to be sick and tired of cooking for my dcs.

[moodlumthehoodlum]

They have morphed into very fussy eaters, and it is nightmare preparing a meal that both will eat.

They are still little (3&4), but its blardy dull constantly having to think about what the next meal is, and then when I do cook it, having it whinged and moaned at.

I know there are bigger things to worry about in life but its a pita.

ok. moan over.

We had this problem, so we bought the kids cute dressing up chef outfits and the Dorling Kindersley children's cookbook, and designed a rotating menu based on that, with them helping to cook the stuff. Dramatic improvement in range of stuff they were prepared to eat.

That's a point-why will they only eat blardy m&s ready meals, but will eat at school? Dd been off poorly for 3 days and am about ready to explode with her-it is food-eat it ffs-it doesn't taste bad, as if it did I wouldn't be eating it . Fecking hours slaving over fecking organic veg and teddy bear pasta shapes, and what thanks do I get, none?!?! I feel your pain.

YANBU at all.

I have one

fussy ds
a normally good eating dd who is now becoming a bit fussy partly due to ds and dh
non-meat eating dh who is tbh rather fussy but won't acknowledge it

I however will eat most things but prefer spicy food so go without unless dh and I have a ready meal (which is becoming a regular weekly feature unfortunately)

As someone else said, it's the thinking/planning of what to eat rather than the cooking itself.

It all started off so well and has gone horribly wrong over the years

In one of my lower ebbs I did swear like Gordon Ramsey at his most fruity, yelled at them for insulting the cook, and threatened to rip out the kitchen and install a home gym in its place. Kids looked very alarmed and ate the rest of their meal in silence. Perhaps that was a bit extreme ...

And how do you "train" your dc's out of it?

Dd hates (and I mean hates!) fish, anything in breadcrumbs, pasta, rice, meat, and so on and so forth-anything you can base a meal on basically. She will eat:

Half a slice of cheese on toast before being overcome with her hatred of bread .
Ham on its own with tomato slices
Weetabix
Yoghurts
Cheese on its own
Peas.

That is it-the list. That is all she will eat, and I can't stand it any more!

I have started thinking up 7 different meals before shopping then don't have to think for seven days, that has made it MUCH better.

I couldnt have a rota as it would drive me insane but doing it this why makes me look up recipes online and so inspires me a bit.

Mine are 1 & 3 (plus DSS 12 when he comes) and they have phases of being so fussy. But I try my best to ignore it (my favourite parenting tip) and they all seem to come out the other side ...until the next phase!

Mind I still have to hold down a GRAAHHHHH everytime my lovely prepared meal is turned away without even a taste.

'It's that or nothing' is propbably my most over used phrase!

Paws, I just stopped feeding the fave foods until they got so hungry they had to go with what I wanted them to eat, a la House of Tiny Tearaways. I think this works quite a lot of the time.

Same in this house too. I slave over cookbooks, searching through for inspiration, make a weekly meals list and then spend even more time cooking and shopping for it. And do they appreciate it? Do they feck.

My question is, what do you all do when they don't eat? Do you say "its that or nothing" and send them to bed hungry? Or do you say "its that or [insert preferred alternative eg bread & cheese]"?

Well, my ds is 13 now and only now am I hanging out the flags in delight over his eating because up until the last 6 months or so he was a total pain in the butt regradig food. He basically ate bugger all apart from bread, cheese, weetabix, honey (!!), beans, and milk or water to drink.
And before i get all the comments about how I should make him eat it, how he wouldn't get away with that in my house etc etc, can I just say I've heard them all before. God forbid pre-child I actually used to say that !! But it's not so easy when it's actually happening and I really did try everything I could think of to get him to eat. In the end he was crying when I said it was mealtime and thats when I thought sod this, he'll have a disorder before I'm finished. so I relaxed and basically let him eat what he wanted on condition he tried a little bit of ours every now and again.

He's 13 now and pretty much eating whatever we eat now. HURRAH, HURRAH, HURRAH!!!! He eats curries, chillis, roast dinners, veggies, and I am so pleased that I didn't push him anymore.

regradig???? Meant "regarding"!! Well, it is friday night

ladymariner.....what kind of stuff did he choose to eat? Were you not concerned about balance etc? Must admit, your approach seems fantastic.....if only I could stop the control freakery for a moment as, like you, am convinced I will end up giving DCs a major food issue.

I feel your pain ladies! And trying to balance what they've have for lunch with something comlimentary/different for tea is brainnumbing sometimes...

My 2 year old used to eat everything, a pleasure to cook for, but he's increasingly suspicious of anything which is a mixture to shovel in with a spoon or fork. So all my freezer meals I slave over once a fortnight (but then really enjoy the ability to defrost and cook in the microwave in about 4 minutes) are geting rejected.

The HV who just did his 2 year check said it's a classic time for him to want to see everything individually on his plate and not wet mixtures. Bang goes the one pot cooking recipes although he is still trusting the bolognese with lentils in. And cutlery skills are in reverse as he likes to pick up these individual bits, fishfingers are his favourite at the mo.

Loving all your meal rota's!! Will also be nicking the salmon tagliatelle idea, wedges and fishcakes ideas.

Our rota:
-pasta bolognese with sneaky red lentils
( sometimes I alternate between beef and lamb mince, woo!)
-scrambled egg and toast
-fishfingers, peas, mash/chips
-tuna sweetcorn pasta
-soup and toast
-organic chicken fingers (waitrose - so easy) and soya beans/peas or mixed frozen veg
-salmon, mash and peas
-boil in bag cod in parsley sauce mixed with frozen veg
-sunday roast (usually slow roast lamb or Jamie Oliver's roast chicken)

At least with his new found interest in picking up his food he's now trying raw veg sticks. He just ate a tomato for the first time despite having eaten tins of them for ages...

I only cook what I fancy cooking and eating and if the kids (9,5 and 3) don't like it then....... tough. I stick it in front of them and leave them to get on with it. If they don't eat it I don't give them anything else. The only time I give them anything different is when DH and I are having a hot curry.

So this week it's been:
Easy pea soup with crispy bacon and with toasted home-made cheese brioche
Fish finger muffins and cherry tomatoes (DH and I had a hot chicken curry)
Squid noodles (they fight over the tentacles)
Homemade kebabs with houmous and salad
Baked potatoes with hoummous, feta cheese and tomatoes
Goats cheese and caramalised onion tart

If always buy smoked salmon when it's marked down and keep it in the freezer. If I'm knackered I give them that with steamed asparagus plus bread and butter.

I will admit to getting peed off if they moan about the food and leave stuff on their plates, does happen on and off, but I think pandering to their food fads and fussy behaviour would be the start of a slippery slope that would end with them demanding chicken nuggets and pizza every night. Not having that.

Mt DD and DS are just like alarkasprees (great name btw).

I also hate thinking of what to cook, much more than I hate actually doing it. But I'm not really a fan of cooking from scratch day in day out either, especially when you know anything new you might try is likely to be met with suspicion, if not out and out disapproval.

I think its hard if you don't positively enjoy cooking. Cooking something healthy and yummy is a pretty labour intensive activity and its soooooooooooo frustrating if its not appreciated by the very people you are putting yourself out for.

Would like to add that this approach only works if you are happy to let your kids go hungry on occasion, which I am. I don't force food down them or try to beg or cajole them into eating. I offer them food and if they don't eat it I take it away. They are all normal weight, fit and healthy so I know that going without on the odd night isn't going to harm them.

Fishfinger muffins?

Lotster have you thought of getting a few of the microwave divided containers and freezing food in them and then bagging it and reusing them? would solve the all-in-one issues?

A thought decide what you want to prepare and cook it every day ie Cheese on toast with diced chicken and beans, they get that and that alone each day, then when they moan ask them what they want next week for teh week!!

If all goes well they will be eating more in a few months!

See it as an investment. IME most children grow out of the fuss stage naturally in a few years as long as you keep serving a varied diet. And after that it becomes a pleasure to feed them. Dd often comes into the kitchen and goes 'what's for supper? oh, that's lovely, I'm so hungry'. And even ds has stopped whingeing.

mrsjohnsimm, I was sooo stressed out about balance, I felt i was the worst mum in the world, especially when people would give me "helpful" comments about how ds should be eatiing this, that or the other.
But I had to weigh it up, and I felt I was doing more harm to ds by forcing food on to him than if I just let go and made mealtimes fun again.
He always ate breakfast, either weetabix or shreddies, both with warm milk so it went mushy, and drank milk or water. Then other mealtimes were more or less like I said above, and I do feel guilty about it but I honestly feel as though there was nothing more I could have done at that stage. The honey sandwich stage was one that will live forever in my memory!!!
One thing that really helped was when he had a routine appt with the health visitor. She checked him over and then asked if I had any problems and I burst into tears and told her that he didn't eat! She asked what I meant, listened to what I've just told you, and then gave me this answer that will stay with me forever:-
"Look at him. Go on, look at him. He's above average height, he's average weight, look at his eyes. Yes, yes, I know he doesn't eat fruit and veg. In a perfect world he would but it's not perfect and they don't. When he's 6 feet tall and eating you out of house and home come back and tell me that he doesn't eat."

He's been a member of an athletics club since he was 7, he plays table-tennis, tennis and cricket for the school, he's intelligent, laid-back and above all happy. so all I can say is, if you can, relax. They do get past it in the end!

thanks matnanplus

Have you tried school dinners? I know there's controversy over them but at DS's school they are not allowed the option of packed lunches and his appetite has increased so much since he started school. He's never been too bad with eating but never ate very much - now he's eating a hot lunch with pudding every day but is eating a bigger meal than ever before.
Last week he had "yummy chicken in tomato sauce with olives"

Squiffy I was going to try the school dinners option, it looks quite good, and I could really do without having to do a lunchbox every day. I think it would really help for dd to see that other people do eat things other than cheese and cucumber sandwiches.

Just have a chat with the school to check that they won't be too hard on her if she doesn't eat much. It is so great not having to do a lunch box. Also, on days when we are swimming, I can give him a snack plate for tea (sandwich, fruit etc) as I know he's had a good lunch. A few times when I can't be arsed he's been really tired, he's had beans on toast or scrambled egg for tea.

School dinners saved my life, they have a hot meal, eat fruit and veg at school which they won't touch for me and I serve up a meal knowing if they won't eat it, DH and I will and they can have a jam sandwich.

YANBU - Both my children were very fussy eaters at this age. Do you have the option of booking them in for a hot lunch at nursery...the minute my DCs started nursery lunches followed by school dinners they became much less fussy. They tried new things at nursery (peer pressure?) and then started eating properly at home.

At home I tend to offer the following types of food on rotation:

spag bog
shepherds pie
sausages and vege
fish fingers
chicken casserole
roast dinner
fish pie
jacket potatoes
pizza

Must try and do some new things!