To resign myself to cooking different meals?

[countingdownforseptember]

I’m not even convinced this is the solution! But I do need some help as my children are driving me bananas.

I have a four and a half year old, who starts school in September. Behaviour has been a bit tricky of late and after four years of eating most things he’s suddenly and inexplicably become very fussy, refusing foods he’s eaten for years with odd claims. Previous favourites like bolognaise and chilli are rejected because of onions (!) the chilli is apparently too spicy ,.. it’s always too hot (even when it’s stone cold!) you get the idea.

In fairness to him he does eat veg but he’ll often only eat the veg. For example, the other day he had salmon, half a baked potato, corn on the cob and broccoli and he ate the broccoli and corn but I had to bag him to eat the potato and salmon and most didn’t get eaten. Then he’s hungry later because of course the veg isn’t filling!

My DD is two in August and is much more fussy. She won’t really eat much fruit or veg at all but will eat it when mixed into casseroles or bolognaise but now DS is refusing those!

I’m finding it a bit stressful as their diet is important to me. They both go to nursery three days a week and eat well there, though DD is hit and miss, but this week I have them five days a week out of seven and I need some ideas and help.

So onions are out (!) both will eat peas … any suggestions?

Don’t cook different. You’ll make a rod for your own back. Dont pander to fussiness, don’t make a big deal out of it. Cook whatever you’re cooking, include thing that you know they'll eat on the side (a vegetable they like, a bread roll). Let them eat what they want and then take their plate away. The fussy stage will pass, it’s really important to continue to expose them to different tastes, textures and meals.

Onions were a texture thing for my DS. He was fine and then refused to eat them in certain dishes. Fortunately he was older when he decided that they were inedible so was able to articulate what the issue was. Solved by dicing really fine.

I get how frustrating it is.

I diced them so finely today but he still detected them! I guess it wouldn’t be a problem except it’s one of the very few veg I can get into DD!

Then you have 2 pans, one with onions, one without.

I agree with PP, you put dinner in front of them and leave them to it, don’t comment - and then take the plate away.

Dont have snacks in the house and offer toast later if they are hungry.

If I did that he’d just fill up on toast. Snacks are boring: breadsticks, bananas, apples or cheese, but he will fill up on them if left unchecked.

I'm allergic to onions, my husband (the cook!) read about replacing onions in recipes with celery (v finely chopped) so he does that in all dishes now. Might be worth a try.

Not at the stage of fussiness yet as DD is only 21months but I have something similar to this and it chops veg so finely you wouldn’t know they’re there - possibly a solution to get DS back eating some if the things he used to?

https://groceries.asda.com/product/cooking-utensils-food-preparation/scoville-hand-pull-chopper/1000383189665

Don’t offer toast, don’t offer snacks. If there’s a vegetable he likes and bread available, he isn’t going to starve.

We have a similar issue with our two.

Dd (nearly 5yo) will eat anything if mixed into something with minced beef eg bolognese, chilli. So I can put lots of hidden veg in chilli and batch cook it. Great! Except...
Ds (1.5y) will not eat anything saucy or pasta based or salad. However, he will eat anything if I chop it up small and mix into fried rice. Great! I can hide all sorts of meat and veg that way. Except...
Dd now says she's sick of fried rice (understandably), although she does at least eat some. Plus, you can't batch cook and reheat fried rice.

So, we're stuck. Our least-worst solution is basically alternating evenings where one or the other child goes hungry or sulks due to refusing the other child's favourite food. With ds we generally cave in and give him a babybel and a yoghurt, because otherwise he's up all night.

Agree.
Assuming no SN at play and there is no real reason why they can’t eat something, you eat what you are given or go hungry.

What about things like crunchy raw veg and hummus, pieces of cold chicken as a kind of grazing plate op?

We tend to think of a “hot meal ” as more nutritious, but you don’t have to cook anything fancy to get nutrients into them. It might not be for long.

@RobinHeartella keep a bag of frozen rice in the freezer, just take out as much as you need for DS
this one comes in steamer pouches, but no reason you can't break those up for smaller portions.

Iceland 6 White Rice Steam Bags 1.2kg | Iceland Foods

Ignore it. Cook one meal and they eat or don’t. As for fruit and veg, I served it raw as a pre-dinner ‘snack’, we used a fancy mini cake stand type thing and just plonked it on the coffee table during TV time (as I was prepping dinner). No words were spoken, no eye contact made, the veg was eaten 80% of the time.

We've been there but with older children.

I highly recommend this nutritionist
https://www.instagram.com/family.snack.nutritionist?igsh=NG9jNDZueHh4c3h3

Her snack ideas would be great for younger children though we've made more use of the meal principles and how to talk to kids.

We have really made huge strides. We don't cook separately but we do make sure there's one thing they each eat at every meal.

I'd just make up a batch of what the little one eats and freeze in portion sizes. Muffin trays are good for that age as a meal size. I would make the older one something separate, but definitely wouldn't beg him to eat anything. Either ask what he wants, or have "safe" food on the plate, then serve and don't comment. Pressure around eatings can lead to refusal.

I would leave out the onions. Some people just can’t abide them. I had a huge aversion to them in my second pregnancy, so left them out of everything and no one really noticed, so I don’t think they matter that much.

Can you alternate preferred foods for one child one night, and the other the other night? Do some veggies on the side so your DS at least gets some if he won’t eat the sauces. And if one won’t eat the pasta sauce after trying a bit, he can have plain pasta with cheese maybe?

DD sounds more complicated but if you’re don’t the mixed together foods every other night, then it’s probably fine if she doesn’t eat the veggies on their own the other night.

Thanks, we already use instant rice but it's the other bits that are time consuming. I use any combination of cubed bacon, carrot, courgette, ginger, celery, sweetcorn, mushroom... all mixed into the rice with scrambled egg and ds will happily eat it all. Dd eats most of it, just picks out anything too green. I'd struck gold with my fussy eaters! But it has to be made fresh really, you can't freeze and reheat cooked rice and scrambled egg.

I don't mind doing it, I've got it down to under 15min... but I definitely can't do that and make dd pasta at the same time!

So yeah... one or other child has to be disappointed.

Hidden veggies bolognese? Use a food processor to finely grate carrot, celery, onion and leeks, then fry them before adding the mince, slow cook using passatta for 4 hours and you cannot see the veggies at all. Makes it slightly sweeter too.

Use blender. I use a nutribullet to make basic tomato pasta sauces for Ds. Onions, garlic, roast Mediterranean veg, ton tomatoes, herb. Blitz so he can’t detect texture

But generally he’s just fussy. I made meals and leave this dissembled so he can choose. For example chili meal would be chili in sauce, rice, avocado, sour cream, grate cheese, corn. I just put each thing in bowls on the table. He definitely never eats chili as refuses almost all meat or sauce based meals. But it’s there for dh and I and Ds can choose every time if he wants some to try. So usually he would just have rice, avocado, corn, grated cheese, maybe sour cream..
But means I still make one meal and everyone chooses what parts

I give a multi vitamin, and Greek yogurt with fruit if he’s refused meal. And try not to worry about it

DGS became fussy with onions around that age - I swapped to red ones , chopped so fine he's never noticed them since

He was a good eater until then, then he started being fussy , but then it changed back and he's back eating all and everything

DGD is a different matter altogether. Her daddy is a fussy eater and she's copied him. Nothing red is the latest thing, ( daddy hates tomatoes ) and this from a child who would have drunk tomato ketchup

I never have cooked different meals as such. When the kids were little they were expected to eat what I served, although I would include their preferences - ie marrow fat peas instead of garden peas, would put sweetcorn on as a veg and if it was roast lamb which neither would eat, they got the roast dinner - with sausages

salmon is filing and expensive for a 4 year old imo
just keep trying with meals, they tend to change their minds regularly ime
mine didnt like carrots in a stew, inexplicably and my ds dc were particular about the shapes of carrots

the best meal was a jacket potatoes with bowls with different choices on the table,
most things were eaten in this way!

or i used to film my dc and they were busy showing off and talking to the camera they ate everything on their plate

Thanks. DD is quite restricted in what she will eat and will only eat banana and occasionally a bit of melon fruit wise so I do need to get some veg in her!

Just give him what he’ll eat without making a fuss. I grew up fine, only eating eggs 🤣.

I was so fussy as a child with textures and stuff as was DS. DD ate anything.

We all eat anything and everything these days though

Just keep it simple they’ll soon change

No one wants to be forced to eat food they just don’t like

As it turns out DS didn’t like certain dairy food like cheese which made sense once we realised he was lactose intolerant