food refusal

[naysayer]

I've been looking for a thread about food refusal in toddlers and am not encouraged that the only food stuff I can find is about recipes... My dd is 3 and a half and every meal is a battle. She will not eat anything new, not even a bite. Refuses meat of all kinds, fish, cheese, pulses, veg, generally anything savoury, anything wet including soups and stews, potatoes, pasta, rice, wraps, dips, crackers, savoury nibbles like spring rolls or sausage rolls. She had to be dragged to the table and most of the time just sits refusing to even try a mouthful of what is there unless it's her usual.

She will try nothing new and only wants bread and butter, occasionally a Babybel, or fish fingers and Ella's kitchen sachets (yes, the baby food puree which costs £1 and which is the only way she will eat veg, my own pureed veg or normal veg would be refused). She will eat fruit but that's no help as it's sweet and not protein. School nursery refused to stop giving fruit as snack even when I said this was the same as she would eat at home and I was having trouble with her trying new foods and filling up on carb.

I am at my wits' end. Today, easter sunday, she has asked repeatedly for chocolate. When I tried to get her to take toast with a cheese spread she dug heels in and refused - this is the pattern at every attempt of trying to get her to take a bite of something new.

It has been two years of this and I am worried she is laying down appalling habits that will lead to an eating disorder. I swing between feeding her what I know she will eat, which means the same meal every day, three times a day, and resolving that I am going to starve her until she breaks. I asked for help from HV, who was useless. Everyone just says 'oh give it time, she will get what she needs' but this is getting ridiculous, she is almost pre-school and is absolutely resolved that she will not try anything new.

She does nothing but badger me for sweet treats. I have tried both techniques: of refusing treats 'unless you eat so and so' (doesn't work, she still won't) and allowing treats (ie not making them a bargaining tool - doesn't work, she still doesn't eat anything else I want her to).

Star chart is no success, neither is eating with us. Health good other than being very wilful. Banning snacks between meals makes no difference. Peers eating widely at nursery has not changed anything. Please can I get some advice.

Sorry, didn't mean for that to sound bossy

have always done the same as jiltedjohnsjulie we all eat together, the same meal, they can either eat it or not but there is nothing else on offer!

i think small portions are also important a big plate full of food can be offputting and daunting for a small child so i only put a small serving out (they have smaller plates) andthen they can have more if they want.

mine are 12, 9, 7 4 and 16mths and we have had our share of fussy moments, ds4 inparticular has been a pita at times but he knows if he doesnt eat whats on offer there is no alternative.

my hv said to me your job as a parent is to provide them with a healthy varied diet, its NOT your job to make them eat it, you have done your bit by providing it, whether they eat it or not is not something you can control and they wont starve themselves :)

i agree dont make it a battleground, we all sit to eat together and at the end i ask if htey are finished and then plates are taken away, we just sit and chat about our day etc, i wont cajoule or bribe them into eating and i dont comment if they dont eat anything, just ignore, at the end of the meal if they have sat and eaten nicely i will say well done, but dont make a big deal out of eating or food refusal as you are just rewarding htem with attention.

I think I read somewhere it can take up to 20 tastes of a new food to grow to like it.

My DS1 is now 2yrs and 10 months. He was a fab eater when he was little until his molars came through, and then everything went downhill, his sleep, and his food!!! (we co-sleep)
He now eats weetabix, Cheerios, golden Graham's, toast (with marg, peanut butter, or chocolate spread), chicken nuggets, fish fingers, pizza, mash, chips, yoghurts, organix bars, crisps, grapes, strawberries, banana and chocolate.
We had a phase of feeding him the organix toddler meals, as he would eat them, and we knew they were nutritional, however he has now got bored of those and refuses them. He was BF till 7months but then wouldn't take to the bottle so has never had formula.
DS2 is now 10 months and is happily demolishing just about everything we put in front of him. We thought it might have a positive influence but no. DS2 was BF till 4months then bottles. DS1 is apparently quite stubborn. DH is totally paranoid and stressed about it, so refuses to go down the "he'll eat eventually" road. He will give him toast and yoghurt before bed if DS1 asks for it.
To be fair, DS1 is about the 2nd percentile, and has always been small, he was born weighing 5lb 11oz but he is now just playing us!!!!
We have good days, and then he won't even eat his favourite things!!
His grandmother doesn't help (who does some of our child care) as she lets him raid her snack cupboard, getting biscuits and chocolate whenever he wants. End result - he comes home and won't eat what I cook him!
I'm getting towards the end of my tether, as I feel like I'm doing this on my own. My family are more supportive, but it causes friction at home.
I've taken on board lots of the advice already given, and I'll try them out.

I also thought it was interesting to read that the number of "paddies" was reduced by cutting out snacking. Will have to give that a go!!!!!!

i don't have 'fussy' children, to the degree that it's a problem, in fact i'd say that they are 'good eaters'. but they are still awkward little bollixes sometimes.
agree totally about the size of platefuls, too much and they are definitely put off. in fact the bowls we eat from are TINY, but they are much happier having second helpings (and sometimes thirds) once they've cleared a small plateful. they get such conflicting messages, particularly from school, about clearing plates. my only question is 'did you enjoy it?'

re the second helpings, i also found if they help themselves then they eat more.

also, i give them crudites before dinner, when they are at their hungriest for some reason, so i always know they've had some veg and amn't too bothered if they don't want more.

another thing i noticed was that if they're ill, they do go off food in the wildest way, and that takes a while to come out of. fewer meals and more 'picnics' (ie bits and bobs of ham/salami/veg, bowl of soup for a snack) help to stimulate their appetite.

i've also heard of people buying those mini-fridges and stocking it with healthy food for their children to graze on. if you're naturally a grazer, it must be hard to sit for three meals.

no idea if any of that is helpful, of course, i know there are often sensory issues at play with 'proper' fussy eaters, but thought i'd write it down anyway.

Watch this space people, today I have stopped with the ways of the past, and am following the advice given here!
The tears have already begun from DS1

Hey. I could have written your post 2. My dd is 2 and a half, and is the fussiest child ever. She was BLW thinking it would stop a child being a fussy eater which really worked
She has a limited diet 2. She will eat chicken, beef, fish, baked beans, chips, and lots of varying fruits. 4 the life of mecan't get her 2 touch vegetables. Loves her cereals, and toast/bread/sandwiches.
We also did the no snacking thing, no treats, not getting pud if dinner isn't eaten, and it still doesn't work.
Answers on a post card..............

btw regarding the '20 tastes of a new food to like it' thing... i've seen it loads, but does anyone know the science behind it. if someone gave me something i didn't like 19 times, i really can't imagine changing my mind suddenly on number 20.

see... that diet doesn't sound that limited to me for a child of that age, longdistance...

there is a line of thinking that toddlers all shut down a bit re eating because their increased independence would lead them out of the 'cave' for a wander, and under those circumstances one doesn't want them chowing down on unknown berries.

Sorry been away. Seems no way out of the snacks, nursery is every day and that's that. Think we will have to try to reduce the plateful of her own food and increase what she is offered by us. It's pretty entrenched that she gets her own so we have some damage to undo there, but we didn't realise how set in her ways she would become when the issue first started creeping on us and you don't think to lay down the law when you have no idea it's going to get worse.

Trying to make own pizza, or disguise 'good' food in sauce, no luck. Seems pretty resolved that she is not trying anything new any time soon but I can see that's not a reason to give up offering. She will sometimes try the tip of a spoon of what we have but we have to beg so hard and she makes such a face that it's not worth the trouble and I don't want to have this situation where we are pleading and it's all got such a negative air.

All tips here good but plinketyplink - I did read your post and wonder how it was meant to help so pancakeflipper's right. You can't really say you are sharing your method when you haven't had an issue to deal with, and ramming that at people who have had lots of unhappy meals and worry over it is unhelpful. I, too started out with very nutritious food for DD and over the past two years whole types of food (all meat, fish, veg, carb apart from bread) and many ways of serving it (dips, anything wet, casseroles, sauces, chilli etc, or stirfry) has been relentlessly rejected, and that's my point!