One Day He'll Eat My Dinner??

[tomtom1]

My 3 year old DS hasn't eaten a proper meal, ie meat & veg, since August! He just refused point blank overnight! He'll eat - Weetabix, Toast, Cheese, apple, pear, banana, petit filous, anything sweet like cakes and biscuits but point blank refuses any proper dinner. Every day we eat with him and I serve him the same meal as us. I don't allow him to snack before mealtimes. I don't show my anxiety and just take the dinner away untouched. He's told me that he'll eat my dinner when he's older! How long does this last? Every day I serve him his meal in the hope that today's the day he'll eat it! I worry that he's not getting the nutrition he needs! He has a daily multi vitamin but there's no substitute for a good healthy diet!

What happens at nursery? Or when you eat out or when with with his friends?
Or when you're not the one cooking and serving the food? (Dont take that personally)

Would he be interested in cooking with you?
He might eat what he cooks.

I don't know what to suggest. My DD has always been difficult and faddish. She is better with peer pressure - does he go to nursery yet? Mine started going 2 days a week and came home eating curry and chilli - having refused to eat anything much more than you say in that list. I've also known another child like this - who seemed to survive well on yoghurt and fruit. (she's now 9 and quite well and brainy). Just keep going I would say. I used to give mine a sort of salad - ham, grated cheese, baby tomato, cucumber, a small piece of pepper, pasta springs, avocado slices. Just to let her pick at, as and when, rather than me getting completely stressed about it. If she didn't eat it at a meal time I would just leave it out on a coffee table. Don't offer sweets etc in the meantime. Some of them can be very rigid at this age - I think they grow out of it eventually.

well then your child must be properly satiated.

barring any medical problem, your 3 year old will eat when he is hungry.

now you may tell us that he isn't really snacking, but you naes toast, apple pear bananba yoghurt cake biscuits - and i bet there are other things.

if you feed the kid breakfast

dinner

tea

and shit all else

then he refuses tea

he will eat.

Is he underweight? any health issues?

If not, then IMHO, there's no need to panic. You are doing the right thing by not allowing snacks etc. Just keep offering, let him serve himself, eat with him, chat, ask him if he's finished and take the plate away. Don't even ask him why he's not eating it because that is showing him that it's bothering you and he's too little to explain why he doesn't want it.

3 year olds have very small stomachs so need a lot less food than you might think. They also don't need to get all their food groups in during the day, more like over a week. Your DS is actually eating veg, carbs and protein, just not in the form that we have come to think of as a proper meal, i.e. meat and two veg.

Thanks for your messages. He goes to pre school 2 mornings a week. They finish just before lunchtime. It makes no difference when we eat out, with his friends or when we eat together. Tried him helping me cook, he enjoys it but still won't eat it. He's lively and happy so I don't think there's any health issue. I'll persevere and de-stress!

if he's lively and happy, then don't worry! Pre-schoolers are remarkably fussy about food. It's just what they do.

By the time he's 18 he'll be eating kebabs and allsorts