Fussy eating 5 year old....at my wits end.

[TakeALookAtTheseSwatches]

My 5yo is extremely fussy, the things she will eat are:
Chicken nuggets
Garlic bread
Sweetcorn
Broccoli
Strawberries
Oranges
Nutella sandwiches
Plain crackers
Pom bear crisps
Biscuits
Chocolate
Ice cream
Sweets.

That's it. Obviously there is no meal there whatsoever, she will eat chicken nuggets and sweetcorn/broccoli most nights. I've tried getting her to help me make stuff so she can be involved, she still will not even touch it let alone eat it. I have tried just giving her meals and making no comment but she will just kick off massively.

Tonight we had lasagne and I put about an inch long piece on her plate along with chips and garlic bread. She ate the middle out of the garlic bread and will not touch the rest. She has spent the last hour screaming because she's hungry and wants ice cream.

I just don't know what to do, surely I can't just give her chicken nuggets every single night?? But equally it's not like she'll eat if she's hungry, she just won't. Any advice welcome.

What is your cooking like? I hate the way my mother cooks vegetables. They are typically mush 🤢 and very over cooked. Broccoli, peas etc instead of being bright green (ie properly cooked) are khaki. I didn't eat many veges as a child. Once I left home, I love non-mushy veges.

I am very particular about the texture of my food and won't eat mushy things, lumpy things or grainy / powdery textured things eg beans. Vegetables need to be cut in the right direction to maintain firmness. I don't like biting into whole apples because I don't like the skin between my teeth, but really like apples in slices - I put about 15-20 verticle cuts in the apple and happily eat the slices.

Despite all the things I don't like, there is a huge range of foods that I happily eat.

For some reason your daughter has settled on those particular safe foods. If you can understand why, then you can work on expanding her options.

ETA I don't expect people to cater to my fussiness, I'm happy not to eat. Some people struggle with that though.

That she has some
vegetables and fruit on the list is actually really good.

you should read up on ARFID and see if it sounds like your child. I fed my child a ridiculously healthy diet as she weaned. I did everything “right”. She started fine and then the resistance became gagging and weight loss.

for now, I would just make sure every meal has a healthy safe food available. You
can make lasagna, but serve it with broccoli and strawberries.

Don’t tie treats to eating. Treats are just treats and everyone deserves them on occasion, even if they struggle with eating.

It is ok to offer a healthy snack from the safe list instead of ice cream after dinner to deal with hunger if it is not a time for dessert.

My ASD child has a restricted diet but it has got better as he’s got older. Don’t make a fuss over it. I would rather he eat something than nothing because ultimately he will starve than eat something he doesn’t like or is the wrong texture. But I wouldn’t give in to ice cream.

Picky plates worked a treat for DC when they went through the fussy phase but they were toddlers so I maybe you could do this at lunch at the weekends or try and introduce via her pack lunch.

I would start by giving her a picky plate with say strawberries, some orange, crackers, pom bears, spoon full of sweetcorn and then add in say one slice of cucumber or a small amount of cheese. She might not eat it but be consistent. Don't make a fuss if she won't eat it. Exposure is the key. If she complains just say she doesnt have to eat it but leave it on her plate. If you are consistent with this I would think she might one day try it and when she does add in something else that's new. Say red pepper or oat cakes.

Experiment with different ways of introducing healthy snack food for instance for carrots try battens/grated carrots/peeled carrots discs. For cheese try square chunks, slices, grated or pair with apple or grapes.

For dinner put out few different foods in the centre of the table and people can help themselves so main, veg, yoghurt, cards. Always have something she will definitely eat to entice her. If she refuses do not give her sweet stuff, offer fruit or yoghurt.

After school put a plate of snacking veg out but don't tell her. Just leave it on a table next to the sofa or on the kitchen table.

Just some ideas. FWIW I was a very fussy eater as a child and I am not anymore so it can be done. Consistency and exposure are key. Good luck OP!

Her list isn't that bad. I wouldn't make an issue of it. Do her plate with some approved food and some unapproved food. If she tries it, she tries it, and if she doesn't, you tried. Also, make sure you give a decent multivitamin. I give

https://www.boots.com/wellkid-immune-chewable-30-natural-orange-and-lemon-flavour-tablets-10201907?traffic=paid.shopping&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21827494242&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIuNuQ8P_CkgMVCJlQBh3EjRp_EAQYAyABEgJfy_D_BwE

My daughter has a limited diet. We think she is ND. Shell also only eat certain food from certain places. Pizza from sainsburys, nirds eye dippers, milk from tesco or sainsburys apparently aldi and the conor shop taste funny. The thing is, she isnt seeing the packaging. She knows by the taste.

Putting pressure on food does nothing but stress them out, cause eating and control issues. You need to be blasé about it. When my DD tries something, even a lick, I internally do a jive but I don't make a fuss one way or the other.

The list is very very similar to my DDs except she would scream if I put sweetcorn or broccoli near her plate. She probably wouldn't eat a cracker either except a Ritz cracker.

We just get on it with giving her a snack plate and we eat normal food. Offer her some each time and don't make a big deal of it.

Have you been referred to a paeds dietician for specialist support ? This sounds like a very limited list of acceptable foods.
in my house I generally don’t keep ice cream and crisps biscuits etc in. So if anyone is begging for rubbish to eat I just say honestly there isn’t any in the house.
I also make my own chicken nuggets with fresh chicken breast and panko breadcrumbs, so at least it’s whole foods they’re getting when they get a chicken nugget meal.

Well assuming no sen or arfid

No ice cream if she doesn't try main meal and try something new?
Without the shaking and drama. I'd talk to her about rudeness and manners and importance of trying something and then saying "thanks but it's not for me" or something similar- she surely can't be encouraged to act like this at school or on playdates etc

Or I'd simply not have ice cream at all in the house anymore. It's not good she can have yogurt or plain crackers for supper. Ice cream maybe for treats or bribery lol
Wrt the things she will eat eg broccoli I'd serve a variety of ways - stir fry with broccoli, roasted broccoli, broccoli boiled etc

Do you often give in for fear of her not eating much? Lots of parents get into this mindset after having underweight or unwell babies or toddlers.

Chicken nuggets I'd make myself and try different toppings eg breaded yourself with breadcrumbs or a parmesan and breadcrumbs topping with herbs
I'd also introduce a chicken Kiev or stuff the chicken yourself with a garlic butter since she likes garlic bread.
I'd just try to de-UPF everything if she has any of that stuff just in case

Mine have always one through fussy stages, no ND but I just did simple and tasty family meals and serve them a small portion, sometimes buffet style and I'd do side dishes too alongside. Or lots of big picky plates. But I did cook new meals or meals I wanted eg curries or korean/Chinese etc and I would make them try if they wanted an exciting dessert and would not tolerate anything rude. No saying it's disgusting looking, no drama. I wanted them to be good eaters/tryers at friends and family houses and I have lots of different ethnicities in my family. I hate it when parents are like begging the kids to try something and saying "how about just a lick" it's really rude and gross and just gives the kid so much power. They try a spoonful or two, say what they think about why they dislike it and then can eat the other elements of the meal or wait for supper later - like toast or weetabix/porridge before bed.

That reminds me also there's a great show on cbeebies called my world kitchen.. sometimes we'd watch that or other cooking shows and pick something.. recipe books out from the library etc on weekends sometimes.

Re tastebuds, I wonder how many food refusers are supertasters. As you age you have fewer taste buds so things that tasted crap when you were young are now edible. Not because of developing tastes, but because you literally can't taste the yuk.

Thank you for all the comments, all the advise is really appreciated.

To answer a few questions; I don't think she is ND, she has 4 sisters one of whom has ADHD and one is autistic, she definitely doesn't have ADHD and I'm fairly sure she isn't autistic but I wouldn't totally rule it out.

I don't just give her ice cream all the time, she will have it maybe twice a week after her tea. I also don't overload her with snacks but she does have them sometimes.

I've tried her with vitamins and haven't yet found one she'll have, even the gummies.

I did start her off on school dinners but was forced to put her on packed lunch because she didn't eat a single bite of food in over a month at school.

I haven't really looked in to arfid but it certainly could be that having googled the symptoms especially with the crying and shaking.

My youngest brother has ASD and what would be called ARFID now for sure, my mum never forced him to try stuff but she did encourage him with cooking and baking things even if he never ate it. He also was one to only eat foods from certain brands. We all were very blasé about it and a lot of our meals were buffet style so he always had stuff to eat. Now he's grown up he's similar really but has expanded somewhat and sometimes likes to cook our cultural food/desserts at family gatherings even though he isn't one to eat it

I'd never have gone so hard on my kids esp with the being rude etc if I suspected they were similar- for them it was more about control and unexposure to new foods after I'd get into a cooking rut.

This is exactly what I'm doing. She tried and gagged on a pea the other day. I was bloody straight faced and delighted that she tried it. She still won't eat any veg but a lick of a carrot or a single pea is massive.

OP my DS is exactly the same and it's hard , he will eat a couple of more 'meals' not much ham , cheese , tuna sandwich . Wheatbix for breakfast with toast or a pancake. Evening meal is chips , fish fingers , nuggets or pizza. I try to make homemade things for dinner so pizza with courgette in , a veg sauce . Pin wheels with courgette in he does well with courgette as its quite blind. But he won't touch fruit or veg. He vomits with textures and it's so hard.

His teacher suggested AFRID (?) Last year , but the GP said it doesn't sound like it , however on a Google to me it does like he could have it , have you looked into it? But he was seen a Peads dr at Alder Hey in Dec about something else , and I said about his eating she told me not to worry and making a fuss will make it worse
Give him what he'll eat without pressure and add bits on his plate or a side plate (I've done this for years ). He had bloods done , and she said they were amazing and you never normally see such good results so not to worry.

I do give him a lot of vitamins . He has a probiotic, Vit C , multi Vit and elderberry everyday. I've also found one fruit pouch he'll eat.

Hes 5 and also used to ear everything. He had an anaphylaxis reaction at 2 to egg which i think kicked it all off.

Try not to get over anxious about what she’s not eating and provide chewy vitamin and mineral supplements if possible. It’s likely that she will naturally start to increase her foods as she gets older and spends more time with other children.

I was a fussy eater as a child 50+ yrs ago and extremely skinny but always had plenty of energy. I started to eat more normally in my late teens and happily ate most foods as an adult.

DS 16 (diagnosed autism) ate everything as a toddler but then started to refuse food at around age 3.5yrs.

He is still a fussy eater in many respects and he is afraid of certain textures and won’t eat things like soup or mashed potato but he will eat a wider variety of foods now and even got involved helping his Japanese sister-in-law to cook a Japanese meal. (!!)

He still refuses to eat food at school so has never eaten a school lunch or even a packed lunch. That started in Primary school and has never changed.

I do make sure he has a decent breakfast before he leaves for school.

You can get liquid vitamins that you can pop in her squash. My H recently bought me

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/313967713?srsltid=AfmBOoo3KHgOQ3SnOujYTUw3nGyScxgnUAn3tckv68amSbPUHwQd415q

I could drink it, allergies, he liked it.

@TakeALookAtTheseSwatchesthere should be a school nurse that you can contact about worries like this. I have an issue with my daughters restricted diet but because her height and weight are ok they were not interested in referring her on.

Something to look into is food chaining. So if your daughter likes a particular flavour e.g garlic in garlic bread, maybe try garlic chicken etc.

with my daughter a lot is texture, yes she would eat a chocolate Freddo, no she wouldn’t eat a chocolate Freddo with caramel in and she won’t even try something like a chocolate mousse (to try a new texture).

I was just advised to remove all stress from meal times, introduce food and textures during play or in a not stressed situation. And the other thing was to make sure we were eating as a family as often as possible

My middle child (10 years) is like this. He ate widely and well when little but things gradually fell off the menu due to refusal from 4 or 5 years onwards. Things got so difficult and fraught that we had to take a massive step back and simply accept it. His overall list of accepted foods is fairly healthy on balance, just short and boring. He’s always invited to try what the rest of us are eating but never will, we routinely eat as an family, prepare food together and we have a very small handful of meals that all 5 of us can eat. But even though he complains he is bored of his food he won’t try anything new. It is so totally dispiriting, and relaxing about it is far, far easier to write than do. Nearly every day my heart sinks wondering what to prepare for him when I’ve cooked a family meal already. But he simply won’t eat otherwise, he is very stubborn. But I have faith he eats fairly well if super restricted and we have to let him work through whatever issues make him refuse to try new things. Good luck in dealing with it, they need us to be patient with it. You simply cannot force it and people who talk about laying down the law in response simply don’t truly understand what this can be like.

My strategy is to make the best version of stuff they like possible. In my case that means -

1. 90% pork sausages
2. Vanilla Haagen Das if looking for ice cream, or I blend frozen mango or strawberries to make "sorbet". I also make this, which is a hit even though they claim not to like bananas

https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/banana-ice-cream-healthy/?fbclid=IwY2xjawPxy9JleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR41hYsIV701lSqGHgEIFcAaJdqf2LMd1Zr_JUcB3TkRcyOeKQzLKaCLjE0hjg_aem_0iEmOQKtoMkz2DPRWgqKKA

1. Homemake biscuits if I have the time, or shortbread.
2. Breadmaker bread
3. The best quality fish fingers I can find

Etc. So frustrating.

I feel your pain! My daughter was a fairly poor eater. Wouldn't eat anything when being weaned but was ok ISH as a toddler and child. My son ate much better and I thought thank goodness. Then he turned one and pretty much stopped eating anything. He ate plain pasta for dinner for nearly every meal for far too long. He would eat chicken nuggets but not much else else, no type of sauce on the pasta, nothing! The only vegetable he'd consider was raw carrot. I thought we'd never ever be able to go out for a meal.

What I wanted to tell you was that they can grow out of it! He suddenly seemed to snap out of it. I've no idea why but he's 12 now and will eat pretty much anything. After years of point blankly refusing to try even the tiniest taste of things he'll try most things.

I know the whole thing is massively stressful inducing. I was constantly taking him food wherever we went as I was concerned he wouldn't find anything to eat. It also made him worried about going to friends houses in case there wasn't anything he wanted to eat.

All I can say is hang on in there and try not to stress

That’s actually quite a wide range of food.

don’t worry about. Give vitamin tablets and over time she will gradually eat different things.

If she is covering her mouth/gagging etc then I wouldn't push it as sounds more like ARFID. I was an ARFID child who was made to eat everything that made me violently gag and now I'm an adult with a huge phobia of most foods (but luckily most of my safe foods are quite poncey and nutrient dense, so I manage).

This might sounds really daft but has she tried tofu? It's a really good protein source for people who can't tolerate the taste/texture of meat. Just cubed up, patted dry, and fried until golden.

If she has siblings with ASD then she may well have it to some degree as well (even if she doesn't meet the full diagnostic criteria) as it's genetic.

I realised this Christmas that my 4 year olds diet had also become quite restricted. We have had quite good success with a “new food” chart. Every time he tries a new food we write it on the chart. He can tick if he likes it or cross if he doesn’t. If he doesn’t like it then it counts on the chart again if that makes sense. Once we reach 100 new foods he gets to pick a family day out for all of us. We started off with really easy foods that were very similar to foods he already liked, but he is really embracing it and has tried lots of different things, a surprising number he has liked!

OP - does she eat any and all brands of chicken nuggets? Or do you buy the same ones each time?

I buy the same ones, she won't eat the fancy ones in restaurants or any other brand. She's even fussy about sweetcorn (won't eat frozen, has to be tinned) so I do wonder if it's a texture thing too rather than just the actual food.

I've never even had tofu myself but I'm very willing to give it a go! I'll try anything at this point. Yes the covering of her mouth and crying/shaking does make me think it's a little more than just being fussy.