Fussy eating/food refusal advice, please!

[Empross76]

Hi,

DD is two and a half. He only eats a few particular foods (none of them healthy) - crisps (bizarrely any flavour, even the grown up stinky variety), crackers, sometimes cheese, chips or other types of processed potato, chicken nuggets, sausages, fish fingers, pizza (cheese and tomato). Basically, only beige food. God, I'm cringing reading that list!

That is literally all he will eat. No pasta of any kind, baked beans, roast dinners, rice, casseroles... no meals unless they are of the dry 'nuggets and chips' variety.

If he is served anything else he flat refuses to try it and pushes or throws the plate. We try to encourage him just to try one spoonful and he can have pudding if he does, but that doesn't work.

In fairness, we stick to our guns and if he doesn't eat the dinner we serve him he doesn't get anything else. But this doesn't seem to bother him and he is quite happy to go to bed with no dinner. In fact, he's gone to bed having eaten nothing since lunchtime for the last three nights!

He has alway been a hefty lad and at the top of the charts for weight, etc, so that is not a worry. And he doesn't appear to be hungry. What does concern me is that he doesn't eat any fruit or veg AT ALL so is he getting all the nutrients he needs?

And the fact that he won't try at all worries me as I don't see how his diet can improve.

Anyone got any similar experiences or advice to offer?

Thanks.

My nephew is exactly like this too, but is improving. My SIL has started sitting down to eat with him, putting whatever the adults are eating in front of him and just leaving him to it / eating their meal and seeing what happens. They make no big deal if he doesn't eat it but like you do not offer an alternative. They have seen big improvements in a couple of weeks since taking this approach. If you're really worried about lack of fruit/veg then use vitamin drops but it sounds like your DD is just fine as he's a healthy weight etc. Some toddlers are just snackers, just not needing that much, so try not to worry. But just offer as much variety as you can and most importantly eat with him whenever possible but don't give attention to the lack of eating, and strongly praise when he does. Good luck.

You could be describing my 2 1/2 year old. I have had had success with the following:
She will eat Humzingers (dried fruit sticks) look a bit like pepperami and IMO taste like playdough but are fruit. Also Yoyo's (dried fruit in a roll) come with a card in the packet which she loves. Generally if she sees it come out of a packet she is more keen to eat stuff. Both from Sainsburys.
She will eat fruit pots off the open door of the dishwasher!!!! Do t ask me how I discovered this but it works!. She used to love them and them point blank refused to eat them. She won't eat them at the table, only the dishwasher!!?????? May be try things in unusual location s, ie away from the dining room table. She will not eat raisins in a box or in a bowl or in bread/ cake but if I put them in the back of the fisher price train and call it coal she eats the lot.
I let her help cook dinner and when I cook frozen peas or sweet corn I let her tip the frozen veg in a pan. To my utter disbelief she will eat them with enthusiasm by the handful frozen. Cooked On her plater she will not!
I also buy dried Kiddicious dried Pinapple ( from sainsburys). These comes in a tiny packet and are crunchy like crisps. She loves these. I havnt told her its pineapple. We call them 'crispy bits' and she's happy with that (at the moment) apparently count as a portion of fruit!!! You can also get crispy dried apple and banana (samebrand) though she doesn't seem to like these.
Does he drink fruit juice or smoothies? I have success with cartons of these, though not in a cup.
Does he eat cake? I make carrot cakes ( carrot grated of smallest grater so not actually visible in cake), courgette cakes and banana bread (with a spoonful of cocoa powder) . Not the healthiest way to consume fruit & veg but not the worst!!
I do have some fruit & veg growing in the garden and she has been very interested in these ie watering and weeding etc. I managed to talk her into kissing a strawberry after telling her a story about how it had hurt itself and having the juice on her lips was enough to make her eat the whole strawberry. We've gone from eati g strawberries in the garden to actually eating them at the table (massive progress, took a few weeks!!) she now eats raspberries and blueberries from the garden (don't want To give the impression that my garden is an oasis of fruit - probably only about ten strawberries grown in total, blueberry plant in a pot equally pathetic, raspberries seem to thrive on neglect in my garden!). I also have an old apple tree so I'm hoping for success here to in the autumn.
Basically it's two tiny steps forward and one step back. We've stopped having pudding now as that creates too much agro at mealtimes. She either eats what I cook or nothing and like you, she often goes to bed with no tea. Doesn't seen to bother her, she's always been big so she's not going to waste away!! I am baffled by the utter lack of logic ( eating something happily in one room only for instance). She is going throug a very stubborn defiant stage at the moment ( hopefully it will pass). If I ask her to try something she will always say 'no' so I have to word it in a way which makes her think she's doing in herself, for instance ' you can't get that sausage in your fork by yourself can you?' Then she is more inclined to. Sometimes I offer her something and she says no so I tell her I'm going to give it to her sister and she decides she will have it after all!! It's such hard work. I long for a straightforward meal time. I have three girls - my eldest is very fussy any wont try anything new, my middle girl will eat anything and everything in vast quantities, especially fruit. I used to think I'd done something wrong somewhere with my eldest but I think now this is just the way they are!!!! Not my fault. It's hard work though! Good luck. Hope this epic ramble helps.

Thanks for the replies, both. Some good ideas there to try, especially the crunchy pineapple as DS is a fiend for crisps! Morepeas - your little one sounds hilarious! There's no rhyme or reason is there?!