Dealing with difficult eaters...at what age do you say "that's your meal, you're not having anything else until you eat it" etc etc

[hattyyellow]

Would welcome any help.

We have twin girls who are 2.5 years old.

When they were weaned they were great eaters..everything I gave them they happily ate, all sorts of vegetables and fruit, fish pie, chicken, all flavours and styles of food..I thought I had it cracked..

Then they discovered toddler rebellion..I used to enjoy cooking something for us that they'd also eat but now they're even refusing pasta..They will quite happily eat a meal of "picnic" type food..some cheese, some toast, hummus, some bits of ham, sometimes cucumber and cherry tomatoes, most types of fruit, yogurt..They will also eat scrambled eggs, baked beans and fishfingers...

They will occasionally eat pasta with home made tomato sauce...other recipes which my friends cook for their children who happily eat it seem to fall by the wayside with mine...they won't eat spag bol, macaroni cheese, stew, risotto, chicken dishes, fish pie etc...

I don't think I'm that bad a cook that my cooking is putting them off...they just won't try anything that looks like a proper dish. I've tried putting in lots of cheerfully coloured foods, making the flavour not too bland but not too strong..

DH now thinks we should try the line of "that's your meal so eat it" rather than allowing them to fill up on yogurt/fruit/toast when they don't eat whatever "proper" meal I've prepared...but neither of us wants to see a 2.5 year old go to bed hungry..

What age would you start following this course of action? Any tips for getting them to eat? I try and stay pretty calm at meal times, sometimes I try and coax, sometimes I rename things "mr tumble pasta" etc but they're still not interested...

I'm sure I'm not the only one with toddlers like this with their eating - it's just I haven't met anyone in RL whose toddler seems to do the same...and whenever we go out/or I feel sad that they won't eat the dish that's there..

Wow, this is great - thank you all so much for your thoughts and advice and reassurance! Will sit down later and read through all your ideas carefully. Thank you all!

Not sure if this has been said already (probably!) but. We have taken our dd (19 months) to a dietitian as she often won't eat and I have been tearing my hair out and some days, have offered 4 or 5 different meals until I found something she'd eat!!!! This is the advice we were given:

• Keep things calm. Take the food away, give praise for what has been eaten, don't draw attention to the not-eating or let them see it winds you up. If one twin eats better than the other, praise the one that has eaten.

• Do not offer alternatives. Otherwise, they are dictating to you, what they will and won't eat.

• If food is not eaten, do not offer anything else until the next natural snack time. If that means bed time, then offer a small snack (eg milk or whatever) before bed. You are not therefore starving them or making them go to bed hungry - you are helping them to see that you are in charge and if they refuse food when presented they have to then wait until the next time.

Toddlers do like to eat little and often and I do believe that they have likes and dislikes like we do. However, the way of the world from both a social and practical perspective is that we eat 3 meals; there is no right or wrong way, but personally I think it's only fine to let toddlers snack all day if they are GOOD eaters and you know that if they did have to do 3 meals a day, they would!

The dietitian said that if you let them snack and pick at bits of food as they wish, they lose their hunger cues and can't therefore tell when they are hungry, so meals become even LESS successful.

Stuck a similar thread on under feeding yesterday. DD also 2.5yrs and suddenly refusing her meals after being fab eater. All best advice it to stay as chilled as possible. I confess I have done the "nothing til next meal then" and then made sure it was something I know she'll eat at the next meal. Also give her a gallon of milk at bedtime! She ate well today with a familiar cooked meal which she had at her friends house, also same age, who is still going strong on her eating. She seemed inspired to do the same, which makes me think this is def all about asserting herself and nothing at all about not actually liking what I'm serving up. She ate a whole bowl of butternut squash risotto and a banana. But would she touch the sheps pie I put out for tea - of course not!

My first two children were very picky eaters at one stage - each would literally tolerate and handful of different things. We did manage to turn it around to the extent that although they do all have their own individual particular likes and dislikes, which is fair enough, they enjoy most things. The single biggest thing that made a difference was eating together as a family. Before that dh and I had tended to eat on our own after the children were in bed as it was a more enjoyable and more civilised experience for us but we now try and have dinner all together at least 5 nights out of 7. On the days we do them something separate it is very noticeable that they are more fussy and figdgety and eat less.

There was a similar thread to this a couple of months ago and as a result of a recommendation I bought the book "My child won't eat" or something like that.

Anyway it was very much of the approach of putting something down in front of your child and letting them decide if they eat it or not and not getting worked up about it.

I have introduced that approach and it seems to work. I have also stopped cooking things from scratch, except easy stuff because I couldn't cope with the effort of spending time and effort making it and then having it rejected. I know that I should keep trying to introduce new food groups but although we don't live purely on packet food I do tend to serve up things like pork chops and potatoes and veg which aren't that tempting to a toddler. So I am regaining my sanity, but feel guilty that I am not giving DS aged 22mths the opportunity to experience(reject) new food types.

emmaagain: "calvin and hobbes says it best"

I am very glad to find someone else who thinks this. I am basing most of my parenting strategies on C&H ... when the first gams of Calvinball happens I shall be a happy bunny!

Yes, I really feel the same Rookiemater - part of why I get so emotional about my DD not eating is that I spend so much time and money (organic this and that - all adds up!) making fresh meals that I get ridiculously upset and cross when she won't eat. Especially as we now have 5 month DS and I am exhausted at end of day - so to spend another couple of hours doing batch of not to be eaten fish pie, for eg, is so disheartening. I also feel depressed that there are 5 more portions sat in the freezer that I dread having to try and serve up again, or else myself and DH end up eating up.

My 6 year old dd is a brilliant eater but my 3 year old ds is the fusspot of the century. Through bitter experience I have now laid down the law for the 3 year old and he is given breakfast at 7.45am, lunch at 11.30am and evening meal at 5.00pm. At 10.00am and 3pm he has a snack of fruit and water/dilute fruit juice and 7.00pm milk plus a biscuit or toast if he has'nt eaten much for his evening meal. He has to eat what the rest of the family has unless he really hates something then I will offer a substitution eg. fishfingers for sausages( but he still has to have a little of whatever else we are having on his plate and we encourage him to try it). We set down a given amount both children have to eat before they are allowed to leave the table.
Since we started this 3 months ago He has eaten much better I've been less stressed and dd does'nt feel her brother is getting away with blue murder.

Cheers so much all, it makes fascinating and very useful reading looking through all your replies. I think I will need to have a list of them attached to the fridge! Will keep calm and persevere...

The point re children refusing something you've spent ages making is a good one and I think is part of what winds me up...

Especially when someone of the Annabel- Karmel-smug-cookery-author-brigade has waxed lyrical about how her children just couldn't get enough of whatever recipe it is! Will look at the other book suggestions..

Yes, avoid recipes that say 'children will love this.'

I have two fussy eaters 8 & 3. Both have eaten well until toddlerdom. I have taken the line of they will eat if hungry! This means no extra snacks between meal times. No crap snacks unless proper food has been eaten consistently. I also had to take extreme measures with DD2. She is especially fussy and one day I had had enough and told her that if she didnt eat I would throw her dinner in the bin. She called my bluff and in it went. Oh the tears! We havent had to do it again!!
The main trick is not to let them see you are pissed off. Smile nicely and remove the plate. Do not offer anything else. Children very quickly get the message it isnt nice to go to bed hungry!

ok. So I've just cooked sausages, roast potatoes and parsnips, brocolli...... DS isn't touching it. Little bugger. I'm leaving him alone as I may kill him, so if I rant here, I might not kill him.

He barely ate any breakfast either (which is unusual), and has been whinging about a tummy ache for days (which I think is hunger as he's hardly eaten at all this week).. he hasn't got a temp has not been sick, and managed to eat chips etc fine at nursery yesterday. He can scoff grapes, apple, cheese fine, so he isn't really ill.

Does anyone give the same meal back - ie if lunch isn't eaten, re heat and then give it at tea time?

Ask your self would you eat it?

Try reusig the veg in bubble & squeak! The sausages could be represented as sausage sandwhich for tea! Or in Pitta bread. Anything to change the look and then he wont know he is being hoodwinked.

I mean re-useing

Haven't read the whole thread but it really pisses me off when people say just give then the meal and take away agin they will eventually eat.
That is simply not true in some kids and bloody hard to do.
Usually smug parents of good eaters say this.

Thanks got that off my chest

My take is that toddlers are meant to be picky! They are picky about everything, not just food.

So I do subscribe to the 'cook the dinner for everybody' and that's the dinner attitude. But then I have no probs if she doesn't eat it. Or only eats peas from it. If she is hungry later she can have something reasonable.

As put on another post:
Dd (21mths) is given food with us and then it's up to her what she chooses to eat from that.

I won't force her to eat anything but at the moment I always give her it on her plate as an option. - eg I always put raisins in her porridge (like mine), she has picked them out for about 2 months (I haven't commented, just enjoyed eating with her, naming them as raisins and playing) but for no apparent reason she now eats them.

I think the key (easier said than done) is to be relaxed about food.

As an EXTREMELY fussy child (who had serious control issues) I know that there is absolutely no way I would have eaten something if I had decided not to eat it. it made me gag and everything. I want dd to be able to choose what she eats (within the choices I give her) and not to worry if there is food on her plate she doesn't want to eat but to be able to leave it there without stressing.

PS shrinking, my dd has eaten hardly anything over last week or so as she is not well (her appetite is first to go - like me). She will usually give chips or cake or shepherds pie (her fave) a go but tends to only eat a little bit too. Let's face it, when we're ill we want to eat our fave foods too, no?

Shrinkingsagpuss - I didn't give the same meal at lunch and at tea time (not the actual same re-heated meal, but the same food) and it was the day DD went from breakfast to bed with only her bowl of porridge and glass of milk at bedtime. He little tummy was so flat the next day I lost all will to be tough and now always make sure the lunchtime meal is where I try new food, and tea time is where she gets something I can be more sure she'll eat, so we don't end up with two uneaten meals.

Today we have all sat and eaten the same food (DH is home from work) and she ate so well she got to share DH's custard doughnut for pudding. She then ate 6 big grapes too. It's hard, but I think the advice about communal eating is also very good.

Sorry - meant to say I DID give the same meal at lunch and teatime.

He did eventually eat it, stone cold. I tried to take it away, but he said he would eat it, and he did, but I don't get the whole cold food thing! We tell him he can eat what he wants, but if we try to take away a plate of unteaten food, he loses the plot! This isn't about us forcing him to eat. He has always had a thing about hot food (well, cold food), he ate freezing porridge this morning as he left it for so long.

Aw, that's toddlers for you. They are loons.

ggirl, i do agree with you as you say for some children this line just doesn't work and i've done consitently for 5/6mths. the food just ends up in the bin and then he gets ill because he's not eaten anything, what do you do when this happens and i've started giving multivits to get sum kind of nutrients into him

My pet peeve is so-called experts and chefs I see being interviewed who always go on about if you start kids on a huge variety of fruit and veg, all home cooked they will not grow up picky, plus if you just give them the same as you they will have extremely sophisticated palates
It's bollocks! I know loads of kids who've been brought up on nothing but organic fruit and veg, chicken livers etc who around one and a half became incredibl picky. Equally I know loads who ate nothing but jars until they were about two who eat anything and everything. It's all down to the individual child and so many mums on this thread are saying "what did I do wrong?" Answer: nothing!
Have been inspired by this thread to try to be more relaxed with dd1, today she ate some beetroot soup I made because it was pink (Yeeeay) so didn't freak when she then threw all her cherry tomatoes on the floor saying she didn't like the skin (she ate them fine a week ago)

Tom is 21 months, and if he refuses to eat what we give him, that's it. Tough poopoo! We have only just started to do this though. We let him have a yoghurt after dinner or some fruit after lunch, but that is it.

Tom was very late getting his teeth through. He still only has 10 either fully through, or on their way, so he's a difficult eater anyway. But if he can eat an apple, then he really should be chewing more.

I do think it depends on his mood though. We all had stir fry the other night for the first time and he ate it. He likes sweet and sour (when we've let him try it) and spag bol.

We have also found that he prefers to eat from proper cutlery or the toddler metal type ones, although he won't do it himself. Or drink from a cup himself .

I actually don't go out much when it's meal times as he's always been a nightmare!