Would u give pud if main course not eaten?

[Birdly]

DS, who is nearly 2, has a small appetite and loses interest in meals very quickly. He often asks for a yoghurt afterwards, and I'm not sure whether to give him one or not when he's barely touched his main course. I'm not particularly strict (ie "no main course no pud!"), but he's a very early riser (5am) and I worry that if he's not full at teatime he'll continue to wake up early forever! Any ideas?

I really don't know the answer. IN fact have the same question. My dd is 17 mnths and just does not eat much (even friends with little ones are amazed). However, if it is a pudding or a yog it goes down a treat. The real issue I had was with nursery. I only give her Rachel's yog's which don't have sugar in but nursery give proper puds. So she eat no main and all her pud, but they wouldn't do what I asked which was either change the main meal time and give her fruit at lunch or if she refused dinner give her some fruit and then at her snack time she'd be more likely to eat her sandwich.

What I did want to do was avoid a battle but not just pile on the puds. I have no issue with her having sugar, if I am eating anything sweet she will always get a little of it as I was trying to avoid the sugar as forbidden fruit and I don't try to force her to eat.

All sent to tax the grey matter!

my ds (20mths) knows his own mind about what he wants to eat, sometimes he will ask for 'more' main course, sometimes he hardly touches it but I nearly always offer fruit or yogurt afterwards- sometimes he says, 'yes' and sometimes 'no'. He will only ever be offered a chocolate mousse or mini muffin if he has made a good effort with the main. He's not a big milk drinker so I'm not going to stop offering a yogurt just because he didn't eat his main course. There's no pressure on him around food AT ALL and I try to let him have what he asks for (unless it's chocolate etc at 9am) but he eats 3 good meal, a fair bit of fruit/smoothies, often asks for banana, brocoli, peas etc, and loves chocolate- pretty normal to me. He will also turn down sweet foods if he doesn't feel like them.

Recently he turned round and told me and dh 'coffee bad, chocchoc bad'- no idea where he heard that, certainly not from us! I just said that it was only bad if you ate it all the time!

After watching nephews stuffing their mouths to the point of gagging because of "don't finish your dinner don't get any blueberries" I really don't like the idea of pudding only being allowed after all the savoury course is finished. Ds is only 7 months and often seems bored of his first course, but will then really enjoy the fruit I give him afterwards. I want him to enjoy as wide a variety of food as possible so try to treat savoury and sweet as equally "good" food.

I think the important thing to remember is that they're all different - I was VERY smug mummy with ds1 because he ate everything - never had an issue with food at all.
ds2, on the other hand, was a pain - very slow and fussy.
So all that stuff in the baby books about introducing new flavours one at a time etc doesn't necessarily work - I've got living proof of that!
ds1 also ate at a reasonable speed - I once took ds2 to McDonalds and after 1 hour 40 mins he was still on his 3rd chicken nugget!

oh this is all such bolleaux

sweets are not the issue

general diet and LACK OF EXERCISE makes kids fat

I love sweets and so does dd1 - we eat them IN FRONT OF THE TELLY on occasions

I always offer pudding

although if the dds didn't TOUCH their main course (highly unlikely) they probably wouldn't get one.

If they are hungry they are just as excited about their main course as they are about pudding tbh

EniDeepMidwinter, clearly comments made by someone who has not had any issue with this.

The problem is not sweets, I agree. In am concerned about variety of diet and getting a balanced healthy diet which includes sweet and savoury. When I've done food diaries, as suggested by the - they eat a varied diet over time brigade - it was thin air no veg, no fruit and not much else.

I am hoping that by not creating an issue on food she'll grow up balanced but it is hard when everyone else troughs and yours eats air, and they all say 'she really doesn't eat does she'.

RuthT - think about the adults you know and take heart from the fact that there probably aren't many who are excessively fussy about food. ds2 was awful when he was tiny - at one point he was on the 75th centile for height and the 2nd for weight, so you can imagine what a scrawny bit of string he looked! He's 11 now and eats a better variety of food than most of his friends, though he's still rather slow. He's still tall for his age but slim rather than skinny.

BIRDLY !!!

You started this thread...what do you think of the replies so far?

How are you coping?

x

Thank you forty plus. I take heart that birdly also has the same challenges!