Toddler 'addiction' to baby food

[TryingVeryHard]

I am guilty of a much frowned-upon mistake... I have given DS jars of baby food since the weaning stage, starting with conveniently taking jars when we went out at mealtimes but then using them when too tired/weary of mealtime battles (I work full time).
DS was always a fussy eater, since fruit/veg puree stage, but he loved the b...y jars at first sight!
Now he's 2y5m and refuses to even try any of the main courses we're eating. He will simply not have any food he doesn't know. Tried colours, shapes, funny stories, trains, planes.... nothing tempts him. He gets really upset if I insist.
I have spoken to the health visitor and got some good advice, but nothing seems to work.
Any ideas or similar experiences?
Is there any hope for me?

I don't have experience of this...but could you wash out a jar and put a mixture of half baby food and half home made stuff in it to see if you can start to wean him off the taste of the jars (because let's face it they taste nothing like real food!). Maybe eventually you could add more real food and less jar food and just see if it makes him try new things??

Thanks Jelly, that's actually the only thing that really works, I've tried it for a while now and we got to half-half, will try to increase the home-made food gradually

I used the baby food as pasta sauce for ds1 then gradually swapped to home made sauce.

Sounds interesting Little Miss Green, I'll try that... just curious, what age was your son and how long did it take for him to take the home made sauce?

Mmmm, DS would have been younger than your DS, probably less than 1 when I did the pasta sauce idea. But it did work over a month or so.

In general for trying new food (DS is autistic and has major problems with new things) I had to put the food (just a teaspoon or so) on the plate alongside what he would normally eat, for a few days so he got used to seeing it on his plate. Then would encourage him to taste it - no bribery, if he didn't eat it no big deal, just try again the next time. If he did it, "fantastic DS1" but no forcing to try a second mouthful. If I knew that was how I was handling it there was no stress in trying to get him to eat things iyswim. It took me about 3 years but he has gone from eating a very limited diet to now eating pretty much anything put in front of him.

i dont know how MNers will react to this as im still a relatively new MNer but on 4od there is an excellent supernanny episode about this very thing. Its a bit drastic (but no more drastic than say CC)but basically she advises giving normal food only, making it seem tasty by how how u talk about it etc, i think givin them special new plates etc and making them feel grown up, and eventually they have to eat it. this means acceptin he will get worked up but not giving in to it.

Search for the episode by looking for the one about 2 phd parents with 2 sets of twins

hth

Muslimah, I think you probably are the voice of reason, and I've been given similar advice by other mums (and my dad!).... but... unfortunately I'm not the kind of person who can adopt this approach and stick to it - anyway not without a huge huge effort and totally breaking my heart :(
I know "tough love" usually works but... my DS is a lovely little boy in every other aspect, he's good and loving and clever and I would feel like such a HORRIBLE person to force things upon him... Even with new plates and tastes and talking new foods up, I just know he won't be buying any of that (too old now) and he won't understand why mummy is being so mean and refusing him his dear old food...
I think I will just have to be very very patient, like Little Miss Green - thanks