To be at the end of my tether with my 3 year old’s eating?

[Littlemissbumpy]

I’m at the end of my tether with my 3 year old son’s eating 🙁

He doesn’t eat cheese, egg, any sort of meat unless it’s in a nugget form, pasta (used to be our go to), potato unless it’s in a shape, he won’t eat sandwiches, cereal or baked beans.

Things he will eat:
Olives, cucumber, tomato, broccoli, most fruit, peas, crackers, crisps, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, turkey drumsticks, occasionally fish fingers, minion or Thomas shaped pasta, potato shapes - smiley faces or alphabet shapes (won’t eat a chip though), he’ll eat a macdonalds (of course!) but we don’t have those very often, maybe every two months. He has a smoothie for his breakfast every morning, he’s gone off toast now too.
Every meal time we end scraping his food into the bin and it’s becoming soul destroying.

He’s a bright, active, sociable boy who wants to learn, so I have no concerns there, just the eating part…

I give him a multivitamin every morning in his smoothie.

Stop worrying and relax. He will eat when he is hungry. He is developing a palate and three year olds are like this !

My grandsons go to food is a bowl of dry cereal. Oh and he loves a slice of dry bread. I remember loving bread when I was a child. A slice out of the pack. Simple

Do not make an issue of his eating ha it's. Give him what you know he likes and try introducing other foods every now and then. Ds is 9 and doesn't eat any fruit or any veg. He lives on plain pasta, rice, chicken, nuggets, hot dogs, cheese, ham. He does eat a bit of meat but not fish. He'll eat wraps, bagels and bread. He doesn't eat chips or any other potato products. I've long since given up on trying to get him to eat other foods as I don't want him growing up with food issues. He's growing at the same rate of other kids his age so I don't worry about it.

eating 'habits'

He eats a wide variety of foods. Really not worth getting stressed about if he doesn’t eat exactly what you want.

Keep offering different options but make sure one of his safe foods is always available

You need to relax. The absolute worst thing you can do, if you want this to change, is to make it into an issue, or worse, a battle.

It’s very normal for children at that age to go through a “fussy” eating phase. Don’t make the mistake many parents do if deciding it’s a battle of wills that you must win by making him eat exactly what you want. Would you like someone making you eat things you don’t like? (And for him, right now, his dislike of those things is very very real)

What you do is serve up dinner like normal with always at least one thing you know he will eat. You make no comment. You make no negative comments about him not eating his beef. And you make no positive comments if he eats something he normally doesn’t. You ignore it. He eats what he wants, maybe he tries something new, maybe he doesn’t. Then when dinner is over he clears his plate and that’s it. And you repeat it every meal time.

The only time I would make a comment is if he pulls faces or says “yuck- I don’t like this”. In which case you say, “you don’t have to eat anything you don’t like, but you don’t make rude faces or comments about what is on your plate.”

Don’t create an emotional, negative or posture, association with eating. That way eating disorders lie!

A fussy eating phase at that age is completely normal but he’s actually eating a wide variety of foods with very different flavours and textures so I really wouldn’t be worried. I’d probably just focus meals around stuff he will eat to minimise the stress but continue to offer other stuff alongside but with no pressure and eventually he might surprise you. At aged 3 mine was very fussy, she would eat a fraction of the stuff you’d listed, but she’s now 4 and she eats pretty much anything (except baked beans) and is always up for trying new stuff. L

Chill.
I had one of these and handled it badly, which made it worse.
Your child eats a decent varied diet, don’t get hung up on what they won’t eat and don’t turn meals into a battle.
Also ignore anyone who tells you that a child should eat what’s put in front of them and won’t starve themselves, some actually will.

I was literally about to type out the same post about my 3 year old! You’re not alone. It’s so hard as I want to give her lots of different types of things to try, but I know she won’t eat them and they will get thrown away. I hate the waste.

He eats a great variety of food.

Just feed him what he likes and don't stress out about it. He's only three.

Blimey I wish DD12 had such a varied diet! She eats no fruit or veg at all.

He will get a pretty balanced diet with the foods he is happy to eat. It might be best not to worry about this as he will pick up on it.

Mine is the same. He will only eat buttered bread, cucumber, strawberries, apples, bananas, breadsticks, crisps, gherkins, grapes.

I've made the mistakes stated above about fussing, bribery etc. It doesn't work and has indeed made it worse.

Am hoping as he gets older it gets better!

If mine ate half of your list of things he’ll eat at 3 I’d have been over the moon!

My son is 9 and has autism but for the first 4 years of his life all he would eat was dough balls and tuna. That’s it. Literally breakfast, lunch and dinner. We ended up at the dietician who told us to make no fuss at all, just give him that but also put a plate of whatever we had next to him, with no pressure or expectation at all. Not even mentioning it. Gradually he did start to try the stuff on the plate and now aged 9 he will eat basically anything which seems like a miracle!

So what I’m saying is you’re doing fine, stop worrying about it, just keep offering things and give him what he will eat.

He has quite a decent repertoire there! I wouldn't stress, just serve what you're having with some of his safe foods and leave him to it. Don't talk about the food, don't cajole him to eat, just chat about normal stuff while eating your meal and let him choose what he wants to eat from what's there.

DS is 17, he has a hugely restricted diet, but like your DS will eat most fruit and veg. There are around 10 dishes in total he will eat and always with a variation on what the rest of the family eat, even if the base is the same.
He's 6foot3, a great athlete, hardly ever gets ill. Some kids are just fussy. DS is of the ilk where he would rather starve than eat something he doesn't want to. I've had loads of 'helpful advice' over the past 15 years or so around, just put it in front of him he will eat it if he's really hungry, keep trying new things, eventually it will work. All that led to was a stressful meal time, a DS losing weight as he wasn't eating and me feeling like an awful parent for not being able to implement all of this advice!
We gave up around age 7. For the past 10 years he's eaten what he wants, he's grown (enormously) tall, but still very skinny and has become an amazing young man.
Don't let what others suggest get you down and just go with the flow. He may get less fussy as he grows up or he may not. But don't stress yourself or your son out by fighting it. He actually sounds like he has a great mix in his diet anyway.

If it's any consolation, all 3 of my DCs were pretty fussy when they were little. The youngest is now 12 and all are very adventurous eaters and cooks. (Eg Hoisin roast chicken with pancakes and salad is on the menu tonight). I think that restricted eating is a developmental stage that most kids go through.

You've given quite a long list of things that he will eat.

Why can't he have those things instead of the stuff that you know you will end up throwing in the bin?

My 3 year old won’t touch tomatoes so that’s a win! The fact he’ll eat some veg is great, just keep going with that.

The most useful parenting advice I ever read was that their eating habits go in waves in opposition to their explorative habits.

When they are clingy, they are more likely to be open to new foods. When they get less clingy, they tend to stick to a small range of “safe” foods.

The theory was that, back when we were cave-people, when a child started to explore away from its mother, this instinct prevented it from eating unknown food that might be dangerous.

I was you 20 years ago with my son.

He was an active, happy contented child who stopped any dairy at 15 months.

He was tall and thin.

He just wanted bland food.

The stress it brought me was huge.

I brought him privately to a gastroenterology consultant who looked at his diet and the happy smiling 1 year old in front of her and said he seemed perfectly healthy and to try not to stress.

She told me that he wasn't going to starve with the variety of foods I was putting in front of him and to just be led by him.

I found it very stressful but kept trying to repeating to myself what she said.

20+ years on he is a very healthy 6ft slim man, just like his father.

He eats well but not a huge amount.
He has never had an antibiotic and went through his childhood with barely an occasional runny nose.

Once you are giving him foods to pick at, leave him to it.

One tip was no juices, only milk and water.
Fruit juices are bad for their teeth and fill them up with empty calories.

I did the multi vitamin liquid too for me to feel better!

I think you need to concentrate on what he does eat rather than what he wont. I know a few children who wouldn’t eat as much as your child does.
They all go through their picky phases.

My DS 3 is exactly the same, right down to all the things he will and won't eat, funnily enough! Although, he is still enjoying Pasta and Toast...we will see how long for!

He used to eat eggs in some form every morning, usually scrambled, but now won't touch them with a barge pole.

If I make a meal, like a casserole, in the slow cooker and put some down to him, he won't touch it...won't even smell it. But if we give him his obligatory hotdogs and pasta, he will wander over and try to eat ours. He'll then pat his belly and say "happy tummy" when we let him try it. He's a typical twisted toddler!

He recently discovered chocolate, too, which isn't helping matters.

I just let him get on with it. As long as he isn't starving, he can eat what he likes (not chocolate!).

My 3 year old will only eat a very similar diet. I've tried bribing, explaining, ignoring, read books about it, spoken to the HV etc and nothing has worked.

I'm giving up a bit now. Fish fingers and nuggets - at least its protein. At least there is something from most of the food groups (even if its 90pc carbs).

I know someone who only ate plain bread rolls, pasta with butter, and bananas til she was 13 and now she is a lawyer, tall and perfectly healthy so somehow it didn't seem to matter

His list of foods is absolutely fine, and would definitely not be improved by more meat!

You and he are doing really well.

That’s a lot of things he will eat.

I used to give my children a multivitamin tonic too when they were having “I only eat breadsticks” phases.. nowadays they eat everything and anything, I never would have believed it!