Hello all, dh and I really need some help here. DD is just turned 3 years and is generally a happy and well-behaved little girl. However the one area that is becoming increasingly difficult is food.
She is tall for her age and very skinny (but healthy) and has always had a fairly poor appetite. Up to 18m or so she ate small amounts of everything, great variety. She became pretty picky at that stage, but no more than most toddlers. We have always tried to encourage trying a mouthful of everything and never tried to make her eat anything she dislikes, keeping it fairly low key. She generally eats a really good breakfast (Weetabix/cheerios/toast and a cup of milk). Lunch (hot meal at home or at nursery) is variable but we sit down for this at the table together and try to encourage some table manners! Tea is generally a bit more snacky, such as chesee, crackers and fruit and she tends to eat much more if she has this whilst playing or watching a dvd, etc. Cup of milk before bed is always loved. I've always felt she eats a fairly reasonable "good enough" diet and hoped the pickiness would ease as she got older.
Problems lately are:
We've realised we have, almost without thinking, reduced the number of things she is being offered, so as to reduce the amount of fuss - lunches are down to fishfingers, bolognese sauce, meatballs, sausages, baked beans or scrambled eggs for definite acceptance. Varies whether potato is ok in many forms. She refuses pasta or rice. Bread and butter generally ok. Visible veg always refused, but she will eat lots of hidden veg in bol sauce. Fruit used to be ok but the range accepted getting less and less - grapes, apple, pear sometimes banana, sometimes berries. She loves juice or smoothies, though.
Hence the fussiness is a self-fulfilling prophecy to some extent... the battles trying to get her to eat something new or even something familiar she doesn't want that day are horrendous.
Ds (20m) is the opposite; short and stocky, will eat anything given to him apart from being not so keen on lots of fruit or veg. We have tried praising him +++ for eating but that doesn't seem to have any effect on her.
We have tried: not commenting much, quietly encouraging her, praising her massively when a meal eaten, getting her involved in cooking and growing veg/fruit in the garden, time out or even early nap or bedtime when food absolutely refused. It is getting worse, not better.
Over the last week she has started to refuse breakfast or take an hour to eat it, and is demanding to be fed ("like ds"). Really bad behaviour over lunch and tea too. Refusing her normal favourites such as fromage frais.Dh has had the morning from hell with her resulting in her going to bed for her nap early. Another awful habit she occasionally has is taking a few mouthfuls under duress and not swallowing them - she will happily sit there for 20 mins refusing to swallow.
Our concerns are that if we "just ignore it" as lots of friends have advised, then she is so strong-willed she would quite happily refuse to eat for a couple of days - she really is so thin that I worry massively about her losing any more weight. Also it seems to me that she would be being given a message that to refuse or be picky is accceptable behaviour - when it isn't!
If we cajole/bribe she is getting masses of attention (which is what she wants, clearly) and it still could take an hour to get her to eat a small meal. We haven't got the time or the inclination for that, frankly. It doesn't seem quite right to me that she should be getting rounds of applause and whooping for doing something that we all do 3 times a day?
If we try the stern approach, threatening bed/no tv/no treats/not leaving table until a little eaten everyone gets upset, it doesn't always work (will either end in her wolfing the lot or refusing it all). We have all been in tears the last couple of days. She dislikes "formal" meals and would always eat more if you let her try bits and pieces whilst cooking or snack out of a bowl whilst doing something else.
At nusery 2 days a week, she will sometimes eat well and sometimes quite little, no particular pattern, but she is much better behaved at the table. She tends toward constipation and can go 2-3 days sometimes without a bowel motion - her appetite is usually better once she has "been", but at present this is ok and improved with smoothies, dried fruit etc.
Can anyone advise, especially if you have experienced similar? This is really affecting our daily life, especially with the worse behaviour over the last week or so. No particular reason for this - no changes in routine. She is such a happy girl generally and gets probably a lot more attention than ds because of this. Both had chickenpox but over a month ago now.
I always vowed our children would not be picky and want to nip this in the bud. I veer between being worried that she will be horrendously picky if we let this slide or tip her over into a longstanding eating disorder or complete refusal if we force the issue!
Please help 
!