.
Give him a range of veg with every meal. For now it doesn't matter if he doesn't eat it, but at least its offered.

OP, I haven't RTFT but if you want to change his diet and he isn't big on veg/fruits, I have a suggestion. My 20 month old won't eat certain fruits UNLESS they are in the shape of something. We got little cookie cutters in the shape of e.g. stars and hearts and often give banana or mango in the shapes; he loves it!

I think you have two problems really. One is easy to solve, the other is not.

The easy one is the sugary snacks and juice. Don't do them.

The hard one is dinner and specifically because DP is not on board. He's undermining you. Until he stops, you will never move on from where you are.

Maybe you could eat with DS and if DP insists on eating junk food he could eat it after DS bedtime? Or somewhere else?

Or you could try and agree meals that DP will also eat that you can share with DS. But it doesn't work and isn't fair to refuse a child food they see someone else in the family having.

Disclaimer: plenty of fish fingers and chicken nuggets are consumed in our house, and not many vegetables. I don't have all the answers. But your DP is making you try to solve this with both hands tied behind your back.

@Heliachi

Two McD a month is rather shocking. For a toddler especially, but really for anyone it should be a couple times a year max.

Fewer carbs and more eggs/protein would be an improvement. He doesn't need crisps and chocolate.

The situation in Afghanistan is "shocking". A toddler eating a couple of Happy Meals a month- not so much.

I would be most focused on reducing the sugar/salt and increasing protein.
Will he eat any non processed protein? e.g peas or roasted/grilled chicken? you could also try making your own chicken nuggets which would be a bit better than ready-made (assuming that is what you currently have). same for the pizza - if you aren't already you could try making your own (or as a gradual change, even add some extra veg toppings- chopped peppers, sweetcorn)
Ellas kitchen smoothies could be a sub for the biscuits/choc snack? Still sweeter than ideal but more nutrition than the current one and gets some different fruits in.

You could also look at using the lentil based pasta or mixing some lentil and some normal together? (not that there is anything particularly wrong with pasta but if he isn't having any sauce then there is no veg or protein).

My 2 year old has:
Breakfast: weetabix or porridge
snack: banana or ellas kitchen smoothie
lunch: sliced chicken, avocado, cheese, & breadsticks OR small piece of bread. sometimes he will have a bit of a sandwich but isn't generally keen. Sometimes will have some strawberries/blueberries/apple after
dinner: pasta (with bolognese or veg sauce)/fish fingers with carrots and peas/ jacket potato with cheese and beans and sweetcorn/ homemade chicken nuggets with carrots and potato waffle/homemade pizza with veg and ham

Some days will have a few choc buttons, a biscuit or ice-cream but not everyday :)

Yes but they can eat nutritious food at home can't they? You can't just think fuck it they'll be on 4 cans of coke and 10 malboro red at 15 so they may as well eat shite for the next 13 years

I agree. The was at my DD's choices out of the house rather than anything else. You do your best, but when they walk out of that door the day they start year 7, especially as the lunch choices don't seem particularly healthy, it all goes to pot. She's also a breakfast refuser. So I have one meal a day to cram in as much goodness as possible, and it has to be goodness she likes.

Sounded fine until afternoon snack, then went steeply downhill.

Nutritious meals for the whole family here
www.thecarolinewalkertrust.org.uk/chew.html

That is a really bad diet. So much sugar!

I've only skimmed though your posts OP so this has likely already been said but when my DS was young and only wanted to eat a narrow diet I used blender to make milk shake, soup and pasta sauce with hidden fruit and veg .

I don't think his current diet is too bad at all if you were able to add in a bit more fruit and veg but you definitely risk his diet getting worse if he feels his dad can refuse things he is made to eat .

I've seen a hell of a lot worse, don't tie yourself up in knots on this one OP. Neither of mine liked cooked veg (fair) so they had a load of crunchy raw veg whilst I was cooking. I've rarely met a kid who doesn't like mango or pineapple or blueberries (any berries really) so if that's in your budget sling some of those in.

Yoghurt is fine. I'm struggling to understand the yoghurt hate!

Mine had to cope with various cuisines in various bits of the world, some they liked, some they didn't and we had to adapt. Sometimes they had to survive on whatever crap we could access on the road (far too much fast food usually) they're 21 and 12 now and they both eat a pretty balanced and varied diet - with plenty of raw veggies