AIBU to start tough love with DC5 re food

[Twocrabs20]

So, I have a DC, 5 years old.

On advice from various professionals, I did baby led weaning, I have offered healthy food at meals, and while they eat some food:

• many types of fruit


• some protein such as eggs, pork sausage and bolognaise sauce - they won’t however eat fish or any seafood products or chicken; and


• a range of carbs.

They simply won’t eat any vegetables and are extremely fussy, which is starting to impact the eating habits of their younger sibling - who does enjoy a wide range of foods.

I feel like I have reached a point of something has to change; and NOW, that this habit / power game of refusing perfectly pleasant child friendly meals has got to stop. My DC is overweight for their age (not massively, but enough), and they can’t be getting the nutrients they need to be their best self. And I feel like I’m failing DC.

None of the suggestions by the various dieticians / nurses / paediatric consultants as to how to get them into eating vegetables has worked. I have tried every suggestion under the sun, including: I have grown stacks of vegetables they will pick but won’t eat; DC will cook vegetables with me and not eat the vegetables; and DC won’t ‘taste’ any of the vegetables even in small portions.

We have continued scenes of DC having tantrums that they don’t want any vegetables on their plate, even though I explain the vegetable has to remain on their plate, even if they don’t eat it. But I encourage DC to taste it, but not to take it off.

AIBU to now start some ‘tough love’ in now forcing DC to eat some vegetables or some part of our family meals which is beyond carbs and pork / bolognaise.

I dread doing this, and I don’t even know how to do tough love with eating - save for perhaps having a stand off with DC that you can’t leave the table unless you eat / taste said vegetable or re-serving any uneaten meal at the next meal, so they can’t wait for something better to come along. However my sense is the whole ‘they’ll come round to eating vegetables eventually’ simply isn’t going to happen; unless I take some significant action now.

My DC is increasingly becoming more overweight, and I think their poor diet will have impacts with their socialisation at school, ability to learn, and be the best version of themselves.

If anyone has got to the point of ‘tough love’ re food, what did you do, and were you successful in changing your child’s habit?

Raw veg as he goes about his day rather than cooked on a plate?
Coloured brightly vegetables?
Use a grater/shaped to get twists and strings,characters and shapes.?
Ask him to buy some from his pocket money then show him what a waste of money if he won't eat them.
Good luck.🌈

My dad tried this. Would make me sit at the table until I ate a certain food

I have always had a problem with food and this did not help.

I did not eat it and would sit there for hours if I had to. I would rather go hungry, and I did, then eat what he tried to make me eat.

He did give up in the end but by then, my problems with food was completely damaged.

I now have ARFID and I still don’t eat a lot of food. I have safe foods that I can eat but there aren’t many.

My dd was exactly the same. The only proper meal she would eat was spag Bol so I hid veg in that and blended. Apart from that it was dinosaur burgers, nuggets or eggs. The worst thing you can do is force it. Just slowly slowly. Make smoothies with lots of fruit and a tiny bit of hidden veg, courgette brownies etc. Dd started eating sweetcorn then peas and then carrots. Then squashed up broccoli heads. Now at 13 she eats a lot of different veg and varied foods. I used to do a lot of meals with lots of different elements in bowls that I called a picnic. For veg I tried plenty of things like cucumber or carrot sticks, baby sweetcorn, sugar snap peas etc. Eventually it worked. I’m talking years and it comes in stages.

You sound very stressed about this. I didn’t consult anyone about it. I spoke to other mums and mums with older children to see what they did. They all agreed to never ever make this a battle.

I used to blend up all my veg for bolognese into a paste. You literally can’t see it.

Please don’t go down the tough love route. It will lead to distress for your child and stress for you, it’s really not worth it.

So at 5 your child is old enough to know the concept of “try it if you want to, if you do great, if you don’t want to them that’s fine too”

So serve what DC will eat, and when she has eaten her meal, offer her a tiny amount of what you are having, even if it’s a portion left over from the previous day. So all pressure is off, DC has eaten, no stand off.

If the food is eaten, great, but don’t make a fuss. If refuses, fine, it doesn’t matter.

This reinforces that there is no pressure to try new foods, but it’s good to try new things also.

Try to see whether there's a common theme in the fruits and other food she likes compared to vegetables. It's not uncommon to have sensory issues around food at that age - refusing certain foods based on texture, e.g. maybe she doesn't like mushy, or crunchy, foods. Other times it's the idea of it rather than the actual thing: my DD wouldn't eat canned tuna when it was called tuna or fish, but one day she asked me what was in the pasta bake and I said 'sea chicken' (she liked chicken) and she loved it.

Definitely don't serve up the same meal reheated over and over again until it's eaten. I was on holiday with a parent who did that and it was awful to watch, the poor child ate no more than two spoonfuls of food in 48 hours, with the same meal served up for three meals a day until it started to go off. Said child is now a teenager and, I'm afraid, eats an atrocious diet (although, to be fair, probably no worse than a lot of teens) so it clearly didn't work in the long term either.

I do think it's ok, provided she's eaten enough at other meals and isn't going to starve (and is NT), to refuse to offer an alternative if the meal you provide is not eaten. Just give something very plain and boring to tide her over.

Do make sure you give a multivitamin supplement. Again, check whether texture is an issue. Some prefer liquid, some chewy tablets, some soft pastilles.

Are you sure your child is overweight and not just getting bigger because she's growing up? It sounds like she's super active. As long as she's not overeating sweets and crisps, then I'd suggest just sitting back and seeing how things go. Don't do the 'tough love' thing - it won't feel like any kind of love at all to a little girl.

It's not going to work and you are going to mess up your kid's relationship with food.

There was food I could not eat as a kid and I developed all sort of coping mechanisms to deal with my parents making me eat it. None of them good.

Get some professional support and take the pressure off eating food

I don't force my fussy child to finish things but she must try them otherwise no pudding etc.

The blender is your friend here - mushroom courgette carrot in a tomato base and blend. If you google "pasta with hidden veg" there are lots of recipes.

Blender is going to be your friend here.

Honestly though, I only did baby led weaning with one child out of three and they are the worst eater out of the lot.

But I blend and don't make meals a battle. Spag Bol and curry are great for this. Infact my youngest FAV meal is my curry which has loads of blended veggies.

My mum used to force me and I used to gag on the food and I would get sent to bed starving. I swore I would never do that.

It's impossible to force someone to eat something they don't want to eat. All you will do is make an issue of food and possibly store up problems for the future.
You say she likes Bolognese can you sneak some veg in that or into other dishes she likes? Also if you have desert only offer fruit or something healthy. Don't force her to eat it but don't offer an alternative .
5 is still very young. My son wouldn't eat any vegetables when he was a child. Now he eats everything and us a very adventurous eater. Be patient tastes change.

Re hidden veg in pasta sauces: blend them into the tomato sauce. I cook a big Bolognese with two roasted aubergines and three or four roasted red peppers and a large courgette blended into the sauce, courgette might be a bit green and obvious but the other two aren’t.

But a lack of veg is not making your child overweight.

No this is a bad idea and likely to give them issues around food.

Honestly the best thing you can do is just take a step back and stop stressing about it.

Making it into a battle is only going to have the opposite effect.

Please don’t do that to your child. My parents were advised to do both when I was a child and I still remember it now over 30 years on. And it didn’t work.

Forcing them to eat won’t help. It’ll just damage their relationship with food. And neither will forcing them to eat or go hungry, that will damage their relationship with you.

I’d focus on the things they do like, and I’d reduce what goes in the pack lunches a bit. Is that mini oreos and popcorn?

My youngest used to all these his special morning sweet!

I'm an expert on this. DC1 (now 16) is the same and has got gradually worse with age, not better, although he does eat baby sweetcorn, sweetcorn, broccoli, carrots and tomatoes (dumped peas and beans unfortunately) bit he won't eat them mixed into good and they need to be in a separate bowl.

• I cook all sorts of veg with tomatoes (celery, mushrooms, aubergine, spinach, onion) and blend it into sauce to make bolognaise or chilli con carne. You could add one veg per week so it doesn't change too quickly.
• Use the same blend as pizza base.
• Grate courgette into choc cake mix, a whole courgette completely disappears!
• Make meatballs and fish cakes (made with tuna) with grated carrot, onion, courgette.
• Make a Sunday dessert with fruit like apple and blackberry crumble.

sorry, to be clear: To make the tomato sauce base you need to BLEND not grate. This is also much quicker

I wouldn't. I tried this with my DD and it just ended in her gagging and sobbing for hours and really upset both of us. She is now 21 and will happily eat things like avocado, smoothies, etc but still hates the taste/texture of most fruit and vegetables. She's quite sensitive and says that even the smell of someone eating an apple near her makes her gag. I don't think "tough love" is the answer it just makes food a battle ground. If I had my time over again, what I would do is keep offering a wide range of fruit and vegetables, but if it was not eaten or tasted I would simply take it away without fuss. I know it seems wasteful but I think the more you focus on it the worse the problem becomes. I think basically ignoring it and making a nonissue is the way to go.

In your shoes I'd carry on as you are, offering veg but putting it in the middle of the table and I would only offer a typical serving of bolognese or pasta on the plate and not let them make up the portion by eating more of that.

I would also remove the option of junk food if they are overweight and just say we dont buy that anymore. I would make that the case for the youngest and not let the adults be seen eating it either for fairness.

Have you seen the book "getting the little blighters to eat"? It's brilliant ad also has a Facebook page I think?

Beetroot chocolate Brownies are so good...
Banana bread also is good! But tbh you don't need to be adding more sugar if he's overweight.

By the look of the lunchbox you are giving him a bit too much I think. Going on what my 8yr old eats - he has 2 rounds of bread sandwich and 1 piece of fruit. Now he's a skinny imp but that's just how he's built (lucky him!)

Something you mentioned about mashed things... I can't stomach mash. You can mash my favourite food and I still couldn't eat it. Texturally it is awful it just makes me gag. Given he likes sweeter things could you go with raw veg like carrot sticks perhaps offered with bits of fruit he will eat?

Finally you mention his little sister. That is a tough one. Keep praising her for eating her veg. It won't help with her if you keep forcing the eldest to eat veg as they are likely to think that eldest doesn't like it there must be something bad. If you ignore eldest with it then little one won't see it as a big deal.

If you want to give your kids eating problems for life, and make your daily existence a total misery, go ahead and do 'tough love'.

Your child will hate you, and with good reason, but no one can stop you.