Toddler fussy eating

[Frazzled13]

DD is 17 months and getting so so fussy with her food. If it was up to her, she’d have weetabix for every meal. What’s the best way to deal with it? Offer something else? Give her a meal and she either eats it or doesn’t but there’s nothing else?
I know it’s normal but at dinner times I get so stressed with it. I know that that’s more about me - I had/have really bad PND and I get so stressed that if she doesn’t eat she’ll wake up early, I won’t get enough sleep, and I get worked up. I don’t take this out on her or anything, but I think sometimes she senses my stress as I put her dinner down and then doesn’t eat. Which makes me more stressed the next day. I have various issues around food, and am a picky eater myself, which again I think makes me react more to her not eating as I really don’t want to pass my food issues down to her. So even though I know toddlers can be fussy, when she doesn’t eat I instantly go to “well, that’s it then, she’ll never eat veg or anything with flavour and have a miserable relationship with food like I do”.
Sorry, that’s a bit longer than I meant it to be. But, any tips for fussy toddlers?

It’s hard work, I feel your pain. Is there something that she likes that you can gradually make adaptations to, to get more variety into her? For my daughter she enjoys home made pie e.g. beef pie with veg in cut up small, so I started making other things in pie form e.g varying what meat or veg I put in. She won’t always eat it but it’s familiar to her and I think a big thing with toddlers is them needing to feel familiar with food, for them to eat it.

Similarly she likes macaroni cheese so I will add things to it eg salmon, peas, grated carrot etc to vary the nutrition.

She really enjoys nut butters (the healthy kind with no sugar / salt added) and they are full of protein and good fats so I add them to her porridge or spread on her crumpets, so even if she’s eating a rather plain meal she’s getting decent nutrition.

I find my daughter eats more adventurously at snack time rather than at a proper sit down meal time. I have started bringing a plate of veg to the “tea party” if we’re playing with bears etc and she will try a bit usually, or she’ll happily munch a raw carrot whilst she’s watching tv and I’m preparing our tea. Like a starter! Whereas if I put the carrot on her plate at meal she wouldn’t touch it. So I just try and casually introduce new tastes with her outside of formal meal times and hope one day she’ll feel comfortable enough with it to eat it at a meal time!

Offer lots of things little and often and I know it's hard but try not to get stressed about it or she'll pick up on that and learn to make it a big issue. My 2.5YO isn't too fussy and I honestly make a point of not paying too much attention to what she does/doesn't eat. Sometimes she eats well sometimes she doesn't which I think is normal for this age. I just make sure there's a good variety of food available to her and that I restrict sweet treets etc to a small helping once a day only. She does have a tendency to request more 'beige' food during meals and if she does this we encourage her to fill up on a bit more protein/veg first. She will already have had enough food to fill up really and my thinking is if she's hungry enough she will eat more of whatever she is offered. X