What to do when you have tried EVERYTHING and after 2 years your child still wont eat

[tryingtobemarypoppins2]

DS is now 3 and for 2 years has had a VERY limited diet. We have been very relaxed (but worried) over meal times, said nothing, ignored, said no pudding, we really have tried everything.

Breakfast is fine. Wetabix and toast, fruit pouch.

Lunch he will eat 1/2 a sandwich but only cheese/marmight/hummous. Won't eat fruit unless its a pouch. Will eat cake/crisps. Anything else is a total refusal.

Dinner: Will only eat: Sausages/beans/spegetti hoops. That's it. Anything else is total refusal.

The problem is he is happy to miss pudding/sit and wait for his brother. Doesn't ask for food later. He looks pale and is under 2 stone.

I am really worried that this will impact on his brother (9months) who eats like a horse!

After 2 years of this I ahve had enough. But what can I do!??

no, that's great JKS I appreciate the reply. We definitely shy away from the punishment for not eating as everything I've seen/read suggests this just makes it more of a big deal? I guess it's a balance between encouraging them to eat more healthy foods and having a battle each dinner time!

You're right it does make it into too big a deal.

We don't punish for not eating, but for not trying and i see that as a big difference. I think if i had been forced to try more foods i wouldn't have been so fussy myself.

But my Mum was forced to finish a plate/not allowed down until she ate/kind of thing as a child and was very tentative about the food issue with all of us.

I know once DS1 starting food and i tried things like swede, parsnip, etc. and i realised they were nice! i thought of how much i'd missed out on over the years.

DS1 knows he does not have to eat everything, or anything really it is his choice but there are consequences.

At the same time i am understanding that there are some foods that just are not to be eaten. For me it's tomatoes & mushrooms :)

true JKS - the other trouble we have is if they have something new on their plates next to stuff they like the whole meal will go untouched - so frustrating!
I'm with you on the tomatoes!

Op
Ds2 was very fussy and it was we think linked to his verbal dyspraxia and autism. Following that route I changed his diet to gluten and dairy free. He was hugely intolerant of those foods but craved them.
Clearing his diet helped and now he eats much more than he used to.
Univeristy of Sunderland ARI have lots of info on this ... If you are interested - you may not be.

The ' if he is hungry he will eat does not actually work. When at his worst ds2 passed out at nursery after I had refused his pasta/ biscuits/ sandwich choice.

oh pag - you save the day again - it i most probable that DS has verbal dyspraxia - though paed quite certain he is not autistic - though both DH and I think he def has some quirks.

So I would be HUGELY interested in anything about this as it has always left me thinking there is more to it all, but am also trying to not make a mountain out of a molehill.

Trog - no worries, thank you. Sometimes in type things can come acorss as differently, sorry for being over sensitive. It's just I ma not actually worried - just frustrated by it all - though don't show it and we only talk about it when he isn't around. But we have trid lots of things - and not even in a desperate way. Mainly because I wouldn't want him to be the nightmare child you talked about - that would also have driven me potty!!! But I am pretty certain that I would have mentioned to someone taking my child on holiday about the extreme fussiness - maybe they were worried you would change your mind

Jooly I just read your post to DH as that is just the sort of thing he would do - really made us laugh. However we ahve an only - so am pretty certain DH would win each time but I also know that my son would quite happily let someone else win - he is not taken in by these things unfortunately

Oh and def sympathise with "if something new/different on the plate, then none of it gets touched"

Lol at save the day

I have stuff going on for next day or so but when I can get on proper computer I will try and track down info.

Have a look at uni of Sunderland and air. Try to ignore the hefty autism connection. Ds1 used diet too to good effect and he has no asd.
Nag me if I forget....

great thanks Pag I will

Haven't read the whole thread but maxybrown has your son been assessed by a speech and language therapist? SaLTs asses how people eat and swallow as well as speak so it might be worth try? Or it might just be that your son doesn't like the different textures in his mouth, lots of people, especially kids, have "a thing" about texture of food.

He's been under SALT for a year and due to start, most probably, at a speech unit in September. No one has ever assessed how he eats or swallows. He def has some sensory issue with his mouth.

My ds wouldnt eat fruit or veg from weaning, he was ok with bananas but nothing with a fruit or veg type texture.

I tried everything and did get some things taken sometimes.

Then i put him in nursery (not for this reason) and warned them he wasnt great with fruit and veg but that i offered it at every meal and didnt make a fuss if it was left.

He has been there 2 months and now eats fruit and veg! He actually asks for grapes/satsumas as snacks, gets excited when we have peppers etc.

It was just the peer pressure of watching other kids eat, he wasnt too bothered by us or dd eating this veg but copied his friends.

lol, at toddlers DS won't eat ANYTHING at all, even stuff he likes. He will only have a drink - whilst all the other fight over everything on the plates!

So glad it's not just my 2 yr old. We've starting being really strict with her diet after some terrible constipation problems. She's only allowed fruit as a snack, which if she's hungry she will eat, not to stress over meals not eaten, but no pudding unless she tries at least something. Today she managed four bites of pizza before yoghurt. It sounds like nothing but for us a big deal. Her elder sister though would eat you if you were on a plate, maybe going the other way.

Yeah ds was like that at mother and toddlers too, it was something about nursery and me not being there he def plays up morfe for me than for other people (i tell myself its because we have such a strong bond and he is just testing his boundaries)

Riven

Hi OP. No practical advice or info but just thought it might reassure you a bit to know that my DP was apparently an awful eater as a kid. Until he was five he ate basically nothing - he had 3 or 4 bottles of milk a day until he went to primary school and had very very little food apart from chips!! Has always been small and all the way through school his parents would be told at least once a year that he was underweight and they obviously weren't feeding him enough. He gave his parents years and years of worry (and god don't they remind me of it ALL the time!!!)...

And.....he's now a fully grown adult with kids of his own. He has a seriously good degree from a seriously good university and a seriously good job. He very good at a couple of sports. He's even getting a bit portly these days(although he's not exactly a 6 foot strapping lad tbh!!).

It must be really worrying to live through this sort of thing but please don't think that it will have a definite long term impact.

I think there is so much emphasis on so-called Healthy Eating but actually, if they ARE eating, and gaining weight, then they tend to be doing OK.
To an underweight child, a bar of chocolate IS healthy, as it is filling them up with calories and giving them eating pleasure.
Lots of kids just aren't interested in food, so encourage and praise them for what they are interested in.
You can introduce the other stuff gradually.

My DS doesn't even like chocolate lol!!

Thanks Riven - I will look into that, for other reasons also

I have two boys, one who is (or was) very fussy, one who eats anything in record time. I don't agree with some of the other posts - but I'm not saying I've got the answer either. It's up to you how you handle this.

DS1 had a very bad stomach bug at about 8 months old, just as I was weaning him. He became very very difficult with his food, even scared of his food. I used to get really upset about it. His diet was pretty much based on bread, potatoes, yogurt. He was having lactose free milk as normal milk would upset his stomach.

As he was growing, he was fussy with his food but I managed to get him to eat a few good bits. He likes some fish - including the dreaded fish fingers. I basically decided to stop worrying about it and gave him only stuff that he liked. It seams to me as if his 'trust' in his food came back slowly. Mealtime was more relaxed. I would offer him a new item alongside something that he liked and praised him loads if he ate a bit of it.

Now, he is 5 years old and has a good diet with lots of fruits, fish, vegetables, and the usual sausages/fish fingers/baked beans. He loves eggs which really saved my sanity. He will not eat meat, apart from chicken.

He doesn't eat anything that he can't identify. If I'd try to give his let's say couscous, he would not eat it even if he was very very hungry. He could easily skip a meal or eat very very little.

I also started thinking that if he'd eat breakfast plus one good meal it was great. Not two. So he has one good meal, and the other meal is a sandwich, or a boiled egg with soldiers, or baked beans on toast.

He now has school dinners two days a week and he is happy to try new things. He is still in the 'fussy' category but I don't mind, I know that he has a good diet.

So basically, I think that you can handle this in many ways and there are no right or wrongs. I just feel that people who have 'good eaters' don't understand what it feels like to have a child who refuses to eat. I have both, a good eater who will eat anything all day long, in record time, and one who doesn't. I know it feels terrible when someone says 'well MY kids eat ANYTHING you see...' blah blah blah. Don't mind them. It's hard enough as it is.

One thing that helped DS was to invite his friends around for tea. He would see that it's normal to eat and to enjoy food!

what does Dr say???

Hello,
There was a 3 year old on "Embarrassing bodies Kids" who mostly just drank milk and ate custard.

It turned out he had real sensory probs with touching food (as well as getting dirty/playing with messy stuff), so a lot of what the expert did was to de-sensitise him to this- get him used to touching stuff before he could eat it.

If this could be an issue with your son I would go get expert advice as they seemed to get this boy onto the hard stuff and eating quite a varied diet fairly quickly.

It seemed nothing was working as noone had tackled the real issue.

Other than that, chill out, keep offering and he'll eat at some point!

I have no experience in this, but I noticed that you said that his breakfast was okay, but not the rest of it. It seems to me that a cheese sandwich / marmite sandwich / hummous sandwich, a fruit pounch, and some cake are actually also a perfectly good lunch. Fine, it's not very adventurous, but just think of all the adults in offices who rotate a choice of two or three sandwiches every day for lunch.

My first DS very fussy eater and also underweight. What we found worked well when wanting to try a new food, was to offer it when he was engrossed in a game. Then tried to get hime to take a bite. Often worked as mind was on other things.

Once he got older 4+ on a sunday we all have to try a new food. DH hates olives which he loves, so all have to eat 3 mouthfalls of something that we would not normally eat and then call it out NEW FOOD. Helpful if he can then ring someone to boast how clever he has been eg grandparent. It does get better but sometimes takes a while