Please help, feeding a 3 1/2 year old.... Something!

[Byeckerslike]

he will not eat, he used to eat everything put in front of him, now he just refuses, he asked for soup for tea as he is a little under the weather, i made soup, which he used to eat, and some bread and butter, he has stirred the b&b into the soup, then said, ive had enough.

Im not too bothered tonight as he isnt himself, but its every night.

How should i react, should i just let him not eat, should i get cross... For some reason i have no idea how to deal with this!

I have never been one for stressing about how much my dcs eat, ive always been a 'they'll eat if they are hungry' type of person, but i have always been blessed with good eaters until now.

He will happily snack all day if i let him, he loves fruit, he loves veg, but he turns his nose up at anything else.

He has even started making himself sick if i make him try something... :( so i didnt try that technique again!

Its driving me mad!

Put the food in front of him, something he does like (veg) with something new/he doesn't like, sit down with your own food and make conversation about anything but food. Clear his plate away when you have finished yours.

My friend did this for 3 days before her dd started eating. It wasn't huge amounts at first but she got better.

DD1 is 3.6 and did this just before xmas. It was a nightmare.

Suddenly everything she would previously have scoffed she turned her nose up at. We had a good few weeks of torture but now she is back to eating really well. It was mainly dinners that where the problem as she ate fine at lunch and breakfast.
We took the line of - well theres nothing else so if you dont eat that then tough. She really pushed it but got the idea that it just wasn't going to work. It was obviously a control thing. She wasn't going to starve as she ate well at lunch etc.

We also encouraged her to try the dinner then would make a smaller pile of food for her to eat so it didnt look such a daunting amount on her plate. That seemed to help.
We also had a sticker chart for eating dinner. She adores stickers so that was a big hit too.

It started having an affect on her younger sister at dinner time too so didnt want her to follow suit. We found sticking to our guns really helped and we soon came through the other side. I know that not everyone feels comfortable doing that though.

Thankyou pigley and priscilla, both great ideas, i like the not talking about food thing.

Its interesting when you say, pigley, he does eat more breakfast and lunch (marginally) so thinking about it rationally (now he is in bed and i have had a nice soothing ) teatime is the biggest issue.

I will battle on and hope its just a phase, like everything else at this age!

You should really get this book - it's very enlightening:
"How to Get Your Kids to Eat...But Not Too Much" by Ellyn Satter. Another MNer recommended it & I found it contains excellent advice.