How to entice 2 year old to eat ??

[howtomakehereatggr]

She'll eat what she likes, all day long.

She loves toast and biscuits / chocolate etc.

But try presenting her with a nice meal and often, she won't try it at all or she'll have a couple of spoons and that's it.

I am trying to ignore it, but sometimes she won't have lunch or dinner, then I cave and give her toast or something that she will eat. At nursery she only has the snacks that she likes, but barely touches healthier stuff. She'll have pita bread for example but not the veggies. She sometimes has fruit.

What can I do ? I don't want it to get worse. But some days, she barely eats.

I've come to that conclusion with my DC that I can either try and control what they eat, or where they eat but not both. Mine do better with hidden veg - so cut very small and hidden in with meat in either stews or rice dishes. Even then with my stubborn 2 year old if I want him to eat veg, I get them in by feeding him while he's distracted watching TV / in the bath. I have very limited success with veg at the dinner table, so we now start dinner at the table and get some meat / carbs in, and then move to the living room for the rest. He's very slowly getting better...

The other advice I've seen is to always make sure there is at least one thing on the menu they like - we eat a lot of rice for that reason!

@CrabbyCat often she just doesn't touch anything on her plate. Tonight was a lovely lasagne, didn't touch it. So I gave her oats, because she also didn't eat at lunch.

If I put toast or crackers ( she loves all crackers ) on her plate, together with something else I want her to eat, she often won't look at the other food at all.

She just eats so little in general. Occasionally she'll eat a lot of something she likes, like pizza or pasta. But it really changes from day to day. People ask me, oh does she like pasta or whatever it might be, but one day she likes it and the next day she doesn't. No consistency- apart from with stuff like, peanut butter sandwiches / toast / crackers/ biscuits / chocolate/ Ella bars.. she would eat that stuff all day if I let her. But I don't want to build those habits.

I’m in the exact same situation OP, I figure I’ll keep presenting her the option and maybe one day she’ll go for it! My DD eats very little too I think but she’s bang on average weight so can’t be all bad. I think it’s a known fussy stage so I try not to stress about it. If I find a healthy food she likes I try to offer that regularly and limit snacks near mealtimes - beyond that I’m at a loss!

@Teacaketotty

I’m in the exact same situation OP, I figure I’ll keep presenting her the option and maybe one day she’ll go for it! My DD eats very little too I think but she’s bang on average weight so can’t be all bad. I think it’s a known fussy stage so I try not to stress about it. If I find a healthy food she likes I try to offer that regularly and limit snacks near mealtimes - beyond that I’m at a loss!

Sorry to hear that it's an issue for you too.

I do the same and try not to give her too many snacks. Unless she's ill. When she's ill, I'll give her loads, so she keeps her strength up. By snacks I mean the odd Ella bar, which is actually a nice adult snack too- with a coffee. She seems to like cheese most of the time and crackers.

My mum says I should try and give her proper meals and if she doesn't want it, I should just take it away and give her nothing else and try again later. I do that sometimes, but then she pretty much eats nothing..

I think toddlers appetite really reduces compared to when they first start weaning and are still growing so much.
Also, they are just so busy, they often don't have the attention span to eat.
At that age with my son I went for healthy grazing snack bowls left out as meal times were similar to yours.
Best advice I had was to look at their intake over a few days/week rather than per day, as some days they live on air, and other days they just don't stop eating.

What worked for DD was serving food family style so she could load her own plate with little bits and bobs that she wanted. Putting her in control of her food made her more likely to eat.

I noticed that most of the food you say she likes is dry, so maybe it's a texture preference? That would also fit with her liking pasta some days and not others, if the problems the runnyness of the sauce, not the flavour.

Not saying you should pander to the preference all the time, but if you can work out the pattern of what she eats, then maybe you can find more healthy-ish foods that fit the profile. Then if you can work out range of food she will eat, you can incorporate it into meals so at least she's had something, and gradually work towards more variety.

Can she choose things when you go shopping? Maybe if she feels more involved she’ll eat it? It could take time but I found that if my two were actively involved in decision making with going for the food shop, after trial and error, they’d happily eat what they chose. I found explaining in an age appropriate way how their bodies use the food and what each food does for them helped them to see food as a friend, not saying this will 100% work for your dd but worth a try.

If kids eat many snacks whenever they want, they typically won't eat much at meals. Two is often the age that really becomes an issue.

Lots of kids that age do need snacks at certain times depending on their routine, but I would plan them and stick to the times. At two they do not need to eat all the time like when they are infants. If they won't eat a planned snack of something simple you know they like within a window of time, they aren't really that hungry and can wait for the meal.

My advice is to not worry…my Granddaughter thrives on shreddies or weetabix …her mother was also a PITA to feed..just relax and leave healthy food around for grazing.

Try some proper probiotics, like garden of eden. Sometimes a dysbiosis can cause cravings for sugar and carbs.

Toddlers who snack all day long and get served their favs if they say no won’t eat meals. You need to stop the snacks and only make food available at meal times. If she refuses a dish then offer her only really plain stuff as a replacement - DS gets dry toast because he finds it boring and will often return to the dish he initially rejected. You might get better luck by serving her fav foods with new stuff. So if she likes chocolate don’t give it to her as a snack but put down a piece next to her lunch and it may convince her to try what’s next to it.

You can't make her eat and it isn't your job to.

Your job is to provide her with the food you want to eat.

So serve her up her main, encourage her to sit down and eat it but no pressure bribery, tricks etc. Put something safe in her plate so there's at least something in there she likes. When she's done take it away. If she'd have dessert if she ate it all, give her dessert. Food isn't a reward or punishment. Ours have yoghurt so even if they've barely touched everything else, I know they've got something inside them.

If she's really eaten little, I'd offer her toast or weetabix just before bedtime so she's not waking up hungry.

No snacks..

But also, no loading her plate up with questionable stuff either, and no telling her to eat, encouraging, pleading etc etc.

Offer a selection of things for her to put on her plate herself - some she will eat, some she hasn't tried yet. Don't supply SO much of anything she will eat that she eats JUST that and is actually over full..

Then leave it alone. Either sit and eat yours with her or ignore whatever she is doing, but do NOT comment.

Prepare her for the end of meal time with some time frame she can understand so she doesn't just sit there all day in front of food she doesn't want - so 'OK, 2 more minutes and then dinner times done and we can do x..' or whatever she grasps.

If you do offer dessert type things - put them on the table, it really doesn't matter what order she eats in.

So if she'd eat crackers with spread, banana slices and cheese sticks and yoghurt.. put those out, plus some veggie sticks, cheese sandwich cut up small, hard boiled egg cut into bits, bits of ham... and then leave her to it.

Most of that can be portioned out and put away if she hasn't touched it so it shouldn't be particularly wasteful.

I have ARFID, and a sliding hiatus hernia and i was subjected to a variety of methods (Some of them frankly abusive) as a child to make me eat things I really really did not like.
Even things that seem mild like if you don't eat it, the only other option is dry toast (something else I hated!), or 'just try a mouthful' or 'one bite of this and you can have pudding' - they just added MORE stress to mealtimes that made matters worse.

The end result is i have serious issues with food that have seriously affected my health, and they're still with me at almost 42 years old!

Yeah so the only thing I've stuck to so far has pretending like I really am not phased whether she eats or not. I've seen other children in my family be forced to eat / pleaded with, mums crying out of frustration begging the children to eat.

I decided that's the one thing I will not do, because I've seen it make the situation worse. It becomes a control thing after a while. They get a reaction if they don't eat and so they continue to do so. It's very very bad and a bad road to go down. I just leave her to it.

I will say, I have never had luck with the serve dessert at the same time thing. I don't require an absolutely clean plate, but all but one of my kids would eat a sweet first, leave the rest, and be hungry an hour later. They were a bit older before they could remember that last time doing the same thing didn't work out so well.

Yeah - unless there is something more serious going on, a healthy child is not going to starve themselves if there is reasonable food offered at reasonable intervals. SO if they don't eat much at times, it's fine.

One thing I found was that it helped me not to invest too much in things that might be rejected. So foods for meals the family didn't all share tended to be simple and often easy to put away. A bit of bread and butter, or cut up fruit or veg, some yogurt, leftover pizza, boiled egg, etc. And mostly the ate what we did in the evening, or some version of it, like if it was a curry I would leave some aside that was not super spicy.

If you put a lot of effort into special toddler meals and it gets rejected it's just a piss off.

Forgot to add…With my son, watching me cook tends to whet his appetite for what I’m making.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

I'm really trying not to give her snacks !

Today for example she had :

• toast and Ella bar for breakfast

• a tiny bit of pasta for lunch

• no dinner

• then I caved and gave her a big bowl of porridge after she refused to even look at her dinner

She ate the entire bowl because she likes it.

At nursery she's constantly being served snacks and it seems that's all she wants to eat. Surely it you sever them breakfast and then a snack at 10, they won't be hungry for lunch at 11:30 ?? On her notes it says she usually has the snack before lunch, then no lunch and eats the snack after lunch and then sandwiches for tea- because again, she likes sandwiches / bread... i

One thing you could try is to put out a sharing plate of some small snacks eg cut up veg and fruit, rice cakes, cheese for her (whatever it is you want her to eat more of) to help herself to before dinner. Mine are often hungry at that time. That way she might get some fruit and veg in before dinner. That would take the pressure off both of you.

One other thing that helps me is to let my toddler 'help' cook. She often eats more chopped veg when I'm preparing dinner than she does at dinnertime - same with sandwiches. She'll eat more of the ingredients during the process of making them.

@SantaClawsServiette

Yeah - unless there is something more serious going on, a healthy child is not going to starve themselves if there is reasonable food offered at reasonable intervals. SO if they don't eat much at times, it's fine.

One thing I found was that it helped me not to invest too much in things that might be rejected. So foods for meals the family didn't all share tended to be simple and often easy to put away. A bit of bread and butter, or cut up fruit or veg, some yogurt, leftover pizza, boiled egg, etc. And mostly the ate what we did in the evening, or some version of it, like if it was a curry I would leave some aside that was not super spicy.

If you put a lot of effort into special toddler meals and it gets rejected it's just a piss off.

Yeah I pretty much never make a special meal for her. I don't have the energy to be constantly cooking.

@Kinex

One thing you could try is to put out a sharing plate of some small snacks eg cut up veg and fruit, rice cakes, cheese for her (whatever it is you want her to eat more of) to help herself to before dinner. Mine are often hungry at that time. That way she might get some fruit and veg in before dinner. That would take the pressure off both of you.

One other thing that helps me is to let my toddler 'help' cook. She often eats more chopped veg when I'm preparing dinner than she does at dinnertime - same with sandwiches. She'll eat more of the ingredients during the process of making them.

The platter works sometimes and sometimes not with her. It's very hit and miss. Maybe I'm also expecting her to eat too much of it.

She'll sometimes have a few bites of a platter and that's it.

Okay I realise everyone is saying no snacks and my suggestion was snacks :D but I think an afternoon/post-nap snack of carrot and cucumber sticks served in 'help yourself' way would be a good idea.

@howtomakehereatggr

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

I'm really trying not to give her snacks !

Today for example she had :

• toast and Ella bar for breakfast

• a tiny bit of pasta for lunch

• no dinner

• then I caved and gave her a big bowl of porridge after she refused to even look at her dinner

She ate the entire bowl because she likes it.

At nursery she's constantly being served snacks and it seems that's all she wants to eat. Surely it you sever them breakfast and then a snack at 10, they won't be hungry for lunch at 11:30 ?? On her notes it says she usually has the snack before lunch, then no lunch and eats the snack after lunch and then sandwiches for tea- because again, she likes sandwiches / bread... i

You can ask nursery to trial no snacks for a few days and see what she does. I don’t let my DS have snacks. So when the others eat he gets half a cup of milk. He will then demolish his breakfast lunch and tea