desperate mum needs hwelp with her 2 year old boy

[squirtlesmum]

I really need some help with my 2 year old boy as i am a very deperate some of you may have answered to my thread a few months ago but i will start from beginning since my son was 9 months old he refused home made food and instead had the toddler jars etc no matter what i tried he would not eat anything else iam now at the stage where he is the same and all he will eat is heinz toddler own meals ie spag bol, rice and curry and chunky veg soup i did try again to give him normal food but he wont eat it I dont think its the taste but the texture due to the fact i work from 530pm until 3am my husband gives him his tea so he has toddler meals that is until 7 days ago when he got hand foot and mouth disease and had blisters on his tongue and couldnt eat anything unless is was a yoghurt (fromage frais) he now is better but refuses his food and will only eat yoghurts at his teatime. I am at my wits end and really do need advice on both the toddler meals and the yoghurts, as from tommorrow I will start giving him his tea at 5pm so i can feed him as husband gets frustrated this is a typical meal day
breakfast 1-2weetabix ,1130am 8oz of milk (nap time) 1330pm he may eat a 1/2 a sandwich with mini chedders plus water then at 3pm he may have a snack (milkybar) yes i know he shouldnt have this he will then have tea at 1800pm which at the moment is a tantrum and 6 fromage frais he goes to bed at 2030 with 8oz milk please please can someone help me i even give him multi vitamin liquid as i worry he is not getting this in his diet any help and advice will be gratefully recieved from a very tired and frustrated mum

DS2 was not much of an eater till he went to playschool and stayed for lunch, he got use to eating more and more "cause all his friends were).
Its a long road but keep going, and take the gread advice from other mumsnetters, sorry i dont have much to offer except it does get better.

SittingBull if there is something that is a real favourite, like dried fruit, it only appears occasionally, or in very limited quantities . The rest of the things in there come under the "nourishing but plain" category

so sorry its took me so long to answer i have been so busy with work and trying to sort jody out its not going at all well i am going to try to contact my hv tommorrow as he has got worse he has had no milk or yogs since saturday he still wont eat meals so am a bit worried he has shreddies for breakfast with hardly any milk and a wholemeal muffin with marmite wont have a sanwich or any meal for dinner so have given him muffin again and at tea wont eat anything pushes his milk and yoghurts away and has yep guess what a muffin with marmite on ,he wont even have a bottle of milk before he goes to bed he just cries himself to sleep between 15 and 30 mins after being put to bed he has had a lot of juice (ie rocks squash) but am worried as he only eating one or 2 things is this a normal thing for a child of his age to do (25months old) as they dont come with an instruction book (wish they did) will speak again probably tommorrow as am at work now.

hi Squirtlesmum,
sounds like a hellish time you're having, must be very stressfull for you all.
Not sure if this will help but.. the situation with my DS is by no means as difficult as you're experiencing but he does tend to be a faddy eater, he will eat one thing on the plate ie only the pasta or only the beans for a week at a time and then it changes, so yes I believe the tendency to pick on one food is quite common.
I use a wizzer constantly, and the very fine grater on a cheese grater which turns veggies into mush as I believe my boy eating mushed vegies is better than non. so I mix the mush up with whatever I can ie.. baked beans, make pizzas and thinly spread the mush under tomato and cheese, on sandwhiches under his marmite anything he likes gets a little bit of veggie mush in it..I also do it with meat but just little bits so he doesn't spot it, saying that I always make sure the full veggies etc go on his plate every day even if he doesn't eat them so if he ever wants to he can...Oh and a juicer helps to sneak veggie juices into his juice, best of luck to you

i have spoken to hv and she has told me to keep giving muffins and marmite and leave things around the house such as finger food cheese slices etc so he can just pick at them, also i am going to try milkshakes and see if will have them as I am worried about calcium intake, but she said it was quite normal for toddlers to stop having milk at this age so that has put my mind at rest, I am going to keep trying with the food as have weekend off but I feel a bit more relaxed now she has said this to me.

Oh good, do try to relax (I know this is easier said than done). I would try the following:

Leave food out around the house for him to help himself to, and don't comment if he eats it or if he doesn't eat it. A little plate with lots of attractive finger foods on it is appealing for this age group - you could try pitta bread sliced up, tiny tomatoes, raisins, green and white grapes, cubes of cheese, oatcakes spread with something yummy, little bowls of dip (hummus, sour cream) etc etc. Just put it on a low table near to where he is playing and let him help himself if he is hungry. Don't make any fuss about it or keep mentioning it, or make him sit down and stop what he is doing or anything. Good table manners can come later.

At meal times sit down and share the same food together. Again don't comment if he does or doesn't want to eat. Just try to make meal time fun and happy. You could put a nice CD on or play a game together while you eat such as I Spy (don't bother with the letter thing, just ask him to guess what you are looking at)

I would also try to get him involved in choosing and preparing food. Go to a market or greengrocers (much more interesting and friendly for children than a supermarket) and talk to him about all the different fruits and vegetables. Let him run around and touch the food (just check you pick a shop with friendly staff in first - you could even go in alone and ask for their help with this, get them to make a fuss of him etc!) Let him choose some of what you are going to buy and then let him try something he has eaten straight away (grapes seem really popular with this age group).

At home let him help wash and prepare the vegetables (mushrooms are great to chop with a blunt knife). Make cakes and bread together and eat them warm from the oven, let him mix his own cereal from different packets and pour in the milk himself. Go to a Pick your Own farm, or visit a friend with an allotment. Let him see the food growing, and let him pick it and eat it right there and then. It tastes so good and is exciting for a child. You could also try growing some food yourselves if you have room in the garden, or even just herbs or cress on a windowsill.

Giving him back control over what he is eating is important, and what you want to aim for is letting him take charge of what he eats and when. He should not be eating because you want him to, but because he feels hungry and knows that when you feel hungry, you eat as much as you need (or as little as you need) to feel satisfied. I would only have food in the house that you are happy with him eating, and then give him free rein. It doesn't especially matter what or when he is eating, try to make food a fun and sociable activity once more and not a big stressful issue. I do hope any of these ideas are useful to you.

squirtlesmum my dd was a bad eater from 13mths until 26mths, when ds arrived there was competition.
but aside from that, i took her to a naturopath with conventional paeditric background.
first was to CUT OUT MILK, it coats the oesphagus and stomach and quenches aappetite and taste buds.
at 2 he doesnt need to be drinking lots of it if he has a balanced diet. i know he isnt having a balance diet but look at it positively and if u remove the milk u might see a difference.

i had to dilute my dd's milk with water so it was practically water, which she drank anyway but just loved milk. and it worked, her appetite picked up and now she is a fantastic eater of lots of things.
its a very long process to change an eating habit.
so be prepared to give it 3 weeks maybe.
but if u can at all do one thing today its cut out the milk. of course u can reintriduce it in a cup later on.
then the odd day dont cook him anything ad offer him your dinner and see what happens , at 2 he isnt going to strave, thats one thing u must remember nor will this result in some defiency later on, start offering wholesome snacks at the same time every day. take him to the park prior to dinner time so his appetite is built up.

cut out the treats, a plain bisucit can be a treat.
its very hard to ignore whining etc but there are lots of sucess stories here .
ps my ds had no milk from when i stopped breastfeeding him at 13mths until literally 2 weeks ag o when he was 2, as he came up in hives from the actual contact of cows milk. i fretted about calcuim intake but i listended to a prof of something from some uni on womens hour not long ago talking about the myth of milk in our diet, and he said the most important time for calcium intake in children is from about 9 -13, when the growth spurts in teenage years begins and deposits are set down for old age.

there are lots of other things that have calcium not just milk.

hth and good luck, i have been there tore my hair out but dd is nearly 4 and doing exceptional well.