Would you give a child anything else when they REFUSE to eat tea yet again? HELP, at the end of my tether.

[CrapBag]

My DS used to eat everything. He then hit 20 months and gradually got fussier. At first I didn't mind the odd thing being dropped from his diet and he was still eating about 5 different meals that the HV said were absolutely fine and they had no concerns.

Now he is 4.6 and I am getting to the end of my tether. Unless it is chilli con carne or spaghetti bolognase, he won't eat it. He will eat pasta in sauce and I can mix in some baby corn. He will eat a small amount of chicken curry on occasion, a meal that he always loved. Now I can count on one hand the amount of times he has finished or even eaten any of his tea in the last month!!! He has dinner at about 11.30-12 and I don't let him eat in the afternoons even when he says he is hungry in an attempt to get him to eat his tea. He will then look at his tea and just refuse to eat. I will not do the "come on, just have a bit" I tend to say oh well, you will be hungry and thats it.

Even when me, DH and DD sit eating ice cream (to make him see that we get nice things after when we eat all of our tea) he just doesn't care. I just don't know what to do anymore. I am throwing away food all the time. Sometimes I save it for the next day and present it back to him but pasta isn't something that can really be saved and reheated. Recently he even done it with chilli which is his absolute favourite.

He is one to pick up something very quickly so even of once I let him have some fruit or bread and butter after tea, I know that presented with a tea he has decided he won't eat, he would always take the option of just having some bread and butter and fruit instead. I know these aren't bad things but it would feel like I am giving in and saying that he doesn't have to eat his tea as he knows something else would be on offer. At the moment if he doesn't eat, tough, he gets nothing until breakfast and he is happy to do this. I am not. I was practically starved as a child and just not fed properly so I can't understand why he won't eat and seems to be surviving on breakfast, dinner then nothing until the next morning!! It doesn't seem right!

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WWYD?

Ok, thanks for the replies.

I have tried putting him in another room. He just comes to the door and stands messing around and distracting DD.

He does occasionally have food in the afternoons. If we are at my nans, if we are with friends whose children are eating I won't let him be the only one who isn't. He still doesn't eat his tea and because he has eaten, we have even less chance of getting him to. I think I am going to start giving him a snack early in the afternoon, although I have tried it and it makes no difference to his eating tea. I did give him a very small amount for tea yesterday and he actually ate it!! Progress! I have been really not bothered about it, body language etc and maybe he is getting it that we are NOT bothered if he doesn't eat. I have spoken to DH as well and made sure that we are on the same page and he isn't constantly commenting on it as well.

Sorry but I think the comment about hot dinners and smaller children is rubbish. I know if I try and make him have hot dinners he just won't eat it then he will be hungry all day at school and I am not having that. At least if I pack him up, he is getting things he likes and he will eat it and I do tend to pack a lot.

OP: You could always try swapping the meals around - give him a light meal in the middle of the day and the heavier one in the evening. It might be that he's just not hungry enough after his midday meal. Packed lunches when he goes to school sounds a good idea - you never know, he might see lots of other children eating hot lunches and decide that's what he wants to do.....

I would feed him a bit lighter in the day but he is always really hungry. From about 10.30 he is asking when dinner time is. We generally have it at 11.30 where he has his sandwiches, fruit and yoghurts but he will always say he is still hungry and ask for more. I don't like to deny him if he is actually hungry at a meal time (I have massive issues with this as I was practically starved before the age of 4).

I don't mind doing packed lunches either, I have seen the price of school dinners and definitely an expense that we can be doing without at the moment!

I'm just going to go with it and see, he did eat his tea again tonight and that included after having chocolate at my nans house this afternoon so there is progress. Slow, but progress!

My DD is a bit older, but if she refuses to eat tea, she doesn't get an alternative meal. It frustrates my husband because he grew up a house always feeling hungry, so hates the idea that she hasn't had something to eat. I, however, grew up in a house where you were forced to eat your meal, and would often be at the dinner table from lunch at tea time, with dinner still on the plate. DH doesn't want the kids to "go hungry" but I wont force them to eat. If they are hungry, they will eat.

When she was much younger, she would eat anything given to her. As she's got older and more independent, she's fussier about what she eats. She will reject food if she isn't used to that combination (loves cheese, loves cucumber, put both on a sandwich and asking for trouble. Loves lasanga, but dismantle it to essentially give her spag bol, she's not happy. Eats mince, eats potatoes, eats veg, put it as shepherd's pie, she'll be upset).

Our compromise in this house is if they eat their tea, they can (from time to time) have a treat. If they don't eat their tea / sulk over their tea but complain they're still hungry, they can have a piece of fruit, or a slice of bread before bedtime. This is mostly to satisfy DH who cannot cope with the idea DD is going to be hungry.

As DD is at school, she has packed lunches (the school don't have time to "coax" her to try new food combinations). We'll pack, for example, 8 items. She'll know that I expect 3 of those items to be eaten (usually, sandwich, yoghurt, cheese string, basically anything that cannot be re-used after being out of the fridge all day). She can pick & choose over the rest.

The most important thing - stay relaxed about it.

Elf if your Dd continues with that mindset, she will probably always be slim. Eat when you are hungry, not just because it's 'meal time' :)

I have the same problem, my son is 2.5 and he used to be very good with his meals, it all changed 3 months ago when we were visiting relatives in the Czech republic ( we were there for almost 4 weeks), he would only eat toast with butter or plain bread while we were there, it's been over 2 months since we got back and he's still really bad, the only meal he likes is homemade spagbol, luckily we hide loads of veg in it. He would eat chips but I refuse to give them more than once a week. But otherwise it's just porridge for breakfast, buttered bread, cheese on toast, toast and marmite and occasionally red or yellow pepper, breadsticks and biscuits .( which he gets only if he eats his dinner)... He used to like all veg, yogurts, rice etc but that has all stopped, he won't even try anything new and he is reallly skinny , size 4 pull up nappies are too big now..I usually don't offer any alternative if he doesn't eat dinner but that means he goes to bed hungry most nights :-( what shall I do? :-(

One of our DC is VERY fussy and he won't eat fruit. I've tried most things but have sort of resigned myself to the fact that he'll get better at some point. I now sneak fruit and veg into everything I can do. Porridge has a pulped apple in it; chips are sweet potato chunks roasted in olive oil; humous has a pulped peeled courgette in; etc. I've taken to spreading a thin layer of avocado underneath his cheese on toast and this is not normal closing the curtains when he eats it so he can't see it. His sister eats anything, and her choices are mostly fruit and healthy stuff. The fussiness drives me bonkers but as long as he's got some fresh stuff in him from somewhere, I have to force myself to relax about some of it.