DS eats like a horse at nursery, and not a morsel of his mother's home cooked food!

[papulacandin]

My DS2 (will be 3 in March) eats heartily at nursery but at home will only eat breakfast cereal, fruit, sweets, cakes and treats etc!

Obviously I limit the sweets, cakes and treats and each day put in front of him a proper home cooked meal which he then just ignores! This is all the more frustrating as his nursery report that "he's a really good eater" there!

Anybody else experienced this? I try and ignore his lack of interest in his main meal at home and on the 1 day a week when we have dessert at home just give him a small portion. And make sure he doesn't fill up on junk.

Please advise because I do find it frustrating! Ta!

My DD is the same.

We do pasta, peas and chicken a lot at home, roast lunches she will now do and just started beans on toast. Oh and ham sandwiches

Make nothing of it.

He will know you are stressing about it.

He won't starve, especially if he will eat cereal and fruit.

He will come round to your (delicious!) grub in time.

My dd can be the same...
Recently i noticed that if I do not give her too many "sweets and treats" just serve proper lunch earlier(even if i think it's maybe a bit too early for lunch yet)she will eat happily.Also if she doesn't touch her meal i do not take it back to the kitchen straight away.I leave it around within her reach and most of the times she will come back to eat a bit later(prob when she gets hungry...)

Maybe being at nursery just makes him hungry? I can imagine it is pretty active, and it may be that he eats lots because he is using lots of energy while there . . .

Or might his nursery hours just co-incide with when he's hungry? DD even now age 7 eats decreasing portion sizes with each meal of the day (ie, porridge helping bigger than DHs for breakfast, decent lunch, small evening meal)

DD1 is exactly the same and DD2 is following suit. I have perservered with home-made delights and no alternatives, but it has gone on for about 2 years!! I serve toad in the hole and fish fingers chips and peas once a week and it all goes. Anything more wholesome and they turn their noses up!

You have my sympathy.

My DD is the same and I just put it down to peer pressure at Nursery school - she eats well there because all her little mates do!

I'm constantly amazed when I pick DD up and am told that she's eaten everything. In fact, I did tend to take what the staff were telling me with a pinch of salt until I overheard them tell the parents of another child there that he hadn't eaten that much again. So, I'm assuming they see no need to palm everyone off with they ate eveyrthing line. In fact, staff are surprised that she doesn't eat that well at home, as she has such a good appetite there.

DD's eating habits at home are beginning to improve (she is now 4), which is less frustrating as I do try to provide her with healthy, home cooked meals. It seems less of a waste if she eats something out of it.

Try not to stress to much. They do get better!

Ask them how big their portions are.

a 3 year old's meal should be no bigger than a side plate unless they want more.

It isn't about food-it is a power struggle. The nursery serves food, expects them to eat it and they follow the others.
You want your DC to eat a healthy, balanced diet and he knows that this is very important to you. You will cook things he likes, tempt him with special food, care whether he eats it or not and not want him to go hungry. He can get masses of attention through it and make a lot of fuss.
The nursery have produced a meal-he isn't going to make the same amount of fuss-everyone will just look at him as if he is a bit odd!
Take the emotion out of it. Serve meals-DO NOT discuss, even to say 'good boy if he eats it'. Make it very matter of fact-this is a meal and you eat it or don't eat it-remove without comment. DO NOT give snacks or alternatives (just have fruit available). He will not starve.

What type of food does the nursery serve?
If it sugary, fatty or salty cheap food (ready meals/cakes/tinned food) then this may be why as children develop a craving for the salt or sugar which decent home cooked food doesn't have.

cut out all sweets, cakes etc. Seriously. Your DS just does not need that sort of junk, and he's clearly filling up on it (a 3 year old still has a tiny tummy).

At nursery, they only give fruit between meals, thus kids tend to eat better at mealtimes.

Make sure you offer a range of fruit though, not just the stuff you like. I've discoverd that DS2 will happily eat his own bodyweight in kiwi fruit, oranges and red grapes, but will hardly touch apples and bananas.

They'll maybe get a gooey floury pudding for dinner 3X/week, with fruit as a pudding the rest of the time.

I'm not being mean - I've learned the hard way with my boys, including a trip to hospital with a constipated DS2, because he was getting biccies between meals instead of fruit.

"Obviously I limit the sweets, cakes and treats"

by limit, that should read "none".

thanks for all your comments. I will persevre (sp?) with putting food on table and then removing with no comment if not even touched and hope that he 'gets over it' sometime. He's never allowed to fill up on junk, even though he must go to bed feeling a little hungry some days because he's had nothing but breakfast cereal and then fruit for the rest of the day.

Nursery serves home cooked food as well so it is a comfort on the days that he is there he does fill up on the best kind of nosh.

I have exactly the same thing with my 3year old DS. Eats like a horse at nursery (loves salad, apparently!) but pushes the bowl away at home saying 'I don't like it'.
Is v. hard to put your back into serving food when it is rejected. I try to maintain an air of calm indifference (while raging inside) and on nursery days (when he gets a good cooked meal at lunchtime) offer him grapes, raw carrott and biscuits and cheese (ie finger food) in the evening, which he'll pick at. Find his appetite genuinely goes up on some days and down on others and it generally evens out over a week.
My theory is, he's got two greedy pigs for parents, so he's bound to become a foodie when he's older.