To LOATHE and DETEST being in charge of family dinner time?

[Mrsjohnsmith]

I actually like cooking, but cooking for my family is so much hard work that I’ve grown to despise it.

The kids (8 & 10) are fussy, especially the 8 yo. Husband and I like a broad range of stuff and I like to cook healthily from scratch, we don’t have takeaways or ready meals.

Planning a week’s worth of meals is absolute hell - trying to fit everything around the kids’ after school activities, trying to find stuff they will actually eat and that we also want to eat, and is relatively healthy is nigh on impossible.

They don’t like anything that I could make in the slow cooker. So nights when we have swimming/cubs etc are a mad rush. DH tries to come up with helpful suggestions which I appreciate, but I sound so argumentative and I constantly have to say “but he won’t eat BBQ sauce” or “no, she won’t have casserole”. He works late so can’t do the actual cooking, as we’d be eating at about 10pm!

Sometimes I just cook standard family stuff that I ask them to try a bite of, and then they can get themselves some fruit.

To do all the planning, shopping, cooking, and then have them try one bite and reject it is driving me absolutely insane. It’s utterly thankless - what do you all do to stay sane?! Any parents of fussy eaters out there with any advice?

Our stance is that you have to TRY it, and then have some fruit if you don’t want it, but the constant rejection of my food is driving me up the wall! I’m not cooking vindaloo here, just ordinary things like beef casserole or chicken fried rice.

They’d be happy with fish fingers and all day breakfast every night, but I don’t want to eat that kind of thing all the time!

You just took me back (happily) to my 70s childhood 😀.

My DSis ate only bread and jam for about 6 months as a small child. She grew out of it.

There's no trophies for never having a takeaway or a ready meal. There's nothing wrong with either in moderation especially on busy or stressful days.

I'm the same - used to like cooking but three fussy kids and it landing mostly on me despite DH cooking a fair due to timings- older two now at uni cook for themselves and seem less fussy and moan about cooking and food shopping.

Same. I am totally fed up with cooking , shopping , cleaning, organising, dog walking and working full time and just everything. Want to move to a sunny island only my own 😂😂😂😂

Having a child with SEN humbles you. My youngest will only eat three meals in the evening: pizza, dippy eggs or tinned tomato soup with bread. The chatter about UPF’s on here makes me laugh because I honestly don’t care as long as he eats.

I have a college that has a 4 weekly meal rotation. A lot of work to start with but now it requires no thinking at all.

I have two autistic DC, the one who has suspected ARFID is also vegetarian.
I'm struggling to think of a single meal I can make that everyone will eat. Every day I make at least two meals, even if we're eating all together.

Im here to say that it gets better.
For ages while the kids were young we had a weekly menu - the same one every week - and it was incredibly boring. I mean REALLY boring. However, it meant that everyone ate because everyone knew what to expect on each day. We had the same seven meals on rotation. Mind numbing.
Now we are in the teenage years and it is so much better. They just stopped being so ridiculous about food. It’s probably a combo of the taste buds altering and also the insane teenage hunger just telling them to eat whatever is there.
So now we have a varied diet. On weekends I pretend that I have a massive family and make double portions. So no cooking on Mondays or Tuesdays - just heating up the leftovers. If I’ve cooked three big meals Fri/Sat/Sun then there is another leftover night. Then one ‘oven dinner’ processed food night. It’s actually not too bad as I’m only cooking about 3 or 4 meals from scratch per week. Manageable.

I cook healthy family meals that I like. There is always a component that everyone will eat. Salmon and broccoli for the one who likes salmon and veg, mash for the one who likes mash, plus salad that everyone will eat. There is no fruit if you don’t eat. Fruit is for snacking, not a meal replacement if you’re too fussy to eat. Mine are 13 & 8. Some days they simply don’t eat much, but thems the rules. I get to eat meals I like.

I found that if I got the kids to 'help' with the cooking they were far more likely to eat it.

Their favourite was home made pizzas, where I would offer bowls of chopped veg, grated cheddar or sliced mozzarella and tomato sauce and they would assemble their own.

Easy pasta dishes too where I would make some homemade tomato sauce in advance and they would peel and tear mushrooms or other veg and help saute some chicken to add to the sauce. Similar with fresh pesto and extra veg.

We also did a lot of 'topped' chicken e.g. with salsa and nachos or tomatoes and cheese which they could help assemble. Just flatten the chicken out or slice it into two thin layers first. Sainsburys actually used to sell thin chicken escalopes which were great for this - not sure if they still do.

Same with white fish/salmon fillets topped with greek yoghurt mixed with pesto or crushed garlic and then herbs/breadcrumbs or tomatoes or olives or serrano ham on top for example. Really just anything you know they'll eat.

It might take a little prep in advance so maybe only suitable for weekends but I generally ended up with clean plates if they'd been 'chef for the day'.

I solve the casserole issue by stuck a jacket potato each with it, the fussiest one will eat the potatoe then pick the bits she likes out of the casserole.
Follow though as I seem to have got in a bit of a rut if doing the same things every week.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindowbecause it has only taken a few times of that here and there before he realised he had to eat with us. I'm not saying meal aren't a battle sometimes but it's avoided the buttered pasta nonsense for us. He would have eaten breakfast, school lunch, after school snack so if he digs in his heels and doesn't eat dinner once or twice, he learns being difficult doesn't pay.

I will do the four bites (now five) and then he can have yogurt or something if he really hates it, but that's my final offer. He thinks all meals should be snacks.

If that makes me mean, so be it. There's no SEN, and he's by and large an adventurous eater. With things regularly added to his "like list" though it might have been 20 times exposing him to peppers to get us there.

I agree with this. Also, kids will sometimes try something if it's framed as "junk food" ie a takeaway. So you can potentially expand their safe foods list.

For example, my dd used to prefer plain egg fried rice but then ate some with shredded carrot in it from a takeaway. She never used to touch carrot! But because it was from a takeaway she trusted it.

I feel your pain anyway op. It really is heartbreaking when you make an effort with a meal, including lots of ingredients they like, and then neither kid touches it.

I completely feel your pain. So much so that I rarely cook now, I got so, so fed up with it. My son was extremely fussy, and frequently loved something one day then despised it the next, argh! Then when they became teens they were coming and going with friends/boyfriends etc and it caused row because we'd either cook and they'd say 'oh I'm not home tonight' so wasting food, or they'd tell me they weren't home so I wouldn't cook then they'd turn up, or they'd bring extra people I hadn't catered for, or vice versa! It's infuriating. So I stopped doing it. I decided to stop fighting a losing battle and get them easy stuff they could make themselves, oven ready food, pasta, etc. They're now 15 and 17 and cook their own meals (now it's chicken and steak, and chillis etc). Appreciate it's not as easy with your age kids, but getting them to take responsibility for their own food worked for me. They didn't end up eating fish fingers every day, although I thought they would. Agreed it wasn't always nutritionally as strong as it could have been at times but I always had grapes, bananas etc on the side which they gravitated to. They now both choose and make their own well balanced healthy meals and I didnt have a nervous breakdown - win win ! 😂👏🏼

I know how you feel. I used to love cooking and was very adventurous. Years of feeding my DC have turned it into a huge chore. Both autistic, one exceptionally picky and the other recovering from an eating disorder. I have always tried to cook mostly from scratch and been conscious of budget but I've almost given up now. For years I was emptying most of DC2's dinner into the bin.

What has helped is having a few set favourites that I know everyone will eat and some nights where some parts of the meal are the same but I can easily adapt for different preferences. Eg, DH and I will have salmon, DC1 will have fish fingers and DC2 will have an omelette but we all have rice and the same vegetable. Or if it's pasta, two of us will have tortellini with tomato sauce, one plain tortellini and one other will have unfilled pasta like penne with the tomato sauce. It takes a bit longer but it is better than the resentment and waste when things weren't being eaten.

Occasionally if I want to try something more adventurous I will cook for DH and I and just give the DC something from the freezer.

If all the adults on here are working either full or part time how are you all managing to stay sane with all the different meals being cooked in the evening? Why don't you cook one meal each evening, put everything on the table in separate bowls plus a bowl of hard boiled eggs, one of cheese, a bagged salad, fresh bread and that's it? Bowl of fresh fruit afterwards. No puddings except at weekend.

Dh does the food ordering so I don’t have to worry about that . We have a list on the notice board that we can add to as we run out of things.
During the week I tend to do -
pasta /noodles dish
rice /bulgar dish
salad or soup/ stew
egg dish
free choice

So pasta could be spag bol/ carbonara/veggie pasta /pasta bake etc and I will adapt it for kids if necessary but the base is the same
Similar with rice I might do kids mild curry and ours is spicier or do gravy for them and goulash for us. The Salad or soup they won’t eat so they get jacket potato and beans or sausage and mash.
Eggs is omlette, pancakes,fritters , quiche. Then Friday they have fish fingers/ breaded chicken etc with chips we usually have steak / lamb chops, chicken. Obviously if they like what we are having parmagina for example we have same.
Weekends dh cooks it’s usually Greek, Mexican, lasagne, roast, pie, curry which kids will eat or eat a variation of

It's so tedious. There is no hint or tip or hack that would change it. It's not just dinner, it's all the meals. Every day. Lunch, dinner, pre sport, post sport.

Op I could have written this post. I'm a big foodie and used to love cooking but we also have very fussy eaters,two of our dc are autistic and eat limited safe foods so it's very samey meals for them every single day. I sometimes get mum guilt and worry that they aren't getting enough of a balance etc etc but then i remind myself fed is best. The other two are less picky but still more so then I would like I find it tedious making multiple dinners and also trying come up with new ideas for dh and I. Solidarity x

I'll see your frustration and raise you making dinner EVERY night for one vegetarian (me), one fussy 9 year old and 2 that will eat the same thing thankfully - so THREE separate dinners every night and not even counting breakfasts, lunches, snacks etc. I'm at the point I want to empty the contents of all the cupboards on the floor and just tell them to sort their bloody selves out. 😵‍💫 I jest of course but my god it is absolutely soul destroying at times 😭

Oh my! SO much solidarity, and it’s really helping me feel less frustrated and mum-guilty!! I really appreciate all the replies, and it’s really humbling to hear how some of you are navigating cooking for family members with SEN and really complex needs. It makes me realise that my situation could be a lot more challenging that it actually is.

I have completely lost my motivation and interest in cooking, but I can definitely make it a lot simpler. There was a big dose of mum guilt in there for not having perfectly balanced meals going into them every night.

Hopefully their tastes will expand as they get older, but I’ll drop all the expensive fruit, and put some easy wins/picky bits on the table with each meal.

The idea of adaptable bits is good too, so maybe jackets with beans for DH and I, waffles and beans for the kids (they won’t eat jackets 🙄) etc.

I also hate it. My eldest will eat anything, but the youngest (12) is extremely fussy. One thing he will eat, that I tend to do on club evenings is roast chicken with a jacket potato, quiche and salad (veg sticks for the fussy one). I cook the chicken whole, in the slow cooker to finish just before we need to eat it, and leave the potatoes to cook while we’re at the activity. The salad gets pre prepared in the morning, so when we get home it’s literally a case of throwing it all on a plate and serving. Super quick, there is something everyone likes and it’s completely unprocessed, apart from the quiche, which is just laziness on my part. It makes that evening a bit less rushed and leaves minimal washing up.

Have you tried all the meal boxes? I’ve tried a few on intro offers which works out cheap and then they entice you back with another offer. I’ve just gone back for a week and it was a relief not to have to think about it. I have a code if you want it!

You are not alone, My eldest has arfid and 2nd is very very very fussy. Its a constant daily battle at dinner time trying to figure out what its going to be. Then me and dh eat a meal , so we need cook eldest a thing, youngest a thing and then our adult main meal. Hate that its so hard and it makes sticking to any kind of low food budget impossible.

More solidarity and a ray of hope... DS turned 13 and his palate exploded. He's become the most adventurous eater in the house. Still doesn't like "sloppy" food like a stew, but it's glorious to have more options. Hopefully your crew will get there too.