4.5 year old fussy eater - driving me nuts!!

[Toastandmarmite123]

Please tell me someone else is going through what seems an endless journey?!

She's always been extremely fussy and difficult to feed, but we're down to three meals now that I know she'll eat:

1. Pizza (with chips and corn on the cob
2. Steak Pie with veg
3. Spaghetti and meatballs (have to bribe her to eat the meatballs)

I've tried other things - of course - but she gets upset and says she wants pizza etc.

Our mealtimes are so dull (it's just the two of us unfortunately) - I've started to eat separate meals from her - the occasional salmon - oo - how exciting - but really - this is driving me mad - I throw so much food in the bin as it is - she rarely clears her plate.

I don't make a fuss - I'm so used to it - but I'm just wondering if this is ever going to change?!

Anyone?! x

Don't give her any attention over it.
Serve what you want to eat- put in bowls to help yourselves.
Don't enter into discussion about it and don't remark if she eats it or doesn't eat it. If she doesn't eat it remove. Don't offer snacks or alternatives.
If she complains that she is hungry say in a bland tone , 'well you would be, you didn't eat your dinner'.
She won't starve and she will realise that she needs to eat when food is offered.

I realise it is difficult when it is your own, she picks up that you are worried. It would work better with a stranger like me because she would know that I really wasn't bothered!

Help it along with lots of exercise before a meal is due.
Also get her cooking.

I will bump it up for you- it always seems a shame when this sort of thread doesn't get replies. You could do with a variety of suggestions.

mehitabel's advice is good. I can add a few things that have worked for us:
explain to her that you don't want the same thing all the time, and ask her to help you work out a weekly menu. As she gets older you can expand this - we have a 6 week menu now (fussy eater is 12).
Buy some little ramekins and put a separate ingredient, from whatever you are cooking yourself, into each one. Just put them on the table with no comment or expectations. I've been amazed at what dd will eat from a little pot that she would never allow on her plate.
Ask friends round for tea. Seek out schoolfriends with good appetites, but don't comment or compare.
Get her cooking - buy some kids cookbooks and ask her what she'd like to have go at.

In answer to your last question - DD is 12 and eats a smaller range of food now than she ever has. But it waxes and wanes. Sometimes she'll surprise me by happily engaging with food and even trying new things, and other times she seems to exist on next to nothing, displaying complete disdain for anything food related unless its chocolate cake or pasta.
However, she's as fit as a bean, and when I mentally make a list of what she'll eat, all the food groups are there.

I like the ramekin idea if you want to start small. The important thing is never to comment either way. Don't make food an issue, unless it is the fun things like cooking. You could try growing things- in pots if you don't have a garden.