To say "eat it or be hungry"

[cheeseyeasy]

My 11 year old son is incredibly fussy eater. His younger sibling eats anything. Both treated the same with food growing up.

I'm at my wits end. All he eats is about 3 different meals, I'm so fed up of cooking multiple meals each night.

Aibu to say eat it or lump
It, knowing full well he will indeed lump it.

YABU on the info you’ve given.

No 2 children are the same, you can’t compare them!

Why is your child’s diet limited?
You need to understand this to progress his nutrition.

Yabu.

make sure each meal contains at least one element you know he will eat. At 11 get him involved in cooking if you can so he can sort his own.

Always been like this?
I have a similarly specific eater but it doesn't really bother me. I've always fed DD what she will eat. She's gradually getting more willing to try new food but is very sensitive around tastes/texture.

Is he fussy or is it ARFID? Bairns will starve with the latter.

I think he's gotten worse over time, or potentially I've just stopped trying to feed him stuff I know he won't eat.

I just wish we could sit down with one meal

Yes was thinking this also. I have a child with ARFID and one who is fussy. Both have ASD the fussy one would eat eventually if that is all there was but the ARFID kiddo would really starve themselves.

YANBU

Its ridiculous you’re cooking more than one meal. My family member’s kid was like this and his mum pandered to it, cooking seperate dinners and asking friends to do the same when they went over. He now only eats beige food aged 16. Won’t touch fruit or veg. No he doesn’t have a bloody eating disorder he’s just been allowed to get away with murder!

Make a meal, put some rice or bread on the table with it, and let the kids help themselves. Tell DS “you don’t have to eat it”. It’s up to him then.

Don't drive yourself mad cooking multiple meals. If he's willing to actually starve himself you need to seek professional help from a doctor or therapist.

Will he try new foods? I'm with you on not cooking multiple meals but I couldn't see a child go hungry. Present the food with at least one element he likes. If he doesn't like it or refuses give something filling but boring. Is he able to cover the basic food groups with the meals he does eat? Is he healthy, does it effect his energy levels?

What does he do if you make something he doesn't like?
What is his diet like outside of mealtimes? What sort of snacks does he have? What does he have for breakfast.
What about school lunches, does he have hot lunches or a packed lunch?

I agree with this on the whole.

Is he involved in the meal planning? You could maybe say, he has to pick one new meal a week that he helps you cook. He has to make a really good effort with it and every week add a new meal in to try to find new flavours etc that he likes.

I absolutely wouldn't cook more than one meal.

Sadly all they will say is “feed them what they will eat”. They no more have the power to force eating than parents do.

I have indirect experience and it drives me mad too, OP.

Have you tried putting bowls on the table for people to help themselves with one element you know he’ll eat each night- so e.g. one bowl casserole, one bowl veg, one bowl potatoes etc?

Or fajitas: plain wraps, bowls of cheese, chicken, salad, salsa etc and then people make their own wraps? And so on?

I do the 'take it or leave it and there is no alternative' thing except for third meal of the day. If they fuss with that they get toast of something equally boring as I don't like the idea of them going to bed hungry.

I was picky. When I got a bit older than your son is my gran used to make what ever she wanted me to try and just said if you don't like it you can make egg/cheese/what ever on toast. Worked for me. Some stuff I didnt like, 1 even made me throw up but others I had again

Is he ASD? My four Grandsons are. They each have about 6 food items they eat.. give them anything else and they would just starve..
My eldest makes 3 different meals every day.

YANBU unless there’s more to this?

What a massive waste of food and time to cook all these meals - not everyone could afford to do this.

The deal in our house is I won’t serve a dinner where you won’t eat any of it but it may not be your favourite and you might not want or like every aspect, but there will be plenty of veg / salad you do like with it.

Me personally I’d starve rather than eat certain things so I get it. I can’t eat mashed potatoes doesn’t matter if they are fresh or packet because one lump or bit of powder in it I couldn’t take the risk it’s not worth it. Peas/beans can’t stand the whole biting into thing. Fresh tomatoes I can’t do but canned is fine. It’s also it need to look ok smell ok before I will attempt a does it taste ok. So bbqs are hell as if it looks burnt too that’s it nope, no thank you. Where as dh says it’s chargrilled.

We adapt in our house. Everyone can input into meal planning (they never do so lose the right to complain!) So pasta instead of potatoes, things served separately, protein taken out before a sauce is added, frozen veg so everyone can pick what they want. I batch cook so some nights you just pick what you want from the freezer! I do ask if it’s something new that everyone tries it.

I was a fussy eater as a child and ended up going hungry and then binging which doesn’t set up good food habits so I’m trying to make sure that doesn’t happen with my DC.

It depends on the underlying reasons.

what is your experience with food refusal?

does he gag when he tries new foods or even when he tries to eat an ok food that isn’t quite normal? Does he struggle to eat enough? Are you worried about sufficient weight gain?

in our house we do anything and everything to keep dd eating. Our big concern is picky eating becoming a full blown eating disorder. All that really matters is that she eats. We absolutely make her separate food and I don’t even stress it anymore.

Agree.

Don't cook more than 1 meal. Try having sharing bowls with an element they will eat in them.

Reward them for kissing, licking or sniffing 1 unfamiliar item from a sharing bowl.

All the best

I was like this while my sibling ate everything, many years later I now know it's down to sensory issues. I went hungry rather than eat things I couldn't cope with and I still do rather than try and force feed myself.

I went back to full time work as soon as my dds both were at secondary, which means I'm not back when they want their dinner, so they've been cooking for themselves since they were 11 & 13.
At 11, kids are capable of cooking for themselves, just need to be shown how.,

My kids ate anything growing up. I started them early on vegetables and different tastes and textures and they ate the lot. I was smug , and would like to go back in time and slap me.

Come early teens they started demanding sugary treats, and everything with chips, and sad beige dinners. I did it for a while - cooked 2 meals, until they started being even fussier. When a meal got sent back because the chips were "too fat" I threw in the towel.

They were given what we ate from then on. I made some tweaks to genuine personal preference - stopped doing liver, avoided kidney beans etc but it was eat it or be hungry. Took them off school dinners and onto packed lunches so they didn't just fill up on school crap.

Eventually they ate it. It wasn't fun. We had months of them trying to pick peppers out of paella and scraping nearly full plates into the recycling. They still moan about broccoli but I've just found it's nicer roasted so that helps. It's taken years to get them back to a stage when they eat a full range of balanced meals and 5+ servings but at 18 & 13 tonight they've just eaten chicken lentil and spinach curry and not moaned about the spinach or picked out the mushrooms or chickpeas.

I think it's like a lot of things with teens at the moment- there's too much choice, too much autonomy and I just took that away. No shouting, no arguing ( although they tried)- just presenting them food and they could eat it or not. I felt ok as they are NT and they'd eaten all this stuff happily a few years before so I just carried on.

Looking at pictures from "before" the epiphany they were both on the heavier side and I remember DS struggling to get regular school trousers. Eating better food more naturally has regulated things and they're now both fit and a good weight for their height.

I am / was the same. Some children are just being picky, others will be sick if you force them to eat something they just can’t handle. I remember being force fed something by my grandparent when I was about 7 and it just coming straight back up again. Mum tried the ‘eat or go hungry’ route, so I went hungry. Now discovering through DD’s route to diagnosis that am almost certainly ASD and probably have ADD also. Go figure!