Worried about dd's very limited diet

[Elizap]

My dd, 21 months, will only eat a very limited range of food and am worried that she will never grow out of it and that she is missing out on so many things that are good for her. She feeds herself but I do still have to help a bit and she will only eat a few things with her fingers, rice cakes, toast. She never got into the finger food thing although I did try! I dont puree anything but she does like it all mashed up together still and simply wont eat it if i dont. Normally she will eat the following,
beans with mashed potatoe
mashed potato with broccoli, carrot and chicken
cauliflower cheese
lentil stew with rice
pasta in cheese sauce.
cottage pie

whenever I try something new she just says no. She adores fruit and all yogurts and so at least I can get her to eat that but as for main meals it is just the above. if she doesn't eat i dont offer her anything else but then panic that she will be hungry!
Help!!! or am I overworrying as normal??

God your dd's diet is loads more varied than my ds (2.2).

I just keep offering new food and try not to stress when he carefully takes it off his plate before eating his baked beans!

From what I have read the key thing is to keep offering new food and NOT TO STRESS.

It is hard though, yesterday dh and I were eating salmon, pasta with fresh homemade tomato sauce, roasted peppers and salad. Ds was eating spaghetti hoops

i would alternate main meals of the day between things you know she likes/eats and things you'd like to her to try. so you know if she's a bit hungry one day she'll top up the next.

do you sit down and eat together as a family? that's always worked a treat for us. i find they'll often happily eat food from someone else's plate - esp. sat on a lap - rather than their own.

i would try not to stress about it though it's still very early days. there's plenty of time for her to try new things, but she's certainly not too young to pick up on stress around mealtimes and start using it as a control/attention thing, which is a cycle i would do my very hardest to avoid.

just to add, the early stages to me are very much a socialising experience, in almost every case the actual food requirements will sort themselves out - if she's still having milk she can get most of her basic needs from that. just keep trying - maybe try lunch as a picnic on a blanket with all kinds of interesting bits for her to play with. eventually some of it will end up in her mouth!

I eat breakfast and lunch with her but she has her supper on her own as we live in Portugal and therfore we eat a lot later when she is in bed. The things she likes she will gobble up in a second but she still hates too many lumpy bits, although beans it seems dont qualify as a lump!!!. the only place I can get her to sometimes try new things is in front of the telly!! She has a little table and chairs and we sometimes sit there and she will eat while distracted. I just feel her diest is so boring and bland but she is very tall, a good weight and hugely energetic and always happy so maybe it's ok!

humphreycobbler I feel your pain! yesterday made a lovely cauliflower broccoli cheese bake and ended up eating most of it myself will dd spat out half chewed pieces of broccoli with a look of absolute disguste on her face!!

I think there is a stat about that you need to present a new food a ridiculous number of times before it is tried - something like 20.

So keep plugging on, and eventually she'll have a go, particularly if she sees you and the rest of the family enjoying said food.

Elizap,

I'm beside myself at the moment with DS2. He sounds like your daughter so I am So glad you posted! I have tried the finger food but if it's even a slightly bit sticky he hates it on his hands and tries desperately to fling it off. He loves "dry" finger foods, breadsticks, rice cakes, apricots etc. but I have to mash up (not puree but large lumps) and feed it to him.

I like your ideas and will try some of those! I am just hoping that this phase will end soon and he will become interested in using a spoon or start picking up "wet" food and not mind it.

Sounds like a pretty good diet to me, esp with fruit and yoghurt. With DS I keep trying with extra stuff, so something I know he'll eat plus a bit of something he's not keen on (usually veg). Most of the time he'll try a bit and say 'no like it mummy' and I say 'that's OK, you don't have to eat it'. Sometimes he'll decide he does like it after all! He's 2.5 btw.

abroadandmisunderstood how old is DS2? Does he not like having dirty fingers? that is the problem with my dd and any wet fingerfoods. she just gets upset and wants me to clean her hands. have you tried spreading cheese on the dry snacks? we love dairlylea cheese on rice cakes or marscapone cheese is a good one. I know at 21 months she shouldn't be having her food mashed but if it a choice between that and her not eating then I will keep mashing away!!! try lenil stew. I cook lentils with cauliflower, carrot, apple and potato and mix togther. she loves it and lentils are really good for them. the sweet apple hides the cauliflower so you get some veggies in. as my dd likes rice then I serve over rice. I hope they grow out of it too as would be do much easier to juts have to cook one meal for us all.

God, I wish DS (25mo) would eat all that! In terms of hot meals we are down to fish fingers, cauli cheese and butternut risotto, sigh. He also loves toast, yoghurt, peas and sweetcorn so I tell myself that at least it's a healthy, if limited diet.

I am relying on being able to bribe him with stickers in a year or so to broaden the diet then...

Megbusset that makes me feel loads better! I have read so much about bribery working a treat but I think my DD is still too young o understand the concept. I have tried it but she just looks at blankly! At what age do you thnk it starts to work?

I've no idea, I'll let you know if it ever works for me!