to completely change my 3 year old dd's diet overnight?

[DippyDino]

She has quite a poor diet and yes, it is my fault. I was an overweight mum with food issues of my own when she was weaned, (did blw kind of) and although she adores fruit (ANY fruit!) and veg (cucumber, olives, sweetcorn, red / green peppers) and will eat sweet kiddies stuff,(yoghurt, buns, cakes, biscuits etc) the rest of her diet mainly consists of ice cream, dried fruit, processed potato products and quorn. (Oh the shame!)

The quorn is because she decided that she did not want to eat meat. Seriously, I am not winding you up. She likes chickens, but objects most strongly to eating them.

So... I need to eat more healthily, so does she. I do not want to feel that I have to shore up her calorie intake by feeding her crap sweet high calorie stuff, I want her to eat nowt but Pretty Good Stuff.

My dd is 3 and a half and has a will of iron. Trying Her with new foods on her plate doesn't really work. She will simply say no thank you and ignore it, we have been Trying Her for months.

At the moment her eating seems to have taken a dip, she is more of a nibbler at the moment.

So am being unreasonable to get together all the healthy recipies I can find, involve her in cooking and give her nothing but stuff like...

Breakfast - cereal - but not the sweetened crap she is used to.

Lunch - beans n tomatoes on wholemeal toast.

Snack - Apple with home made flapjack (sweetened with orange juice recipe)

Dinner - Cheesy mushroom pasta

Surely she will crack eventually?

I'd give her the new stuff in half a portion and the other half of the portion full of veg that she does like, then for breakfast a big stack of fruit alongside the new stuff and again at puding time etc.

I wouldnt eat cheesy mushroom pasta though how about a pizza with loads of veg on including some new ones?
Nice soups and add lentils etc for protein?

Personally as the mum of a fussy eater I think YABU.
Her diet is not that rubbish in all honesty, I wish ds would eat half the things that she eats.

Yes she will crack eventually but she will if you keep introducing new foods time and time again as well.

Rather than trying to change her diet overnight and rather than try and introduce new foods one at a time why not introduce whole meals at once.
Children this age need to see foods loads of times before they will even accept it as food never mind try it so keep going.

Be happy with what she eats her diet in all honesty isn't the worst and she will grow out of it eventually if you just ignore it a bit no fuss at meal times etc.
ANd I am speaking from personal experience I was the worlds fussiest eater as a child but now will eat pretty much anything.

hope it goes well!
the key i found was to just not have any "bad" stuff in the house. just don't buy it. she will nag for a few days but don't let it wear you down

we fell into a rut of having biscuits/crisps/ice cream for snacks and my children's behaviour was getting ridiculous (too much sugar) so i just cut it all out completely.
they whinged for a few days and kept asking for it, but wasn't long before they realised that i just din't h ave any at all.

things we have for snacks now include:
marmite rice cakes
pretzels
cheese
oatcakes with peanut butter/marmite/bit of jam

and of course remember that everything is ok in moderation. once you've got her into a healthier eating pattern it;s fine to have sweets/ice cream now and then. but make sure it stays a treat

I reckon if you just keep offering and letting her control her own intake then she'll be just fine

I'm not sure if YABU or not. Dried fruit is OK, quorn is basically ok (low fat, high fibre) so I'm not sure the junk part of your list is that junky. I guess it all depends on relative proportions.

Does she watch I can cook on cbeebies? there are lots of recipes from those programs on the cbeebies website and from the quick look I've had, they look healthyish

what's wrong with cheesy mushroom pasta??? ds1 would LOVE that (mushrooms are his favourite)

dried fruit is actually reallybad for their teeth because it's very sugary and also sticky, so if they're having it between meals it's not great.

quorn is just empty calories. they used to not recommend it for kids under 2 years because it fills you right up but has no real goodness in t

Well done for moving her onto healthier foods!

I would try to keep on giving her the new stuff, like allaboutme says, with veg / fruit so that she doesn't go hungry. They say it takes 20 times of tasting to like a new food, so keep persevering!

Also, I know small children need little and often, but try to get her to eat enough at a meal and then only offer your healthy snacks if she really is hungry later.

Plain rice cakes are quite good, but not the snack-a-jack type!

Why is quorn no good for you? I thought it was a veggie alternative for protein?

it has protein, but that's about it. like i say, the manufacturers themselves never used to recommend it for young children for the reasons i stated below.

well youi were giving her quorn before but you are giving her mushrooms now.I thought quorn was mushroom? You were giving her dried potato now and now you are giving her pasta flour and dried egg.
Has your daily menu got enough calories ?

Quorn is technically 'microscopic mushrooms. I will also include stuff like tofu, cheeses, pizza, ricotta, lentils, red kidney beans and so on.

Thank you all for your views - really mixed bunch!

Makes me think perhaps I am BU, a little bit, I will think about changing her diet a meal at a time, if that makes sense.

Hmmm am suddenly craving Quorn....

Quorn is NOT mushrooms - microscopic or otherwise. It is a highly processed food with the protein bit coming from a fungus grown in a laboratory. There's nothing natural about it at all.

And it makes around 10% of people who eat it violently ill - I won't touch it anymore after several bouts of 24 hours of D&V with cramps, fainting etc - always blamed it on the children bringing bugs home with them until I noticed it was every time I ate quorn...

Dd has never reacted to quorn like that - tbh I didn't think it was particularly 'natural' in any way. This is why I'm not happy with it playing such a large role in her diet and I want her to eat proper 'veggie' food - e.g. grains and pulses, nuts and cheeses for protein and so on.

I will be giving her a normal 'dd tea' tonight of chips, quorn sausage and sweetcorn, but with a slice of cheese pizza for her to ignore try.