okay then all you fab parenting types - Cappuccino is on her KNEES asking you to help

[Cappuccino]

dd won't eat anything.

she never has eaten much (I'm alarmed by now much earlier dd2 wears her hand-me-down outfits) but now her paediatrician has referred her to a nutritionist because she is too small. She is nearly 6 and when I try to buy her school skirts even the 4-year-old ones hang off her diddy little waist.

She has some feeding problems due to her cerebral palsy but the last time I spoke to her chewing and swallowing therapist she said she was doing really well, and said that maybe 20% of her unwillingness to eat was down to the disability, and 80% was behavioural.

She is a very clever little girl and I think that food has become An Issue. She never ate or drank much, as I said (when she was a baby we used to force water down her with a syringe when it was really hot and she had had nothing to drink) but now she looks at her food and pushes it away without even having a spoonful.

We have tried everything at least once. Stickers. Ignoring it and just bringing on the next course. Praise for good eating. Naughty steps. All sitting down happily for a meal and chatting and just blanking her shenanigans. Trying to talk to her about it. But it gets worse and worse. She barely eats or drinks anything at all. This morning I just left her at the table with her milk (she refused her Ready Brek straight off) for an hour until she drank it. I told her that she wouldn't be ready to go to her grandmas until she had drunk her milk and got dressed. It worked eventually after many tears and everyone's morning being ruined by it, but I don't have time to do this when she's back at school.

I am at the point where I have no patience with this 6-year charade any more and I can't see a way out. When she was at nursery I used to pay extra so they would give her lunch - I didn't need the childcare but I just couldn't face three meals a day. I always feed her things that she likes and that she can easily eat; I give her a good, varied, tasty diet but it all ends in the bin. I can see going to this nutritionist and him saying 'you need to give her this and this' and watching her push it away again. I'm also aware that dd2 could soon see what is happening and join the 'game', and she is a great eater.

can anyone help me with a way out of this? I'm just getting completely past it.

Capuccino, we have had similar problems with ds. In fact I started a thread quite recently on food suggestion for Highly Sensitve Children althoug your dd may not fall into that category.

Anyway, are there one or two things that she will eat? We have at times been severely limited in menu choices for ds, well, we still are but it's getting slightly better. Anyway, if she will eat say, cheese sanwiches, peas, pasta with sauce (you can hide vegetables in there) and bananas, just serve those over and over. It's maddening to someone who likes to cook and eat a variety of foods but it won't hurt them to eat a limited menu as long as you are getting in all the food groups.

HTH

god anniemac you have made dh and me lol - you are so right about dd

my mum has wondered before about her using control on one of the few areas of her life where she can

and you are dead on about her not being 'fobbed off' with the normal techniques. I've said before on here about how my attempt to use the 'naughty step' was completely subverted by her, ending with her renaming it the 'stroppy step' and taking herself off to it when she was not happy with us .

dh and I have been amazed at how much response this has had and we are so grateful. We haven't had time to have the full discussion yet but I have been out and bought a variety of healthy snacks and am introducing pressure-free snack times - milk and fruit bar in front of tv, etc (sadly dd2 wanted to get in on act and poured hers down a crack in the floorboards ) - whoever said that the meal table was a 'stage' for this disastrous exchange was right

also I have sneakily bought milk flavouring powder (she will only drink pink milk) with B vits in since someone suggested that might help

and today I just ignored it completely when she didn't eat her dinner. I got up to get her and dd2 a yogurt and she said, rather piqued, 'but I haven't eaten my first course' - obviously she was expecting at least a comment

I dunno whether this will result in her just not eating without my stressing, or whether it will up her eating.

but I am so grateful for all this help and I'm going to read this thread through really properly come the weekend

xxxx