Dinner time drama.

[DeathMetalMum]

Dinner thime seems to have turned into a bit of a drama with 4yo dd.

It's generally quite relaxed but every dinner time starts off with dd either pushing her plate away saying she doesn't want to eat or her picking for a few minutes then doing the same. The reply from both me and dp is always it's okay if you don't want to eat but there's nothing else if you're not eating dinner. Dd starts to eat again but asks us every mouthful or so have I eaten enough? Very exhausting. We have tried varying the portion size we are giving but it makes no difference. There are maybe 3 meals that we make where she doesn't try and bater with what she has to eat. It's becoming pretty draining.

I know she is hungry as she pretty happily eats when we say she needs to eat more - I just want to get rid of her bargaining any suggestions?

My Dd is much older (8) but very much a picky eater, and we have quite similar conversations to your own! In the end, whether rightly or wrongly, we usually let her have a dessert when she has had 'enough' of her main, even though that 'main' might have been a tiny amount. BUT it's always with the agreement that if she is hungry later on, she gas the rest of her meal warmed up.

It's certainly not something I would ever have thought I would do prior to having children, it doesn't seem ideal, but it takes away the stress from a meal. There's no pressure on her to eat. The vegetables I do make her eat though.

Most nights she does ask to eat the remainder of her evening meal maybe an hour and a half after her dessert and after we have all left the table! So her food is being eaten, just in more sittings perhaps.

I do think some children are just grazers perhaps?