4 yr old, picky eater

[Grimbles]

I started typing an OP and it was getting far too long and convoluted so I am going for a brief tl;dr version instead.

As the title says, 4 yr old very picky eater and refuses point blank to eat if it's not something he wants.

My main question is how should I handle this? I don't want to turn mealtimes into a battle or use food as a reward/punishment but currently all he wants to eat is beans on toast.

I've tried giving him something with beans but he won't touch him

I've tried telling him he has to at least try a bit and if he really doesn't like it he doesn't have to have it. This always ends up with him saying he doesn't like it even though it's something he has liked before

I've tried telling him there will be no treats if he doesn't eat some of his dinner but that just sparks off a crying fit

I've tried telling him he will just go hungry but then feel guilty later on when he is saying he is hungry

He does have a daily vitamin and calcium supplement so I am not massively worried about nutrition, but I don't want to make things worse!

I would provide beans on toast for some meals and other things I know he has found palatable recently at other times.

Let him serve himself from serving dishes in in the middle of the table and make mealtimes happy, family occasions where you talk about everything other than the food.

Make it his decision whether he would like to eat or not. If he doesn't want to eat, he is welcome to leave the table and entertain himself quietly while the rest of the family eats.

Work on the principle that it is your job to make a reasonably healthy, balanced and palatable diet available to him and his job to decide which bits of it to put in his mouth.

Don't label any food as treats. Food is just food. He can have whatever is available but clearly high fat/sugar foods won't be plentiful so he won't be able to use them to fill himself up.

Make fruit and toast or whatever you feel is appropriate available just before bed so he doesn't get hungry in the night.

Try not to offer large snacks between meals because feeling hungry makes food taste nicer and eating pleasanter.

Most importantly be chilled and cheerful about it.

Whatever you're offering to him to eat may seem perfectly fine and reasonable to you but to him it's too big a challenge. He wants beans but mummy wants him to eat something more healthy. It's a small thing to us but to him it's a big deal.

You need to make introducing new foods a small challenge, one that is more fun, and VERY do-able for him. This is important because you want to set up healthy eating habits for him, it's not just about what nutrition he is getting right now it's about teaching good habits and you have a chance to do this so you need to persist with it.

The way to go about this is by offering him a smidgeon of something. For example: challenge him to eat half of a pea. Make it silly and fun, cutting a pea in half is pretty ridiculous, I know. Do it when he is in a receptive mood. When he eats his half a pea you need to positively reinforce the challenge he has just completed! "hey, good for you, trying something new" or "nice one", whatever mummy things you say that make him feel proud of himself. Leave it at that, give him the beans or whatever he is comfortable with eating after. Later in the day tell him how proud you are and how proud he should be that he did something that was not easy for him.

You want to continue you with this at a pace that suits him, a pace in which the challenge remains a small, do-able and fun challenge for him. This works and is proven to work. It's all about positive reinforcement and praising the child for their efforts rather then their achievements (e.g. instead of saying well done for having eaten the peas, say how great it is that he ventured to try something new). If you give children a challenge that is too big in their eyes, you can end up enforcing a pattern of learned helplessness in them, that's the last thing you want to do and that will produce a cycle of bad habits. And you're very right, about not wanting to make food a punishment or mealtimes a battle. Challenges like this are opportunities to introduce positive and healthy habits. You've got the patience