Gone off fruit and veg

[Niecie]

Hi, I'm new to Mumsnet and all this discussion stuff but I will give it a go and see what happens....

Ds, who is 4 next month, used to be a great eater but in the last 6 months he has steadily decided that he does not like certain fruit and veg to the extent that the only ones he claims to like are broccoli, peas, pasta sauce (so long as there are no obvious veg bits in it) and fruit juices which I usually give him diluted half and half with water. He will eat apple if it is in pie form but he can't really have those every day.

I have looked into books for advice on faddy eating but they all assume that if you start a child off early on loads of fruit and veg, which I did, that they will have no problem with them in later life and this clearly isn't the case. He can't give a reason for not liking these things any more. I was wondering if it is some sort of attention seeking device as he knows it upsets me a bit (although I haven't made a big thing of it for ages) or whether tastes can change that radically in young children. He has also decided that he doesn't like milk after having partically having begged daily for it for the past 3.75 years!

Anybody had similar troubles and come through it? It seems a shame that all our hard work of making sure he has a varied and healthy diet has come to nothing but short of force feeding him I don't know what to do!

Oh Niecie you're up late (me too). No real exp of this, but my 2 older children have gone off and on foods...eg DD (3) at one stage would eat a whole banana in about 5 seconds but now is not that fussed. DS1 (5) will sometimes protest he doesn't like tomatoes, then be back eating them again...DS2 (14mo) doesn't seem bothered about bananas now, in fact, tho he also used to demolish them. I don't worry too much. Might be worth trying out some summer fruits (eg we here have just rediscovered nectarines, also strawberries/raspberries etc are good) for a change from fruit juice and apple pie, but I'm sure you'll find he changes again. Repeat after me: It's just a phase...

Hi Niecie, I think it's probably a phase too but tastes do change so maybe he has just gone off some of these things? You're right not to make a big deal of it though, I'd just keep offering healthy alternatives too. Instead of milk you could try giving him yoghurt or cheese or sardines for calcium. If he'll eat pasta sauce couldn't you puree some veg and stick them in that? Also, I think I'd try some different fruits and veg - there are strawberries and cherries and lots of summer fruits around atm, so might he go for something new, especially if it was in a bowl and you were to calmly sit and eat some?

niece i wouldnt realy worry to much about it at th moment because he is eating some fruit and veg it sounds like hes going through a fad and good luck as other mothers will tell you he will go through a hell of alot more of the fads as hes growing
if he's gone of milk do what my mother done for me when i was little cheat add purree banana or some other fruit and tell him its a milk shake because milkshake always sound more appealing and its a good way of gettin some extra fruit inside him but mainly dont worry to much about it and dont make a big fuss around him about it you will find it will pass and he will go onto something else