to just serve up 3 nutritious meals a day and leave it at that?

[bohemianbint]

Have a 2.8 DS and an 8m DS.

It is driving me insane thinking of things to cook that they will both eat. In fact, cooking anything that either of them will eat is challenge enough. DS1 basically exists on a rotation of beans on toast, scrambled egg on toast, bananas, rice cakes and yogurt.

DS2 will eat nothing off a spoon unless it is yogurt, and throws anything you offer him in terms of finger food on the floor.

So, I'm spending so much time racking my brains thinking of things to cook, preparing them, scraping them off the floor and then offering peanut butter rice cakes anyway.

I could just stop stressing, give them both weetabix 3 times a day and be done with it, and spend the extra time in the day drinking gin or sommat.

Or - I could just continue to cook decent meals and let them take or leave them. But not just pass out the rice cakes afterwards, in the hope that eventually DS1 might eat a bit more balanced diet. And I am worried that DS2 will only eat tiny bits of fruit and yogurt and mainly survives on 18 breastfeeds a day.

It's mentally exhausting! What do other people do?

Not weetabix -- well, not 3x/day.
The rotation your DS1 likes is fine, imho, just keep what you're doing, and offering other healthy snacks and their childlike curiousity will lead them to try other things -eventually.

bohemianbint#
go for the 'gin or sommat' and 18 breastfeeds a day
that is pretty much what I am doing - but wine not gin

been there, still slip back into it from time to time. currently serving 3 nutritious meals and thats it. snacks consist of fruit. if meal is not eaten, nothing else is offered. seems to be working. except today, i had soup for lunch, ds had nothing til tea. his choice.

everything you're giving ds1 is really healthy so don't worry about it. my ds lives on fruit alone, his nappies are rank.

I am currently trying - serve 3 nutritious meals and 2 very healthy snacks. And make sure there is something on the plate that each child will eat, since I find that if they start eating they sometimes carry on. They don't appear to be starving and they do seem to be trying the occasional new food.

Ds2 is 16mo and won't eat anything off a spoon except weetabix and yoghurt. He will eat with his fingers but only stuff that is dry and easy to pick up. Spag bog is a non-starter.

I guess you're making sure you don't give your ds2 a bf just before a meal? Or does he meltdown? 8mo is fine for living on mostly milk though. I put vegetables on a plate in front of ds2 for months before he decided to eat them. But he eats them now.

I obviously allow exceptions for genuine dislikes (mushrooms for example), but other than that I just serve up nutritious meals and let them get on with it - no substitutions, no pudding.

I think the 'like it or lump it' approach is my favourite . Cannot stand fussiness in children, or adults for that matter. Just keep topping up your 8mth old with milk as you are doing It's OK for him to have mainly milk at that age.

Your DS1, in theory, should eat if he's hungry so yes, stick to 3 healthy meals a day, offer fruit as snacks and water/milk to drink.

The meal choices you've mentioned sound pretty healthy- baked beans on toast is one of the most nutritionally balanced meals there is, so try not to stress.

I'm no dietician (!) but I think DS1's diet sounds very healthy - they all go through this stage, just go with it rather than stressing.

You could try introducing a new thing every so often alongside the old favourites but really, kids know what their bodies need.

Does this help?

I am often (boringly often) heard to remark "well my part of the deal is that I cook the meal and put it on the plates; whether you eat it or not is up to you". I try to cultivate an air of couldnt-care-less nonchalance, which does quite often work (although my DDs are older).

i tend to put 1 thing each dc likes best on their plate. the other stuff is put in middle of table for us all to share. i tend to find they eat more that way. and less waste of the bit they dont like.

my dc also have whatever i'm having.

none of this malarky of cooking seperate meals.

their current favourite is cold smoked salmon, boccoli with olive oil dressing. or sea bass (whole ones. where we all stuff and slap it before it goes in oven . then bring out cooked fish and disect. they particularly liked to be chased around by a whole fish before cooking and it "bites " them

oh and 3.2 yr and 21month

DS is 2 and gets what we get. End of. If he eats 'a good amount', he gets pudding. If he picks/throws it on the floor/ gives it to the dog he gets nothing. I don't even pay any attention to geniune dislikes as one day spinach will be work of the devil, the next day he'll devour it.

His choice!

god-i am so with you-my dd2 went on a 'fast'at 9months-refused EVERYTHING solid for a a few days and weaned herself off me too-was deranged.Saw nutritionist about her as she at that point decided spoons were not for her either...
so,nutritionist says-offer meals to her and if she doesn't eat them take it away.Ignore any fuss they make,praise the one that does eat but don't make a fuss about the one that doesn't,if we have a particularly 'shit run of non eating days' i'll do her an omelette or some scrambled eggs as she always eats them.
Mine will eat things like salad veg,sausages,some meats some of the time,some fruits some of the time,cheese,pasta.She uses a fork and her hands to feed herself and so can't do sloppy textures (and still wont let us near her with a spoon)
I wont prepare extra meals,we now have accepted eating days and non eating days.
tonight we had salmon,new pots,veg-she ate about 3 mouthfuls of fish,half a baby spud,a green bean and half a baby corn (she's 19mths) for pudding she had berries maybe 2 strawberries and 3 raspberries-i am at home with her and prepare all her meals so can vouch for the fact that she's got enough energy to keep herself on the go all day (and most of the night) and is reaching all her milestones so there isn't anything to worry about.She's not fat,never has been but it's a real worry when it's day 3 and she's had literally,one banana and maybe one slice of bread split over the 3 days and her bedtime bottle.
keep going-it'll get easier i am sure...

Pass the gin bottle.

I lost it tonight when ds wouldn't eat anything at tea time.

We are now down to yogurt, shreddies, fruit and toast. Its getting worse not better. Won't even try anything new. Am fed up of cooking then throwing food straight in the bin.

He is 2.8

stretford, yes totally!

I figure... if they're normally healthy and active and developing well, then they are fine, and if they're hungry, they'll eat it.

I watched a programme once and saw this clip of these mongolian 2 year old chowing down on cow nuts quite cheerfully.

After seeing that, I figured that DS, with his lovingly prepared meals of chicken and pumpkin risotto, could eat it, or tough shit.
I am not made of time or money, and if my cooking is good enough for me and DH, it's good enough for DS too!

Thanks for the feedback! I would never force them to eat anything they didn't like, but I also can't be arsed with making an array of meals 3 times a day (we tend to eat much later and I eat a lot of low fat stuff they'd never touch and very spicy food).

It really bugs me seeing loads of food all over the floor (although I know it's inevitable with BLW) and I think I'm just pissed off that I went to loads of effort to make them a butternut squash risotto; DS2 has deigned to take the BN chunks out and that's it. I should know better really - I sometimes just feel like I might end up in the paper like that Mcd's triplets woman for serving my kids the same meal all the time... (I can just see the thread on MN - "she fed him nothing but bananas for 6 months, wtf was she thinking?!")

if i let mine she'd eat crisps/chocolate products 24-7.
i didn't even know she'd had them until she started to ask for them by name and could identify a cadburys logo from 30foot...
the joys of having a teenager who 'treats' her little sister...

hell x-posts, perhaps there's something about risotto that forced a tipping point!

posh I actually bribed DS to try a bit of rice yesterday. Totally against that kind of thing, really unhealthy, but I thought if he would just try the bastard risotto he would love it and eat it. (He loved it when he was a baby!) Didn't work.

stretford (great name, and Stretford's only about 2 miles from me!) thanks, that's quite reassuring. I suppose some days he will amaze me with how much he will put away, then other days nothing. (DS1, this is.)

I finely grate carrots and stir them into the beans- they don't usually notice them as they are the same colour but this maybe isn't the point if you want them to actually like vegetables!

bohemian bint-there's a nutritionist on hand at drop ins in trafford-she's ace-very reassuring. has revolutionised my blood pressure levels...

actually just remembered reading something in the guardian family section about how children automatically choose foods that they need to give them energy to grow and be active. So although fruit and veg are good for them, they fill them up without giving them much in the way of energy. What their bodies really need and they therefore crave, is easily digestable carbohydrates ie white bread/pasta/potatoes etc (crisps/chocolate and sugar?. Twas very interesting and reassuring!

early - was it DunderMifflin's link? It has cheered me up a bit. Might try to get hold of that book mentioned there.

Duh! i totally missed that post. must read more carefully next time...{slinks off to find reading glasses...]

bohemian, we have tried bribery, well dh has. I came into the kitchen whilst dh was supervising tea to see the icecream, choc eggs, and chocolate mousse sitting on the table with dh prompting him to eat the lentil casserole.

Didn't work either.