Nutella for toddler breakfast

[FanofLeaves]

This is not a food bashing thread, I don’t care who wants to eat Nutella for breakfast in their own households 🤣

More just to canvas opinion.

Currently have a 3.5 year old who is pretty much refusing to eat meals. Nothing wrong with his appetite if offered crisps and biscuits, naturally, but I’m getting really stressed out that he’s not being adequately nourished. Seems to eat ok at nursery but he’s only there three days a week and they probably give them pigeon portions and almost certainly say he’s eaten more than I suspect he has. At home it’s mostly a shit show, I can’t seem to get anything proper into him. I’m trying so hard and doing everything I can think of and it’s really getting me down.

anyway so I’m having a crack down. Today we were supposed to be going out, nothing special just a trip out to the woods to mess about with his toy dinosaurs and an ice cream on the way home but it’s a beautiful day.

He should have woken up ravenous as he ate about 5 pieces of pasta for tea last night, so I asked him what he wanted for breakfast. Egg on toast, great. Make it for him and he won’t even look at it. I take it away, give him half an hour and try again. Same. So I’ve says until he eats either that or cereal or natural yogurt and fruit for breakfast we are not going anywhere. So he’s flinging himself about on the sofa sighing but refusing any offers of breakfast.

DH gets up, I briefly fill him in. Come back to him offering DS Nutella on toast which I have said no to and DS is now crying because he wants that. On the one hand, great, it’s food and we can crack on with the day but on the other, it just proves my point that he’s happy to eat what I regard as ‘treat’ breakfast items (and have no problem with but not in place of adequate nutrition) and is refusing regular food.

So would you just give in and make the bleeding Nutella on toast 🤣 I’m sticking to my guns but just interested.

And yeah it’s not a very exciting thread, but I have time on my hands now we are in a stand off trapped inside 😅

I wouldn’t create a battle over some toast.

Give him the Nutella.

And 30 minute old on toast would be grim.

I'd treat this as a weekend one off. Go out and start again tomorrow.

Similar situations used to play out here around that age for DC with DH proffering up crap food and me putting the foot down.

On one hand the odd treat does no harm. On the other hand total shit replacing meals could lead to a lifetime of trouble. And if we could have a third hand sometimes you just want them fed.

We had to reach compromises. Pain au chocolate on the weekend (or a special day) if Weetabix or egg and toast eaten during the week.

I’d let him have the toast for now. And have a separate conversation with DH. Not sure anything good will come of taking it off him after he already thinks he’s having it.

but I’m in the toddler trenches with you, I know how hard it is.

It was a fresh piece of toast, the magpies got the first one 🤣

try to find a compromise? Look up online 2 ingredient egg and banana pancakes. French toast so it’s sweet but you’re getting egg and toast done. That sort of thing…

Honestly there’s nothing I haven’t tried, he will turn his nose up at the pancakes- and I could make them with my eyes closed. But they’d end up in the bin. Eggs on toast used to be a reliable staple but he’s gone off even that 😭

It's the weekend. In the interest of cracking on I'd say it's a Saturday weekend treat but Sunday must be a normal breakfast. We do croissants with butter and various jams etc on Sunday and that's our treat so I'm in no position to crack down!

Will you still get ice cream?

Completely understand where you’re coming from & what you’re trying to achieve but a battle of wills over food is a lose / lose situation. DS will dig his heels in, you’ll get increasingly stressed & the whole thing will be a vicious circle.

What is wrong with Nutella on toast with fruit for example?

Do not raise the possibility of Nutella for breakfast. You are just making life harder for yourselves. If a child refused to eat a meal, move on, but you have to be absolutely certain not to fill in the gap with junk later - they aren’t stupid and will soon spot that refusing boring old eggs at 9 is remedied with a bun at 11.

Honestly try not to stress too much over how much he is eating - I know it feels like some massive thing at the moment but most toddlers go through phases of not eating a huge amount at times and remember they don't actually NEED all that much.

I certainly wouldn't be making links between not eating and not being able to do fun activities - that's just making food into a battle which as you have found, doesnt acheive anything. They two things should be completely separate and not dependent on each other.

Go out and do the fun stuff and take a healthy snack with you for when he gets hungry if he hasn't had much breakfast.

You’re right, it is so hard not to get locked into a battle and I’m sure most of us have an idea of just how stubborn a three year old can be…

I guess my issue is I don’t want to fall into a trap of offering a treat just so he eats something. If he’s hungry for Nutella on toast why isn’t he hungry for shreddies, for example. He will soon get wise to the fact that DH will eventually offer him something ‘nice’- yesterday it was a pan au chocolat.

Ice cream as a treat would have only been if he’d eaten the packed lunch we’d have taken to the woods, so who knows.

It’s more that I worry he’ll keel over and/or be grumpy as he has nothing inside him, rather than the withholding of an activity.

I can get why you're annoyed with your husband as it appears that he's undermining you.

I don't think creating a battle string food is useful. With my girls and now granddaughters, if they wanted Nutella on toast that's fine, if they want porridge it's fine. No emotion brought into it at all, they tended to self regulate and eat what they fancied. They wanted porridge as often as they wanted Nutella on toast as neither was seen as a treat.

I grew up battling an eating disorder, partly due to my mother's strange and arbitrary behaviour around food so I've worked v hard to break the cycle. Obviously not saying that's the case here, just putting into context why I've tried not to have 'forbidden' food.

But if you want to go the park, don’t say we won’t go unless your eat. It gives them too much power. Move on but don’t give any more food until the next healthy mealtime. And no icecream!

If it’s in the house and your DH has offered it, it’s not fair to then deny it. But I’d absolutely have a crack down in terms of no longer allowing any junk in the house. A 3 year old should not be regularly offered crisps and biscuits.

They’re just things like Pom bears and rich tea but I definitely get the point.

It’s just soul destroying, I’m a good cook and will happily make DS anything he asks for but I feel like he’s going to get rickets or scurvy some days 😩

Bin the Nutella after today.

Offer 2 healthy choices for breakfast eg eggs on toast or yoghurt and fruit. Dc says no? Fine. They can skip breakfast. Nothing bad will happen if they are a bit hungry, avoid any battles but don’t cave in with junk snacks later, offer healthy snack eg fruit or toast. It’s good for dc to feel genuine hunger sometimes.

Then 2 healthy choices for lunch. I usually offer what I’m eating or bread and butter and fruit/ veg sticks as second choice to save sanity and extra work preparing meals.

I also reward for trying new foods/ foods dc doesn’t like with pompom jar lots of praise. Even a tiny lick or bite counts. Full jar equals a little treat.

My eldest would ask for healthy meals and snacks, and enjoy them. My youngest would skip meals and ask for junk. I stopped buying nutella (replaced it with peanut butter), crisps and chocolate. After a week of hardly eating, the appetite came back. You'll need to get rid of anything you don't want him to have.

Something worth bearing in mind, OP.

Children can only choose from food options they know exist.

This is all really helpful. Thank you.

the Nutella is DH’s, I really need to get him on board. I also need to remove emotion from the equation but it’s hard, I just want a nourished child!

I agree with PP, but also understand your concerns OP. Perhaps as a compromise you could make a healthy sandwich to take with you, when he starts to keel over or otherwise display that he's hungry offer that as the only option. If he's really hungry by then he will eat it.

My SIL was extremely fussy about her food MIL spent her time cooking/preparing special meals for her and trying to encourage her to eat healthy snacks constantly offering her different options. Then SIL went to Guide camp with no other option that what was being cooked. She came home far less fussy than before & MIL realised that she had been enabling the fussiness.

This was some 30 years ago. SIL is now a mother of 2 (now grown up DCs) she was very firm with her children when they were young. That's what's on offer, if you don't eat it, nothing else on offer until next meal.

Wholemeal/granary toast with a scraping of nutella is totally fine. Maybe offer some apple slices or banana along side. I’d not sweat this, frankly.

Stop asking what he'd like.
Ok he might get to choose what cereal he has or whether he has an orange or an apple with his lunch but generally you should decide the menu and he decides whether to eat it..unless you suspect an issue such an ARFID then this approach should work but DH needs to be on the same page as you.
I've been down the same road as you and it is a hard cycle to break but again unless you suspect a serious issue with food then he will eat when he is hungry.