DS refusing to try new foods

[NichyNoo]

DS is 20 months old and has never been a great eater although he is average weight for his age so not underfed.

I want to try to get him to eat new food and also food that is lumpier than usual however he refuses to try anything new. I'm not sure how I should handle this? He currently has about 6-10 meals that he eats on rotation and I really need to expand this.

For example at lunchtime today he had a bowl of leftover Sunday roast which I chopped into small pieces (pork, broccoli, carrot and bean with freshly made gravy). He refused to even put one piece in his mouth, this is despite the fact that I knew he was hungry and that he has eaten all of the component parts of the meal previously when more mushed up and covered in cheese sauce.

After about 15 minutes of cajoling I gave him his yogurt then put him down for his nap (he was pointing to the food cupboard where his crisps and bananas are kept but I told him that as he didn't even try his main food he wasn't getting any more).

I don't want to have to cover all his food in cheese sauce and mush it up for every meal. But neither do I want to starve him hence giving him his yogurt. I offer him 'new' food that I know he will like but he takes one look at it and if it doesn't look like bread, cheese, yogurt or his familiar mush then he refuses to open his mouth - this frustrates me as he won't even try it.

DH thinks we need to be firm and that I am a bit of a pushover. I think we need a middle ground but don't know how to get there. My big fear is that if he doesn't eat his dinner and we don't offer alternatives then he will be hungry and we will all have a sleepless night. But maybe we just need to suck that up in order to avoid him still eating mushy, cheesey food at 20 years old?

Any advice please?

i found making sure we sat and ate as a family the easiest way. i would my ds next to me. he would have his plate of food (not his favourite food) but i would offer him food from my plate that i was eating or i would take a piece of his toast and dip it in my bean juice/gravy etc. it wouldnt work all the time but i found the more we did it the more he was willing to try something new because it became routine. Now he is 8 year old and i have to bribe him with money to get him to try anything new most of the time!! lol

It can take upto 10times for toddlers to try new foods so you just have to keep trying. Agree that eating together as a family is a good way to do this

I aways been a bit hard on the food front, I always have something on the plate I know they will eat along with new foods. But never offer an alternative if they don't eat it and we only do pudding after lunch not tea.

I have had a toddler going to bed without eating tea but only once or twice, most of the time DD would have eaten some of it. She was a bad sleeper anyway so I don't think what she did or didn't eat affected her sleeping as she woke up regardless.

Firstly let me warn you that DS was weaned with BLW, so you may feel very differently!

My approach to feeding my DS is that I give him food, there is always something on the plate that I know he likes, and he can choose what/how/when/how much he eats. If he chooses not to eat it, he can get down from the table (where we have usually been eating together), but I will not make him something else.

If he is genuinely hungry I will offer him some toast and a banana (or similar) an hour or so afterwards, and again, he can choose if he wants to eat it or not. I don't tell him he has to eat x amount, I do ask him to try it if he hasn't had anything, but I don't make it an issue.

This means that sometimes he eats very little and sometimes he eats a massive amount but it all evens out, and I feel really strongly that the important thing is that he learns to listen to his body and eats the amount he needs rather than what he is given. I don't want to have a situation I have seen with friends where food and mealtimes are a massive massive issue where the child had a very limited diet and the whole family are hugely stressed about eating.

Touch wood, so far DS is really good at trying new things and eating a range of foods, sometimes he trys it on as all 2 year olds do as he would be quite happy to live on cake and cheese but he knows what we expect from him, and mealtimes are really chilled out which is what we wanted?

I personally would do exactly what you did, offer him the meal, ideally eat the same thing at the same time with him, and take it away when he says he is done. I tend to only give DS pudding only every so often as I am wary of the whole "oh you have haven't eaten XYZ so here is your favourite to fill you up" so I wouldn't give a yoghurt straightaway afterwards.

What do you want your DS's diet to be like? And what are you happy to do to get there? Perhaps you and DH could have a chat about it, and work out what approach you want to take together. If you both are happy to go a bit more hardcore then your DS will probably get a bit cross for a week or so, but will get used to the new rules quite quickly, but you both have to be happy with the approach you choose. There is no point sometimes being tough and sometimes giving him what he asks for.

Hope it goes well.

Bloody hell, bit of an essay sorry!

Thank you for the advice! I think that DH and I want DS to eat healthily but happily if that makes sense? Both DH and I eat pretty much anything....we have a varied diet and both did as children. We had relatively strict parents in that we ate what they ate with no alternatives and we had to at least try something before declaring we didn't like it.

The difficult thing is that we both work full time so we are trying to eat as a family for lunch at weekends but teatimes in the week are not possible as DH is still at work and I pick DS up from nursery and feed him as soon as we get home (no time to make anything for myself).

I think that DS responds well to peer pressure - he eats well at nursery and wolfed down a load of spicy onion dip over Easter when we were at my mum's as he saw the grown-ups eating it and wanted to copy (despite pulling a grimace with every mouthful!)

So, I think that trying to eat as a family is probably the first step. It didn't work this weekend but if we try to make it the 'norm' then hopefully he will soon start to figure it out!

Could you try making batch meals when your not working so when you come in from nursary with your DS it's just a matter of heating up something for you both to eat. Then at lest he'd be eating with you most of the time.