To think just don’t offer them beige food?

[Ashlll]

Or am I spectacularly uneducated here? My sister has a 3 year old who apparently will only eat beige food and mostly crisps. She says it’s a sensory thing and we have to respect it when around him, for example when I took him and dd out last week I had to give him quavers rather than the snacks I had got for dd… which then made dd want quavers too! Same with water, he won’t drink it and it has to be juice.

I am not massively strict but did say to dsis just don’t buy these things then he won’t know he can ask for them… she says he just won’t eat or drink. I think this is ridiculous (I’ve not said this to her). AIBU?!?

Ah maybe not for us then, our nearest Argos is 40 minutes away and online delivery is sketchy at best. Never mind, I'll stick to my trusted brands

YABU here, BUT i smugly used to think I would never have a beige child either. However my youngest proved me wrong and humbled me.

he breastfed beautifully, weaned well, ate chopped up peppers, some fruit, and generally most foods. He always preferred slushy things but that’s partly always the way with babies. Cue toddler years; he refused to eat. He’d eat peanut butter sandwiches and plain toast. Nothing else. I was at my wit’s end. Docs/midwives say nothing wrong medically. My mother criticised my parenting, and then realised he really wouldn’t eat and would starve himself (she thought I was being “highly strung”)!

This wasn’t PFB either; eldest ate fine. I ended up having a beige food child with my second born. He is still very choosy about food, and yes for a while he survived on things like chicken nuggets and crisps.

I’ve always introduced him to other foods, and he slowly has a more interesting palette. He’ll eat Japanese food, Indian food, Italian and generally most British type food. Fruit is still an issue and we eat a lot of the same veg as there’s only a few he will eat. However he’s a teen now and perfectly fine!

So although you’re being unreasonable, I didn’t used to get it either!

I am very lucky I have two children who are great eaters and in the grand scheme of things aren’t too fussy (will try someone at least once before deciding they don’t like it).

However, my sister’s children really struggle with their eating. My niece in particular would starve herself and get dehydrated instead of eating/drinking the food/drink she prefers.

I think any parent would rather their child had food in their tummy and not be dehydrated. If you took away your nephews food and drink, there’s a chance he wouldn’t have something else.

I tend to agree. When you wean, you need to offer everything. Babies “gag”…. Because they are not used to solids and are learning how to “eat”….. what annoys me, is that parents freak out at the gagging and say “ohh he doesn’t like that” 🙄….. and then don’t get offered that food again… which then when they try them again at a later age, they won’t eat or even try it because it looks/feels/smells a certain way….. (obviously my comments EXCLUDE children with SEND needs, as I completely understand that children as they cant help their sensory needs) I firmly believe that parents create picky eaters. All the children I know are fed thinks like steak, peppers, celery etc and have been since babies, so none are picky eaters. My daughter has Coeliacs disease and therefore can’t eat a normal diet, but she does have a good range of foods she can eat….. at 6/7 months old they were sucking on celery or raw potato and eating fish.

I'm the same in re: fizz @WiddlinDiddlin our tap water is vile. We have a filter jug as it makes coffee and squash taste vile if straight from the tap.

Give my toddler quavers with msg? No. I never did and never would have!

My son would starve himself rather than eat something that wasn’t in his ‘safe’ foods

What would you have done if the dietician told you to?

if it was that or NG tube feeding by force?....or of course letting him starve??

Why pick a fight that isn't yours to have? Lots of children that age will only eat beige foods, and sometimes they grow out of it, other times they have asd and don't. It's not as easy as people think to have their child just eat anything; and I say that as a mum whose children did, but whose grandchildren don't.
As a parent of a disabled child though, I used to get sick to death of people telling me how to manage my child's behaviour. Life's difficult enough with a 3 year old without unsolicited advice. If she needs it, she'll ask.

DD was weaned on everything and anything. She ate what we ate , just no added salt/sugar. Pureed my own fruit/veg too for variety. So a mix between hard foods and smooshy ones , actual meals and finger foods etc. Various meats, tastes , textures and spices/dishes(I’m not British). Jars and pouches did feature once in a blue moon , mostly for convenience when out. She used to love chewing on lemons and oranges.

Then at 1 she dropped her bottle. Fine I thought. She drank cow’s milk and ate well. Then she slowly started dropping things here and there. Every time I said fine , she’s eating well , there’s plenty more things. Until she was 2 and a half and there weren’t any more things and we spent two weeks in the summer with her eating 1 bag of baby crisps and maybe an ice cream/apple a day! That was literally it. I had to start reintroducing everything, including toast. Fucking toast!! She was 3 and a half when she accepted pancakes . I honestly cried the first time when she tried a happy meal and ate it all. It was the first time , in a very long time, that she had actually eaten a meal, no matter how crappy. Not only was she fussy (God knows what happened, but she wasn’t hungry…ever!). She first started feeling hunger around 6. Whether that was real hunger or the fact that we had a routine (it was around the same times we always had a meal) who knows? Before that, particularly if we were out and about she could go all day with nothing/very little. So yeah, I gave her anything and everything.

The thing is, she’s equally fussy with beige/crappy foods as she is with healthy foods. No pizzas, no hot dogs, no sausages/sausage rolls , no processed meats , no fizzy drinks , no burgers,not all nuggets are the same (and she prefers my home made version), not all chips are the same(again, prefers mine), some jams are too sweet and so on. The list is fucking endless. I can’t just pop into Greggs or a take away or anywhere with convenience food and grab her something.

It was anything but easy or convenient feeding her. She slowly got better(13 now) , there is more variety, but it’s still fucking hard and she’s eating less again but at least she’s not dropping foods.

She recently went on a school trip for a week and lost 2 kgs.

I’ll admit, at this point … I care more that she eats, rather than what she eats.

We were advised to introduce French fries (crisps) as part of food chaining.

And quavers were also on the list - never got that far - due to the flavour contrast.

It’s interesting that there is a huge amount of judgement “hell no” from people who have never been there or see the bigger picture of kids who just don’t care about food.

I am neurodivergent and really weird about food. I’ve thrown up toast, meat, vegetables, all sorts over the years and even do it now if the texture is too much for me. But I wasn’t allowed to eat the same foods over and over and it was a choice of don’t eat or eat what you were given. Eventually I decided to just eat what I was given. I’m an adult now and have a wide ranging, healthy diet, although there are lots I won’t touch in stages. I think there are maybe levels of ARFID and mine isn’t as bad as some others, but I do think if I’d been only given my safe foods then I would have definitely stuck to them and only had a small range. I’m not saying this is the case for all children, but from my own experience being offered a range of food definitely helped rather than just what I thought I could only eat, if that makes sense, because I had to just get on with it. I think parents have to tackle each individual situation maybe.

You are missing the point here. These children WILL NOT just eat what they are given. Instead they will starve themselves to the point of needing to be tube fed.

Except I’m not because I said I wonder if there are differently levels and that this worked for me in my situation because I’m not as extreme as this. I’m not talking about children who refuse everything am I? I’m talking about those, like me, who are weird about food. And I said parents have to tackle each situation individually.

I’m NT(as far as I know) and I didn’t, I just ate if and when the food was “good”. Then I was old enough (around 7/8) to just whip up something for myself and sorted myself out. I come from an ex communist country which went through rationing until I was 4 , so I didn’t even see a McDonalds until I was 14 , same with microwave/freezer meals.

My daughter is very fussy about food. She won't eat veg except potatoes in jacket or chip form. She eats certain fruit. Eats pasta,baked beans chicken, beef. She's 24 yr old and still lives with us. She's a healthy weight and strong. Takes vitamins.

However she's great compared to the chap I work with. Obviously I don't cook for him lol. But he lives on cereal, bread, crisps. Will eat chocolate. Absolutely no veg, meat, fruit. Wouldn't even touch a jammy dodger biscuit lol

He's overweight, gets sick a lot, aches and pains all over. Socially, he's never had a girlfriend we think. Doesn't get invited out much to parties or meals because it's awkward. He's coming up to 39 and my 79 Yr old stepdad is in better health seriously. What you eat makes such a difference.

It’s about consistency. If my kids didn’t eat their dinner, it was just put in the fridge and warmed up again later…. They go through phases unfortunately, but I learnt not to worry about the amount they were eating, just what it was. I never substituted either and they were not allowed a lot of snacks, to make sure they were hungry at mealtimes.

my son now 18, can express his likes and dislikes, but as a kid just ate what he was given. My daughter has a more limited diet due to coeliacs, but we only found out when she was 9, 12 now, so things did change a little bit but we just didn’t take any notice of how much she was eating, just what it was when she was little.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by “good”? Like, the foods you could
cope with?

That’s why I said I wonder if there is a scale of it? Like it wasn’t as bad for me, I suppose, as it is for others I don’t know, I just remember I would eat things and the texture would make me throw up and I was frightened of eating them but eventually I just would again. Now I feel the sick thing coming on and I can tell myself out of it most of the time, but not every time and I do give up foods for long periods (also go through periods of eating the same thing over and over). I don’t know, I was just speculating out loud really, I probably haven’t explained myself properly.

that was aged 18, he’s 33 now and yes still has some issues. But loads better than at 1,5,18.

What are you talking about? How would it get to that point if they’d never bloody had a quaver!! That’s been my point from the start - WHY introduce those things???? Fair enough a breadstick, some plain rice, pasta.. but why are kids being given CRAP in the first place ?

Tell them to fuck off.

It’s about consistency. If my kids didn’t eat their dinner, it was just put in the fridge and warmed up again later….

And what would you do if your kids just never ate any of the meals? How long would you have been prepared to let them go without - a day? Two? A week?

One issue is after a certain age you can’t police what they have. Other people, school, birthday parties, play dates, they get access to things you may not have offered before and once they try it they want it (I’m talking about kids in general, not ARFID children).

'course you would 😂