How do you deal with fussy eaters?

[BabCNesbitt]

DD is 2.5 and has been a fussy eater for a while. She'll eat snacks (cheese, crackers with something on top, bits of fruit - but not snacking all day!) but apart from a couple of meals she likes, more often than not she refuses to eat at dinner time. I've taken the position of saying that if she doesn't eat it, then she doesn't get anything else, but DH has turned it into negotiations and battles of wills - "you can have a yogurt if you eat another spoonful", "if you don't eat this you're going straight to bed", etc. Dinners are always fraught at the moment!

How have other people dealt with 2-year-olds meal refuseniks?

Our house rule is you eat what you want, no fuss is made and if you're hungry there is fruit in the pantry and raw veg (carrot sticks etc) in the fridge. We battled for years with dd1 and fussy eating, went through bribery, distraction (with tv on), persuading, sticker charts, good cop bad cop etc. nothing works and in the end you just set up your child with food issues. No child will willingly starve. The key is to be the adult and not show them you are desperate / angry / upset.

think you are right to be sceptical about your dh approach. i would suggest you take all emotion and discussion out of the situation. so if possible serve a meal all three of you have the same thing. don't discuss the food just leave her to get on with eating it, and for now don't worry if its eaten with fingers or cutlery.
i would be tempted to put out fruit for dessert irrespective of how much she has eaten, maybe give her a yogurt for breakfast?
i would also only give her water to drink, maybe a small glass of juice with one meal, and no snacks between meals.

Your DH needs to understand that it isn't his job to pressurise her into eating any one particular thing. In fact it is totally counter-productive.

As parents it is your responsibility to make a balanced diet available to your child. It is their responsibility to select what they eat from that.

If he bribes her with yoghurt to eat her savoury food, she will start to see the yoghurt as more attractive and eating the savoury as more of a chore; exactly the opposite of what he wants!

Your best approach is to put the food on the table in serving dishes and allow her a completely free rein to decide what goes on her plate, leave her to eat what she chooses from that, then clear away without comment.

If you are happy for her to have yoghurts at the end of the meal, let her have one regardless of whether she ate her main but don't give her extra to fill her up.

When you're eating with her, don't talk about the food and certainly don't ever encourage her to eat. Talk about lots of other things and let her see you enjoying your own food.

You can be sure that, in any battle of wills over food, it is the child who wins every time. You need to refuse to engage in power games right now as things can and will get worse if you don't.

I agree with PP- don't make food a battle of wills. My sister did and every day was a fight. It just led to a lot of misery around the dinner table, kids sat in front of plates of cold food and tantrums over half a sandwich. Allow her a bit of control and choice over what she eats but don't make a huge fuss if it's not eaten. I wouldn't offer up bribes or dole out punishments either-maybe just try and calm everything down for a bit. FWIW my sister's kids are teenagers now and she has the complete opposite problem!

Thanks, all. This all seems like common sense - I just hope we can unlearn the bad habits we seem to have fallen into.

I have called my dd's bluff on this (same age as yours). It's a power thing and they may not be hungry. So I give the food, it's there, she eats or doesn't but I don't cajole because it's so aggravating and a waste of time (also have 6 month old to look after). Gets no pudding if hadn't eaten first course. Gets no snack in afternoon (unless I panic and give in - try hard not to) then she eats her tea whatever it is. You gotta be tough sometimes, hard though it is

After finding out that Dd (3) eats everything at nursery, I decided enough was enough. No more special meals, no more bribes. She eats, or she doesn't, but that's what's happening and what's being served.

I was surprised when she actually asked me to help her eat (as in spoon in the rice etc)... She has never let me do that, I mean, NEVER. When she was a baby she would knock the spoon out if my hand if I tried to feed her. Now she actually asks me to shovel the food in.

I thought she had trust issues lol. I think once the pressure was off she gained a bit of trust and was more willing to try new things.