Just sent dd1 to bed crying for food and she may come down again crying for food.

[TrinityRhino]

Have I done the right thing?

She had her tea at about 4.30. It was 2 fishfingers, a handful of oven chips and about 10 peas.

She ate 1 fishfinger and some of the chips and said she had had enough.

I have trouble not getting angry with her about saying sshe is starving and then eating F%ck all so I just cleared away her plat and gave her half an apple(because she must have some fruit after dinner, which she knows) which she ate. Then about 1/2 an hour later she asked for ice cream and said 'no, cause she didn't eat her tea'

then when I said bedtime about 30 mins ago she started crying saying she was starving. I calmly explained to her that she could have had ice cream after her tea and then toast or cereal is she was still hungry IF she had eaten her tea as she needs to learn to eat her proper food.

was that right
should I introduce a bedtime snack that isn't dependent on eating tea or what? really I am at a loss as to how to encourage a better, more relaxed feeling around food with her, shes nearly 7 and I need to sort this out soon. she has a limited diet and even of the things she does eat it's never much but then she always says she's hungry shortly after

I'd be tempted to go for a snack straight after school - fruit or veg sticks. Then have dinner later.

DD has a snack (fruit, vegm toast, small snadwich) at 4 when she gets in from shcool, and then eats with us at 6:30pm later. She has school lunch around 12.

Is it the 'hot dinner' thing that's the problem? Would she eat more if tea was sandwiches/soup or something lighter? If she has a school meal that might work?

Why is DD having 2 cooked meals aday? To be completely honest if my 3DC have school dinners then they dont want a cooked evening meal! Maybe all that is needed is a warm snack or something similar.

she will only eat cheese spread sandwiches and wont eat soup

she has toast with nothing on

the only veg and fruit she will eat is apples, grapes. brocolli and carrots

Whenever I make her try somehting she looks scared at it, sometimes retches on it and immeadiately says she doesn't like it

it gets me down, I don't want to make it a batttle but feel sad that she isn't enjoying food really
also I'm sure she could be healthier with a wider variety of food in her diet

Id giver he a bisuit and some milk post school then wait for her to say she is hungry and ready for tea.

my ds2 is 4.5 and doesnt have a very varied diet, h would live on paste, turkey sausage and brocoli if i let him with new foods i always give him something new to try most days and his first reactions were always yuk! we saidto just touch it or smell it and that it wasnt for him to eat as he wasnt big enough yet to try it, yesterday he was eating red pepper for the first time, because i said he wasnt big enough to eat it reverse psychology, i love it

TR I think you did absolutely the right thing. If they don't eat their tea then they can't have extras. That would be giving out the wrong message. Don't fret, you're in the right

thanks sexy she has gone to sleep with no problem so I feel better now

I'm sure she will be ravenous for breakfast but thats good

We started to get tough on DS1 recently - eat (most of) your tea or nothing til breakfast, only a cup of milk for supper.

He is getting better - and yes, he has to eat cold tea if he wants anything else.

We eat at 4:30 / 5pm too, although I think he eats better closer to 5 tbh.

My DS is a grazer - little and often.

He eats school dinners (I think!) and they also get a healthy snack at school.

But he is usually hungry after school so I give him something at pick-up.

I would maybe give your DD something more substantial after school and delay her tea till about 5.30/6. Try for a few days and see how it goes.

I have done the re-heating the dinner and giving it again and it was eaten.

My DS likes a "supper" which usually consists of dry cereal in a bowl.

He eats at 3.30pm (pick-up) and or 4pm (getting home), dinner/tea 5.30pm and then will eat again about 7.30.

Agree that 4:30 is early for tea. I would give her some fruit when she gets home from school and then do tea for 5:30/6. Also I would offer only fruit as snacks. The way it works in our house is that ds doesn?t have any crisps/chocolate/sweets/biscuits during the day. If he is hungry between meals he can have fruit. If he?s then eaten a decent dinner he gets to have his treat after dinner, and this works well. I introduced this rule when he started having sweet snacks and then wasn?t eating his meals so I replaced the sweet snacks with fruit and this seemed to work. I know it?s hard but persevere. If she?s eating at school then she?s clearly doing it for your benefit so don?t give her an audience.

My dd2 is also a grazer who needs a little and often, however we do structure it because I am not a short order cook running a diner!
She gets up and has breakfast, snack at school, packed lunch at school, snack after school and dinner around 5.30pm. I never make them eat everything on their plates (and always make sure that there is something on the plate that they will eat) but they do know that there are no alternatives. I don't do puddings as a rule because I don't want them to associate food with reward or punishment. They can help themselves to fruit from the fruit bowl if they are peckish but not too close to meal times.
We find that this works for us because dd2 knows when food is on offer and can choose to eat or not. It takes the stress out of it all for us. Could something like this work for you?

i recently moved tea from 4pm to 5/5.30 and it has been so much better. They just weren't hungry enough at 4.

Now we have breakfast at 8/8.30, lunch at 12, snack at 3 and then tea at 5/5.30
seems to work well. helped with early morning waking as well.

btw the only veg i ate growing up were raw carrots and corn on the cob. now i eat everything. (university sorted me out)... so don't fret. hide vegetables in pasta sauce, in bolognaise (make lasagne/spaghetti etc..) add parsnip to mash potato etc. you can get plenty into her that way.

and i only ever offer healthy snacks - fruit, raisins, apricots, the odd yoghurt.
they get other things as spontaneous treats, not for clearing their plates.
obviously i only do this when they have eaten well and if not then not before a meal.

she wont even eat the asda pasta sauce onl the tesco so she would notice if I treid to squeeze things in and parsnip in the potato, god she would notice before the plate was infront of her, I tell you I am at the ened of my tether about it

TR, I have exactly the same problem with both my DC's, they have tea at about 5ish, they fuss about sometimes finish it some times not. If not i dont make a big issue about it, as it only stresses me out and ultimately them!!, if it is something i think i will get away with warming up again i tell them, if they feel hungry later tell me and they can finish tea, otherwise i always have a supper (crumpet or those little pancakes)ready. I found DS used "im hungry" as a stalling tactic for going to bed. Making me feel really guilty for sending him to bed hungry, so hence the supper. (usually time supper for about 1/2 hour before they go to bed). It has worked up till now.

I definately think the answer is the suppertime snack, I think she is stalling for bed time. Hope this makes sense best of luck!!

Would it help you to relax if you just went with her limited diet (at least she is getting some healthy stuff and not living exclusively on pringles for eg), for a few months without even considering expanding her repertoire/quantities and then slowly started introducing the odd additional ingredient?

If she doesn't have a large appetite, then maybe little and more often is also a good idea.

(FWIW my cousin lived for the first 15 years of his life on meat and potatoes. And that's it (other than what he probably ate during weaning). Drove my aunt spare as his 2 sisters were strictly veggie. All have turned out fine.)

I wouldn't get so hung up on your child eating a small repertoire of food. Perfectly normal. Just g ive her that stuff.

thats a good idea, thankyou