My 4 year old will ONLY eat pasta and cheese for his tea!

[Snowfun]

Thats it nothing else! He will eat a normal enough breakfast - although not always and usually only after persuasion and he has a normal packed lunch at preschool (he goes 2.5 days a week)plus he has snacks at preschool of toast in the mornings and fruit in the afternoons but he will only pasta and cheese for his tea. We have tried giving him other food that the rest of the familys eating and refusing to give him an alternative, bribery with offers of chocolate etc everything but nothing works.

THe other day we had beef stew and dumplings (he used to eat that) and he refused to eat any of it so I tried bribing him to try it nothing so I said well there is nothing else on offer and stuck to it. The next morning I felt awful because he woke up feeling awful no energy had to be helped down the stairs and complained of feeling wobbly. After 2 bananas and a cup of milk he was fine! So now I am giving his pasta and cheese everyb night while ds2 and myself have our proper tea.

Don't promise it or bargain etc -it is a power struggle! Give the meal and take it away when not eaten. Give the pudding and take away if not eaten. Just look mildly surprised that he hasn't eaten it and say something bland like 'oh dear, you might be hungry later' and then don't say it again. If he says he is hungry point him in the direction of fruit but don't get drawn into a pointless discussion. It helps to give a small portion (they can always have more) and serve veg in dishes to help themselves.
I tried everything and nothing else works! There was another long thread-people found it worked, although it took a while and they had the whole drama queen bit of 'you don't care if I starve!'. Don't respond.

Ah you see I find negotiation works with my dcs so by them doing something, they get something in return - not in a bribery way just in a negotiation way and they seem to appreciate being given what they think of as a choice in the when in fact the options they are given are all proposed by their mother

Snowfun - If they ate the Christmas dinner then can you do a variation on that for mealtimes?

My DS is going through a fussy stage with tea times, although he eats a few more meals, but all he will eat is pasta in sauce, spag bol, chicken curry with rice, chilli con carne with rice or jacket potato cheese and beans. I was getting really fed up as he was such a good eater before and ate all veg, now he barely touches it so I chop or grate it into his food that he will eat, and keep offering stuff from our plates. If he thinks he is 'pinching' mummys and daddys food, he likes this and will at least try it even if he does spit it out. I just say never mind if he doesn't like it. He is actually asking to try a few other things now and really likes fish fingers and fish in batter.

If he doesn't eat something, I always offer fruit or yoghurt, never anything else and I don't try and bribe him by saying he can have chocolate if he eats something that he considers horrible. IMHO I think this gives the message that they need a reward for eating something bad (its what I have read in books and it does make sense to me).

TBH its good to know that others are going through the same and I am worrying about it less as his diet isn't too bad.

I'd let him, tbh.

He is getting carbs and protein and he is eating other stuff throughout the day.

Make a fuss and he'll stick to it. Let it go and he'll get bored of it eventually.

I eat the same thing for lunch almost every day and no one bothers me about it.

Is he related to my dd? She would live off mac n cheese if she could get away with it.

I add to veg to mine sometimes, just to add a bit of variety. broccolli goes down well. As does sweetcorn, garlic, onion, spring onion, bacon, chicken, diced tomato or ham.

Atm she is not too bad at eating other meals, but is still very pasta-ry. She had spag and meatballs last night. She wants cheesy pasta tonight with sweetcorn (we are having home made burgers and salad).

Mmmm cheesy pasta

I would give him a small plate of what you are eating and ask that he TASTES each thing and then he can have his side plate of cheesy pasta

just so he can show willing

my ds does this at the minute its pasta and potatoes that he will only eat if put on his plate im finding it impossible to get him to eat any meat however he will eat veg most the time

my ds does this at the minute its pasta and potatoes that he will only eat if put on his plate im finding it impossible to get him to eat any meat however he will eat veg most the time

my 5 year old went through a phase of only eating cereals, i was convinced she would starve but she didnt and suddenly started eating other foods. All of mine would settle for a very limited diet given a choice!

I would just relax about it and keep offering others foods as well.

My daughter was just the same at that age.

She's 11 now and is still unadventurous around food but thriving in all respects. As time has gone on we have persuaded her to eat raw carrot, sweetcorn, peas and lettuce. And she developed a love of Loyd Grossman's tomato pasta sauce. She'll also eat roasts, shepherd's pie and lasagne, plus a few other things. My son, by contrast, will try anything.

Pasta and cheese isn't too bad, you know. He'll be just fine.

I didn't think I'd have a problem with ds1s dinner tonight as we had pizza. We don't have it that often but its always beenn one of those "absolutely guaranteed he'd eat it" meals so I thought I'd give it ago and make a change from pasta iyswim. I couldn't belive it when he said noway I want pasta and had a major tantrum! I didn't make a big thing of it but he didn't have pasta though. He didhowever 2 helping of the home made flake rice pudding with sultanas we had for pudding!

DS3 would only eat pasta with pesto for nearly a year. He ate other things at nursery though, and porridge for breakfast. I just made him pasta with pesto, and asked him politely whether he'd also like whatever else I'd made. He is very tall for his age and full of beans (metaphorical beans, obviously). I would so not bother with the angst of only offering something he doesn't want and having to deal with a tantrum. As long as he witnesses other people eating different things and nobody acts like he's special for not doing it, he'll grow out of it.

If he was only eating coco pops or something it would be a different story, but pasta with cheese is a great meal to be obsessed with.

The thing is I don't see it as a meal certainly not something I'd choose to do for myself or anyone else in the family. It started as ds1 asking for plain pasta or "dry pasta" as he calls it "without sauce" and I would grate cheese on to add a bit of protein. Now thats all he'll eat! Couldn't believe it tonight when he turned down pizza though.

Well, just to give you more company in your despair, ds3 would now prefer to eat pasta with butter on than anything else at all. He will eat pizza though! (but then he's Italian of course....)

Lol Romanorama! I'm not exactly in despair!

Looking on the bright side, it's pretty damn easy to boil pasta and put cheese on it everyday, isn't it?!

DS1 is a bit like this and would certainly only eat pasta and cheese if we let him.

I got into the habit of just giving him one of the meals I knew he would eat.

However, DH has been at home recently (redundancy) and has taken on the cooking. We all eat together and DH takes no prisoners in his choice of meals .

This week we have had
gnocchi - which DS wouldn't touch and he went to bed hungry (he did have a yoghurt as he'd at least tried it).
sausage and mash and peas - he ate sausages and peas but hardly any mash
mushroom risotto - I would have sworn he wouldn't put it in his mouth as he's blatently refused it every other time in his life but he sat and ate a good half of it before deciding it wasn't his favourite
couscous with chorizo and chick pea stew - ate the lot!

So I would say - by all means allow him cheese and pasta but add peas and sweetcorn or something to it. But also give him other meals with no fuss or comment. If he doesn't want it he doesn't have to eat it but he will be hungry!

Also, has there been anything changed for him recently. When DS2 was born we also moved house and DS1 had to change nursery. He refused anything but plain pasta for about 3 weeks but I let him as he had had so much upheaval in his little life he obviously just wanted something safe and constant!

I couldn't even get DS2 (2.5yo) to stay at the table this evening - he pushed his plate away and ran off upstairs. He has gone to bed having only eaten his breakfast and some toast (he wouldn't even try some spaghetti hoops at nursery fgs) & fruit today.

He seems to be able to survive on fresh air at the moment. I suppose 'tis all swings and roundabouts though - he also has stages where he eats like a horse too.

Short of strapping him onto his tripp trapp chair, how on earth do I get him to stay at the table?

Y'know I bet he would love to just eat pasta and cheese. DH believes that BLW is to blame, not sure why.

More and more I think small children have deep food preferences which are hard-wired into them. All you can do is gently influence.

It's not worth the worry. I've seen two close friends have endless paedaetrician appointments, psycholigist sessions, HV visits, etc. None of it seemed to work but gradually the children themselves expanded their diets.

I find when dd1 is going through these phases badly she will eat other things, if they are not on the same plate, i.e. she likes noodles and prawns and garlic mushrooms, but the noodles must be served dry in one dish and the prawns and mushrooms in another dish. She won't eat them mixed together.

She will have cheese pasta and cherry tomatos, but the tomatos must be on another plate, seperate to the pasta.

It didn't work because they got masses of attention from it! The eat it at school and nursery because there is no one to give the attention and no way of changing it. The ususally don't see the cook, if they did they would be able to say 'I don't choose the menu', the dinner ladies can say 'I have nothing to do with cooking the meals' and the teaching staff can look surprised and say 'we have nothing to do with meals'. Also they know they are going home so they aren't bothered if the DC misses a meal.
At home mum is the one that chooses it, cooks it, serves it and wants the DC to be strong and healthy and therefore the DC can turn it into a power struggle until tha parent is grateful if they have half a potato and a spoonful of yoghurt!
If you take all emotion out of it-serve and remove without comment they start to eat it-some take longer than others to get the message. They will not starve.

Put the dinner in the oven to slow cook and take them on a long, long walk, with a bit of running and tree climbing, and they will eat anything when they get back!

sorry, OP, I know it is irrelevant, but cheesy pasta - yummy! i would not mind it myself

Is the cheese a sauce or grated?If its a sauce you can add other things like pureed cauli or flaked white fish just a little at a time but I'd just give hime what he will eat-its not as if he's demanding alphabetti spaghetti and fruit gums.At the moment my dgs aged 3 is asking for lasagne every night so s-i-l has cooked a big one and cut it into portions to freeze.

He is pulling your plonker needing help downstairs the next day when he hasn't eaten his dinner!