Sigh, sudden fussy eater at 3.5 years old

[L0ts]

I’m talking like he is suddenly eating less and less and I just don’t know what to do anymore.

For breakfast he will only eat toast or cereal, he used to eat hot cross buns but they have now gone on to the not acceptable list. Breakfast doesn’t concern me all that much if I’m honest, it is what it is and I myself only really like to eat toast for breakfast.

For lunch he mostly enjoys a picky plate. He will
eat cheese and ham wraps, pitta breads with butter, tuna Mayo as a filling (LOOOVES this), mini animal chocolate biscuits, an array of different crisps but mostly the organix types (carrot puffs, gruffalo claws and does like quavers), he will eat the organix snack bars and flapjack bites too. He used to eat tuna pasta, pesto pasta etc, now he won’t even touch it. Used to also eat quorn smoky ham toasties but these no longer get touched either.

For tea he will only atm eat things like the wrap or the pitta bread, I wish I was kidding. Up until a couple weeks a go he would eat kidney bean chillis with rice and cheese, fish fingers with alphabites and beans, a roast dinner type meal curries etc. the only meal were guaranteed he will eat are homemade pizzas.. but whatever is on the plate with them he won’t touch.

Youll have noticed a pattern here, he won’t touch fruit and vegetables despite absolutely loving them up until a few months a go. He would eat raspberries and grapes till they came out of his ears. I still put them on his plate in hopes he suddenly decides to eat them one day but so far, nothing.

A couple of weeks a go he seemed super in to rice so we offered it with some meals, now he won’t touch it. I am really at a loss. I don’t make a big deal at all with food, if he doesn’t eat it I don’t say anything to him. He doesn’t snack massively throughout the day, he has always maybe had the odd bit of toast in the afternoon but it’s always 2/3 hours before teatime.

Any ideas? Any solidarity? 😩

Every ultra processed food you put in, will push out real food. All those mini animal chocolate biscuits, an array of different crisps but mostly the organix types (carrot puffs, gruffalo claws and does like quavers), he will eat the organix snack bars and flapjack bites too. might be the reason he stopped eating normal food. Even the wraps and pita, when you read the ingredients, the list is huge. Puff, gruffly Claws and other extruded snack are just a kid version of Cheetos. Corn flour and oil.

Everything he eats is highly engineered and highly palatable. No real food can compete with that as long as you keep giving them to him. Stop buying those and if you have them in your house, gift them. They are not food, they are edible but nutrition void and damaging to your child's eating habits.
Start cooking with him, involve him in the process from supermarket to table, eat with him, he is old enough to have your same meal times.

Cook real food that tastes nice . If he keeps crying for those addictive snacks, squeeze lemon or add vinegar to them and then tell him they are not nice anymore, they changed the recipe, bad stuff we will cook something together, will you be my little helper? Buy a recipe book for cooking with kids and have him pick a picture.

Hiya, I'm not sure if I hav advice but I do hav solidarity for u! I just joined MN because I'm having similar problems with my little boys eating and was searching for fussy eater tips! My son is 4 and has been getting increasingly selective over the past 6 months or so. Over time the foods he will eat is going down and down- sometimes he won't even taste his meal and just refuses the whole thing. We do make most food from scratch, but I'm noticing that similar to your son, it's the more processed foods that he's more reliably having at dinnertime (peanut butter, baked beans, pizza, pasta..). The previous reply has a point about the taste being engineered to appeal to them- but I wonder if it could also be something to do with predictability and control? Some of these processed foods such as baked beans are always the same every time, rather than varying with different ingredients like homemade food, and mayb that is appealing if ur boy is wanting a sense of control??

I think it's worth considering what else might be going on besides the food- why is it happening recently? Are they just going through a phase or has there been a big life change going on? I feel like my boys eating started getting more selective when his baby sister was born. Mayb it's partly a personality thing as we do hav power battles over other things he needs to do such as brushing teeth and washing hands so I think quite a bit of it is him wanting to assert himself/ test boundaries. So we are now going to try being totally chill about him not eating if he doesn't want to and hope that defuses the whole thing and gradually we can nudge him into a bigger repetoir of foods. I just have to hold my nerve as I feel awful about it but I'm clearly projecting my own anxiety/ wanting to b a good parent onto the situation which isn't helping!!

In terms of resources, have u tried the book "getting the little blighters to eat"? As that has input from a clinical expert in fussy eaters and has lots of tips. It's not too long either so easy to access quickly. Also I'm a fan of Janet Lansbury and her website has links to articles and podcasts on fussy eating. The main approaches of these are based around the idea that it's the parents job to provide a good meal with healthy food, but it's the child's job to eat what they want of it and that they shouldn't be pressured. Ultimately we can't MAKE them eat anything- what are u going to do? Force feed them? All u can do is try to take away the pressure and hope bit by bit they start eating more, but they will only eat things if they keep being offered it.

Try not to beat yourself up about it, as long as he is eating from the main food groups he will b ok and hopefully it will be a short term problem. Some good advice I had was to consider what they eat over the course of a week rather than individual days in terms of what nutrition they are getting.

Good luck!