Do your DCs have a hot cooked meal every day? Help with DS please!

[NedSchneebly]

DS 3.9yrs has a reasonable diet most of the time, but I'm really struggling to get 'cooked' meal into him at the moment. He's much more keen on 'snacky bits' as he calls them : sandwich, fruit, cheese, cucumber pieces, rice cakes or crackers, yoghurt or custard pot etc.

He eats this kind of stuff much more readily than cooked meal at the moment- don't know if cos hot weather?

Anyway, do you think i should be insisting he has a hot lunch/ tea or allow him to have two meals in the day which are basically the same?

Don't want to make meals a battleground.. Any thoughts?!

TIA

My DS would eat what he wanted if I did this. I have to be careful because he can become a snacker. I've even had days where I've limited lunch just to get back into habit of eating hot evening meal. In my house I serve 3 meals and perhaps a couple of pieces of fruit. If the balance starts to tip then I try to limit them with snacks and types of food. For example if I notice they are getting a bit of a sweet tooth and holding out for desert I start to limit choices.

Thanks poppet- I do hear what you're saying!

Ironically, I think he snacks less between meals if he's had a sandwich type meal, cos he's eaten better, iyswim. 'snacky bits' meals in our house just mean 'not hot' food.

Any other thoughts?

Hmm. Tricky one.
For me, I'd go with whatever he wanted for now. It's more than likely just a phase and he will come out of it.
I wouldn't make a huge issue out of him not eating hot meals and maybe stick with that for a while.
Maybe offer hot meals to start with 2 nightss a week and then increase from there.
It's not going to do him any harm to skip the odd meal.
My ds's have sandwiches etc for lunch and I do hot meal for dinner. They rarely eat their dinner, but they don't have too. Well, I say rarely, they might eat it 3 times a week.

Thanks all :)

I'd rather he ate sandwich-type meal if it means that he'll eat more and a balanced range of things, rather than cooking pasta or whatever, which he then picks at.

Thanks silvery I will try to reintroduce hot meals - maybe on days when it's not so hot!?

Sounds good Ned Do you all sit down together to eat dinners?
We try to, mostly. The weekends are the days that I try new meals, so all through the week I will cook things I know they like and have eaten, like, hotpot, bolognese, shepherds pie, casseroles etc and then saturday I try to find something new to try, and sunday I try to do a little roast if I can be bothered

As he gets older and starts school, he will get used to / need to eat "proper" meals as he won't be able to "graze" throughout the day. This should be a gradual process - sandwiches and some cucumber / tomatoes / fruit, etc is a healthy lunch. Maybe you could work on that first and then introduce other stuff?

Does he eat stuff like pizza / pasta? That could be the start of warm meals?!

I would try and persevere, otherwide it will severely restrict what he can eat generally, its very easy to habit form and take years to reverse it, from this age, in my bitter experience.

How about offering some hot food alongside his snacky bits (my DS also calls it that and would eat it every meal!) and rewards for eating it - or offer the snacky bits partway thru the meal iyswim,

It took some time with my DS, to reverse the trend but now he is great and the only thing I have found him not keen on is mashed potato, which is no big deal! He even went to a party recently where chicken hearts were onthe menu and was scoffing them by the handful whereas his sister who has always eaten anything was gagging at even trying them :o

If it's a big problem maybe you could add hot items to his snacky plate as a way in. Possibly some vegetable wedges or homemade pizza, even a small helping of pasta. He might try it, he might not. I have a really easy pizza base recipe if you fancy it.

My youngest is exactly the same age and she is a meat fiend. She'll have all the filling off her sandwich, but not the bread or pick all the chicken out of a curry. She has 2 older siblings and we all eat together in an evening, they will say "have a spoon full with me" and she will try some. IL's etc have said "oh they had to eat all their meal before pudding", but I don't see this as a solution. We work on the basis that she has to have a mouthful of everything, then she has pudding. However, everyone has the same meal without exception and if they don't eat, they don't eat. Having said that I generally go for simple home cooking most of the week with something new thrown in occasionally. Maybe this is the way to go, start slowly with easy to eat, comforting meals and work up?

Good luck with it anyway, I wouldn't worry too much, but I would also continue offering alternatives.

Goodness, I really must learn to type quicker!

Wow- thanks for great replies. :)

It's only a recent thing, which is why I thought it was to do with weather getting hotter. He's not too bad about grazing between meals, just wants plate of snacky bits for lunch and tea! Today for lunch had 2 Philidelphia sandwiches, 3 rice cakes, fruit pouch, piece of cheese and some grapes. Told him it's cooked tea today, cos cooler weather today.

He has a genetic disorder, and teeth have not grown properly, so only has two teeth, and they're false caps. So, he can't eat meat, apart from mince and sausages out of the skin, atho both of these sometimes a struggle for him. He will happy gum his way thru pasta, potatoes, potato waffles, pizza, omelette/ scrambled egg, sometimes couscous, and eats carrots, peas, sweetcorn, broccoli. Did do mixture the other day- small bowl pasta, plus rice cakes, grapes and piece of cheese. Went down ok.

I'm a full time teacher, and he eats lunch and tea at nursery during term time, although I always sit down with him to eat at weekends. He eats much better at nursery, because he has no choice about what he eats! He has snacky lunch and hot tea, cos that's what I put in his bag!

Will continue to do hot teas when I can, and try not to get too stressed!

Hooray! Tea tonight was pasta with tomato and sweet potato sauce, with carrots, and then a banana!!! :) AND he asked for more!

There is hope for us both!

If you have nerves of steel and a large plastic mat try soup. Both my DS's started to have soup at about 3yo and the "snacker" of the two really enjoyed it.

Maybe a way of introducing hot tea and it will be easy on his mouth. It's amazing what you can whizz up into it if you have half the chance!!

Yay! It's probably just a phase then. It's just a matter of keeping it that way now, rather than it becoming habit.

Glad he has settled to a hot meal for you though, it must be a weight of your mind. Honestly, the things us mum's end up worrying about. Before children you really wouldn't believe it would you? My issue at the moment is trying to get veg down my youngest. She eats it unwittingly all the time in sauces and soups etc, but in solid form there is not a hope of more than a coerced mouth full. I think they just like to keep us on our toes!

Poppet, why the hell would you cut back one meal (lunch) in order to force more eating at the next meal?