Why am I going backwards???

[flossie64]

Sorry this is quite long.
My DD is 4.5 yrs old and has been a nightmare with food since she got rotovirus at 15mths. we thought about 6 months ago it improved slightly ,as in mealtimes were a little less stressfull.Although the variety of food she ate is very limited.
But in the last 2 weeks she has played with everything she gets and never finishes a meal .It is doing my head in as my DH is away all week every week with work and I am so knotted up with the strain. i feel like running away.
I know all about timing the meals ,nothing else if you don't eat it etc. But almost 3yrs like this don't do much for your patientence.

Does she use it as a weapon against you do you think? Would it help to distance yourself completely from it? My friend found when her dd went through a patch like this..that sitting by her and giving her attention for it was(looking back) like the best thing ever. She just suddenly decided to leave her to it and then just calmly clear away what she didn't eat when the meal time was up. It took about a week. She cried and whinged...and mucked about with the food still (but what the heck...she was doing that already anyway)and then all of a sudden when she realised it was no longer a weapon..she improved.
Obviously ignore if you've tried all this

I sympathise with you Flossie. DD1 is a nightmare at mealtimes. I've lost the confidence to cook any meals for her. Her problem is she turns her nose up at something she's not seen before on the table and won't even just try her food. And then my stress levels go up! I've tried ignoring her and I've tried star charts. She's just plain fussy and DD2 is starting to cotton on. I just couldn't bear the thought of two fussy eaters.

I have ignored her left her to eat ( its worse if we are all at the table) just despair.
If she was just fussy about food and would eat the things she liked i probaly could cope ,but she can take tonight for example take 1hr to eat 1x scrambled egg and a slice of brown bread and butter. i use eat in the loosest possible sense as she did not finish it and i eventually threw it in the bin!!

Aah sorry flossy.