To offer him a banana?

[larrythelizard]

DS is 2 and 4 months.

Historically food and eating has been a battle but more recently he's been better and he's eaten what he's been given for meals (obviously he eats everything at nursery)

We're careful with timing and quantity of snacks (most of the time offering fruit/breadsticks etc).

Tonight he has decided against his dinner and would not try and mouthful of it. It was a creamy chicken thing with mash and grated cheese.

DH was adamant that DS wasn't to eat anything else however after 90 mins of ignoring the fuss he was making/cajoling him/trying the naughty step, DS has still refused to even try it (i offered a 'special spoon' to try and offer him a way to climb down from his protest without feeling he was giving in etc)

I've just offered him some milk and a banana as a compromise before bed as he's clearly hungry (I think dinner looks too saucy for him).

DH thinks I shouldn't have offered DS anything else.

WIBU to offer him a banana?

I'm all for setting boundaries but I've never made food a battle ground before and it sits uncomfortably with me.

What age do they understand consequence ie you will be hungry in the night?

Toddlers have hungry days and not so hungry days. 90 minutes trying to force feed? Good grief.
If my 2yo DS refuses a meal we try again 5 minutes later, if he still refuses, he's not hungry.
I might try again in an hour. If he doesn't want the meal, of course he can have a banana or porridge or whatever. It's not a battleground.

He probably eats better at nursery because of 1) peers eating with him and 2) less tired

Do not enter into food wars.

My DC don't always want their dinner, so they can take fruit. There will be no crisps/bread etc and I am not a hotel so I don't offer a choice of meals. We save milk for after meals.
But they are always welcome to take fruit. As they have got older, they ask when dinner is and know not to take fruit in the 30 mins beforehand.

Your DS is two years old. Your DH needs a bloody good talking too.

God what is it with men and this shite? My father was the same and my children's father the same too. As if causing a full blown battle at the dinner table has ever solved a fussy eating situation.

Your DS is tiny. Many, many children go through a fussy period at this stage. Just keep offering him meals at set times every day including a bed time snack so if he doesn't eat his dinner at least he'll have something before bed. No fuss no drama, just if he refuses his dinner remind him there won't be anything else until before bed. If you send him to bed starving you'll only suffer the consequences when he wakes in the middle of the night/in the early hours of the morning because he's famished. Cruel and unnecessary.

90 minutes is insane! In our house, what is on offer is on offer for the amount of time the rest of us are eating and sat at the table (DC2 is about 6 months younger than your DS). Then the meal is over. That’s the window for eating, kiddo. Until supper.

Toddlers are fickle. I will offer an alternative if hungry. Tonight I gave DC2 a toddler ready meal, which he confirmed he will not eat (he has always refused pre-prepared food, which feels like my parenting comeuppance as DC1 refused anything I cooked at this age ). So he got scrambled egg and toast as I knew I was chancing my arm with it and we were eating separately.

I will offer alternatives if they don’t like it or are being stubborn. I don’t offer alternatives if it’s a meal I know they like and normally eat (they can have supper though). Depends on the circumstances but nothing too interesting - something like Weetabix, toast, banana, etc usually.

I am probably not the best person to advise but I decided very early on that food would not be a battleground as it’s a battle you’ll lose, potentially three times a day. Much better to show zero emotional reaction if at all possible (for me this is much easier with DC2).

I agree with your approach as opposed to your DH’s approach. My DS is 2.5 and eats no dinners at all, literally nothing, only carb he eats is bread.

I serve him a small amount of what we’re having and include a favourite food, such as baked beans for us all to have. I serve fruit or yogurt as pudding alongside the main meal. Up to him how much he wants to eat and I don’t suggest he eat anything or comment when he says he’s done. Toast and milk before bed if needs be.

My little girl has just turned 2 and used to eat anything- tonight refused to even try the pasta and sauce I’d made which she’d loved last week. Ate the tiniest bit of broccoli. She had some plain yoghurt and a banana on the side as I know she’ll
always eat some of that.

I think at this age they are notoriously fussy, and too bothered about other things than eating. It’s a battle we’ve decided just not to start. She asks for food if she’s hungry and she’ll also stop eating when she’s full- be that not finishing a treat ice cream or her porridge.

I think at this age they are just too little to properly express why they do/don’t do things. Maybe I’m just wanting an easier life, but I’m figuring there are bigger things to worry about than her refusing some foods xx

A health visitor told me on average most kids need to be offered the same new food around 7 times at different meals to get used to eating it. You’re expecting WAY too much. We have a massive array of food at our finger tips and the shear variety of foods we can offer toddlers compared to 30 years ago can be overwhelming for them. Maybe he eats better at nursery because he has more repetition of foods and zero pressure.

There’s a great Instagram page called Feeding Littles that looks helpful. It’s American based but the techniques still stand

My son is 2y 5m and doesn't have a big appetite. Meals can be hit or miss and a few times he woke up really early because he was hungry. We've been giving him tea at 5pm and supper consisting of half a banana and a piece of toast at 6.30pm nightly for 8 or 9 months. It's improved his sleep no end, and he's still trying new foods and eating food he likes without the pressure of eating loads of it. My son just has a small appetite and it suits him to eat less food more often.

@nurserypolitics

Your husband is going against any advise a healthcare professional would give, and I would argue is being abusive. At a minimum that's how y ou set children up for eating disorders.

Read a book by Bee Wilson called First taste, it gives a history of how humans learn to eat, and I found it really easy navigating how to approach picky eating with a child with allergies. Our dietitian echoed the approach. At that age, you want them to try things, you DO NOT EVER want to punish eating, or not eating. You need to stand up for your son here or your DH's attitude will have long lasting effects on him.

This, absolutely.

My DS is the same age. If I was offering him a new meal I would make sure there were at least 2 or 3 things on his plate he would eat. Was the sauce on the mash? I would have made sure the new food, the saucy chicken was separate from the mash (just incase he didn't like the sauce) That way he would be likely to start eating the mash and then accidentally try the chicken and maybe like it! We also sometimes turn it into a game by pretending we are going to eat his dinner, load up a spoon and tell him not to eat our spoonful while we do something else and 9 times out of 10 he will eat it while we "aren't looking" 😉
As for your AIBU I would have definitely given him a banana and some milk before bed especially if that is what he usually has anyway!

Not RTWT but you both need to chill.

Look up “you don’t have to eat it” by Ellin Satter (sp?) - it changed things massively when my PFB was 2 and refused to eat anything, this is an article about it:

www.huffpost.com/entry/6-words-that-will-end-picky-eating_b_7139710?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABeEqxfMiZNw9So2_TrzEU-wo1RG7CwftSmAtm7Wygc6PDRTyOo6SqVrOEz7GOAHUqhVyxmIpNAHltBwihetoYJnw2bF0oLDWiZoorUsvs3Y8Fxd1hbZ2QwK-vV_-JLGQXwbrhsp-lKdFIRpV0Xl8SxwsVGFtWFFGwxtnmipbv-w

Tell your husband that the victorians are calling and want their attitude to feeding children back.

Your husband sounds like an abusive twat and all this I don’t want to disagree with him in front of our DS is controlling bullshit.

Poor baby

@ShirleyPhallus

You put him on the naughty step for not trying his dinner?

I honestly cannot believe be some of the stuff I read on here. I hope this is fake.

Me too. And 90 minutes? Seriously? He's TWO!

You need to advocate for your DC because your DH is being massively unreasonable, and your DC will end up with massive food hangups at this rate.

By the time I’d got to DC3 i realised the futility of toddler food battles.

“I not eat dat” just didn’t get a reaction, and we calmly took away uneaten food after the rest of us had finished eating and replaced it with a slice of plain toast.

90 minutes?! Jesus. What a waste of everybody's time and energy.

Food is not a battleground in our house. If DD doesn't like what she's been served, we tell her to say 'no thank you' and not eat it. I do ask her to try it, but if she tries it and doesn't like it or just doesn't want to then I don't push. Some days she doesn't eat her dinner, other days she wolfs it all down and wants seconds. That's just being a toddler. If she didn't eat the meal the previous day, then I make sure to do something I know she'll most likely eat the day after, that's all.

Please don't turn mealtimes into this kind of dreaded event. It's so, so damaging for a child's relationship with food. I remember even now my uncle forcing my cousin to eat a certain amount of beans before he was allowed down from the table and us all sitting there for 30 mins while he cried and pushed beans around. Utterly pointless.

I recommend having a read of the stuff on this website: www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/

Listen to your child, he didn’t want to eat that for whatever reason so respect and hear him communicating with you. There is nothing wrong with banana and milk, I know there might be worry about wasted food but seriously have you/husband never just not wanted to eat something. Maybe remind him of random discussions- do you fancy Macaroni Cheese for tea - no don’t want that - ok let’s have sausage and mash - oh that sounds nice. Your very young child can’t articulate his likes and dislikes well yet, he might well be very hungry at nursery and be able to eat something he isn’t fond of but not able at home. Just give something he will eat.

Although I could eat toast all day every day so not sure that’s a boring food as such!

My 3.5 year old is exactly the same, eats amazingly at nursery, but at home it's a different story. We even got the nursery to send us all their recipes (meals are on a 4 week seasonal rotation) and that didn't help!

One thing we've been doing that is slowly starting to help is following Love, Like, New.

So on every plate we make sure it has something we know he loves, something he likes and something new. It's hit and miss but he is getting better.

We ask that he at least tries everything on his plate, and sometimes he will refuse to eat anything (even the thing he loves) because you know 3 year olds! In this case we will offer an alternative, but only after repeatedly trying to get him to eat something off his plate!

Last night my son has a Jammy dodger and yogurt because he refused his lovely tea. He eats what he eats. 80% of the time he’s great and the rest, he eats a jammy dodger for tea!

I was brought up to eat what I was given

So were we and all of us have had an eating disorder.

How sad! I’ll never understand why people argue with their babies/toddles/children over food. As an adult, if you don’t fancy a plate of food you are given, you’re well within rights to say “no thanks” and not eat it. You also allow yourself to have an extra snack before bed if you’re hungry. You also would absolutely NOT permit your partner/parent/friend/sister to force you to eat a plate of food they’ve made you and then punish you for leaving it. So why are you forcing your kids to eat meals they clearly don’t want and go to bed hungry? It’s cruel

Withholding any food should not be used as a punishment. That is actually abuse and if a social worker heard about this, they would have a field day with your DH. My father did this to me and then made me eat last nights dinner for breakfast. I spewed the following morning as a result.

Try the creamy sauce chicken thing in a week and see if it changes.

2 years old is far too young for naughty step. Their level of understanding at this age is under-developed. I would not use it as a) it did not work on 2 of my 4 children as they are autistic. b) It should not used around food hassles anyway. You're trying to get the kid to eat, not scare him into not eating.

Give the kid the banana and milk and put your foot down, that we are not starving our children just because he does not like this food right now. He might like it later. I still cannot get one of mine to eat vegetables. I actually have to make it in soup and blend it for her to eat it and she's 15! My youngest loves carrots and eats them raw. Every child is different, every child has their unique preferences for food, same as adults. If it's tried 7 times and it's still the same, it's a definite "I don't like that" as opposed to being belligerent which toddlers (and teenagers) actually do.

Speak to DH about food he does not like. Ask him if he would like you to make it, put it down in front of him and get him to eat it.