Worried about my 8 year old's diet

[anuthamutha]

Hey folks,

First post here, though I'm a long-time lurker (so long that I forgot my login details and had to create another account)

Anyway, I digress. I'm at my wit's end with my daughter and her eating habits and just looking for some nonjudgmental advice/tips/wwyd etc.

E, just turned 8, has always been a bit fussy when it comes to food and we've always had battles trying to get her to eat (and I'm fully aware that has probably exacerbated it sometimes) She already has a pretty limited diet. Her dinnertime meals are either spaghetti and Dolmio mini meatball sauce pouch, chicken nuggets/fish fingers with chips/waffles and sweetcorn/raw carrots/peppers/cucumber, sausage and mash occasionally and not much else. She won't deviate from any of these meals (ie if I try homemade nuggets or meatballs) but school lunches are where we're really struggling.

She used to have school dinners but only a couple of the hot meals, the rest of the time would be a wrap with ham and cucumbers. Then she stopped eating those and said she felt sick so we figured she'd just got fed up with them. We've been on packed lunches for a while now and along with a couple of snacks/fruit, she'll either have a ham sandwich, cheese and crackers or a dairylea dunker and some cocktail sausages. Nothing else.

More often than not, she just doesn't eat her lunch and comes home with an almost full lunchbox. As well as that, she barely drinks anything at all. She takes a bottle of water and has a fruitshoot or apple juice at lunchtime.

I'm fed up of her coming home having not eaten, with full drinks 😭 I've tried speaking to school about it to no avail, we've tried bribes (and threats of no treats, no clubs, no screen time etc), we've tried pleading, we've tried changing her lunch, we've tried giving her less to eat, we've tried giving her more to eat, we've tried speaking to her to get to the bottom of her food issues, we've tried doing nothing. She just isn't hungry, ever. I'm pretty certain she'd never get sick of sweets (we don't give her loads though) but I'm sure if we told her she didn't have to eat or drink anymore, she'd do that until she wasted away 😥 She's already really skinny. I don't know what to do 😔

Hi, I’m not sure I will be much help but no ones posted so here goes. What you have listed above food wise does not sound bad to me, I know we’d all like them to eat 5 a day and home cooked meals and the same as us but it does not happen that way for some of us, me included! I think sometimes if you pressure them they rebel, which is what my son does, if he does poor with his dinner he gets no treat but other than that I leave him to it. I once read if they are hungry they will eat. Have you tried cooking/baking with her? Making pizzas ( she can choose the topping), spaghetti Bol, lasagne, there is children’s recipes on internet. It will be fun for her to do and learn her how to cook. If it fails maybe talk to a doctor incase it’s deep rooted.
On another note I work with a woman and she’s told me eating does not interest her she could live on sandwich’s all her life and that would be it, she’s 40 and has a family, so it doesn’t effect her, she’s also vegetarian and has said when she was younger she could not be bothered to eat and was lazy with food. I think we are all different.

I wasn't a fussy eater as a kid but I also was never hungry at lunch. I didn't eat breakfast either, but was fine energy/health wise. I didn't really start eating anything at lunchtime until I was 15, and even now I can easily skip it. If it's not hurting her health maybe she's just not a big eater.

Thank you for your replies.

I have been in touch with school and they've recommended a health & wellbeing drop-in clinic at our local health centre, so I think we'll try that as a first port of call.

Even if a dr told us "She's fine, it's normal" I would be satisfied.

However, to add a little more background, she's currently on medication which sometimes causes her to be sick/nauseous. This happens usually when she's eating/just eaten, and even though the nausea is sporadic and infrequent, she's started saying that she feels sick whenever she eats and I'm worried she's connecting the two. I don't want her to end up with an eating disorder at 8 years old :(

Maybe it's nothing and I'm overthinking it, but I appreciate both of your replies, so thank you x

Oh bless her, I would honestly speak to your GP and ask if there is another medication, as you say you don’t want her thinking good is causing the nausea, I didn’t realise. It’s awful feeling sick too so I can understand why she doesn’t want to eat. Good luck I hope things get sorted xx