Fussy Eaters - How do you deal with it? Urgent Help Required!

[MummyJules]

I am getting quite tired of my DD's fussy eating (now 3 yrs) and I am quite concerned that she is never going to grow up to be a healthy individual and that she is going to be one of these obese kids that you see nowadays.

When she was a baby I prepared everything fresh for her and she had a varied diet including plaice, spinach etc but as soon as she got to the finger food stage she regected every fruit and vegetable in her sight. The only fruit and veg she eats is bananas, cucumber and cartons of pure apple juice. I have tried hiding the vegetables and making funny faces but nothing seems to work. The only way I can get veg into her is by making a tomato sauce for a pizza with loads of veg in it but I can't give her Pizza every day.

Now she is rejecting fresh chicken and fish (unless it has breadcrumbs or batter) , beef, pasta and rice and many more!
I swear she just lives on bread!

I have started to make just family meals and get her to help me in the process of cooking and to eat with her so for instance tonight we cooked home made meatballs with tomato sauce and cheese baked in the oven with plain pasta and low fat garlic bread. The only thing she touched is two bits of cucumber and half a piece of garlic bread and has gone to bed crying for a "cereal bar" I did allow her to have some milk while we were reading stories. I guess the point I am trying to make is am I doing the right thing? Is there another way? What works?

I would really appreciate any tips from anyone..

Thanks for reading such a long post.

MummyJules x

what worked for us was to offer DD (4) healthy food which we wanted her to eat (like spaghetti, lasagne, sheperd's pie, potato & veg) and just putting it in front of her. if she eat it she'd get lots of praise and if she didn't eat it she was told she'd be hungry until her next meal and would get no snacks in between those meals. she now eats virtually everything we give her. all of it is homemade and is what DP and i also eat. her drinks are limited to water, apple or orange juice and milk.
best thing is to stick with it. keep trying her with new food and don't give something else if refused. that is where i went wrong all along with DD. i kept making meals, she'd not want it and then i'd cook her something different. she'd get me very worried all the time because she wasn't eating much and as a vegetarian she especially needs a good variety of food.
HTH

What Lilac said helped us too although I'm not sure we're totally out of the woods yet - my ds (4.5years) still has lots of picky moments.

Other things that have helped are: trying to keep the family meals fairly consistent and regular so they get "used" to them (we have a 5 week "rota" on meals - but it'd probably be better with less if you can stand the boredom). It apparently takes up to 20 exposures of a new food for a child to accept it - so accept that you're in for a long haul - especially if you've recently changed your eating habits.

Try not to react. Easier said than done, but the "okay, that's fine, but that's all there is" approach without constantly coaxing them to eat "one more bit" seems to work. It's less stressful mealtimes for a start (and quite often I've seen him pick at a few more bits after he's "finished" out of the corner of my eye while he's waiting for us to finish eating!)

If you're really worried about her diet, I can recommend working on a theme. If you know she likes cheese on toast, and she also likes bananas, then try her with bananas on toast for a change. If you can get her to eat a spaghetti bolognese then try her with a lasagne. If she'll eat fishfingers beans and chips, then try fishfingers beans and mash... or peas instead of beans ... or steamed carrots & cabbage instead of peas... The idea being that it's still things she likes, but still something "new" - I think it makes the prospect of a "new" dinner slightly less scary sometimes.

Perserve. It comes and goes in our house, but we've recently changed a lot of our meals and the way I plan menus because I was bored and wanted us all to eat more healthily. It was a huge upheaval... it's taken a couple of months, but it's getting much better...

Oh ... also ... STICKERS!

Be unfailingly positive about every mouthful they eat and try and bite back any negative comment about stuff they leave. If they eat even a mouthful of something new - a sticker on the tummy or on a chart as a progression to a new toy works WONDERS for morale for both of you.

I'm also an unashamed briber. The only time ds1 gets chocolate or sweets (other than party presents) is if he's eaten all his main course and all his pudding. I don't really offer it as a bribe as such (although he sometimes whistfully says "I don't get chocolate buttons today because I didn't like x") but say "hey, you've eaten really well today - look at that ALL your dinner and ALL your pudding! Are you still hungry? Would you like some chocolate?" (yes the last question is rhetorical ). If he hasn't had chocolate for a LONG while then I try and engineer dinner so that both courses are something I know he loves and will be easy to polish off

Other thing is small portions - a large portion on a plate can be VERY overwhelming for a little person. Better to put a small bit of everything on the plate and then offer more if they eat it all, than put so much on the plate they give up after one bite...

georgina, those are all things i've forgot to mention! also, sitting at the table together and maybe keeping a food diary, so you can see at the end of the day how much DD actually ate! it can be quite a relief.
SIL read that a child needs 2 teaspoonfuls per meal for every year of their life. that is not that much, if you think about it.

Big thank you to MummyJules for starting this thread and Georgina and Lilac for such good answers. DD3 has become a very picky eater by stealth over a long period of time. Was starting to realise something had to be done, but not quite knowing what (other 2 dds are good eaters).

Am now in possession of a cunning plan .

Thanks.

Thanks so much for all your advice - Its very helpful and really appreciated. I just feel so guilty!

One way we get all sorts of fruit into DD (2yr 8mths) is a fruit smoothie. She rejects EVERY fruit in its natural state but will take anything in a smoothie ie really tart rhubarb and strawberry was yesterday's flavour!
We use apple juice as a base and just add what we have though banana and strawberry might be a good starting point as its not too scary a colour and is quite sweet.
Its known as 'breakfast juice' in our house and takes the pressure off the rest of the day on the fruit and veg front as I know she has had a good dose to start the day with!

That sounds like a great idea tessasmum but I know my little girl wouldn't even consider it! She will only have apple juice if it is in a carton or milk or water!

Oh another trick.

Give them vitamins (can get haliborange omega oil thing now with vit a,c,d and e in it as well I think ... we have the straight haliborange but are thinking of switching) every morning. That way if they don't touch anything green or orange all day you can completely relax because that's already covered

it might be quite tough but what a lot of health professionals say is they will not starve themselves, and if they are hunger they will eat!

my friend was advised to give whatever they were eating to her dd and if she didnt eat it she didnt get anything else (other than water/juice) until the next meal/snack time and eventually she would learn that was what she had to eat and she woldnt get what she wanted by tantrumming. it took a few days and a few sleepless nights but it worked. (think its better if they eat with you for this)

it'l probably be hard if you try it but it gave the desired result

I've found with dd, she sometimes can be persuaded to eat veg, if you boil it to death and mush it up a bit still, as its the crunchyness she doesn't like, similary I cook with her and get her to grate carrotts/courgettes etc into piles which she sees going into shepards pie, bolognaise etc, if we're having a really bad week I get her to help make a soup, and blend it right down, negating lumps, but getting veg into dd!

something i did to help get DD to eat fruit was to buy a few pieces of a selection of fruit (grapes, apricot, apple, strawberry...) and to let her touch them and describe them etc. she got really interested and we had little tastes of every fruit i bought. it was a laugh and she now eats most of them regularly. sursprising how a few facts about an apple makes it sound cool and yummy to my DD!
plus at nursery school they eat a piece of fruit every afternoon and she tried new things there because other children were eating them.