please share with me your feeding toddler nightmares to help me gain a little perspective.

[barefeete]

DS is 22 months? old and refuses point blankly to eat any vegetables or meat or any hot or cold food that is presented to himwhich isn't a banana, pineapple, orange and peanut butter, Marmite, toast or, very occasionally, Philadelphia cheese. He also eats most dried fruits, sometimes yoghurts and, funnily enough, spaghetti hoops! Other than that he refuses to eat most other foods.

I have tried everything to get him to eat a more varied diet (i eat with him for most of his meals and have lovely chats and ignore all non eating behaviour, i don't offer any alternatives and if he says he has finished then as long as i have finished he can then leave the table no problems, only fruit as snacks, no snacks after 3pm, only water and no juice to fill him up!!!) and all have failed. He is so so so stubborn and just refuses to eat the food. He can be really hungry and sits down to eat, plays with the food and transfers it from the plate to the table and then gets down without eating anything and acts as though he has had a nutritious healthy full blown dinner and has the energy to match!

My main problem now is that he is loosing weight (1lb in the last month - is this normal?). His cothes are now hanging off him and today he was so so hungry that he was physically shaking as he put the food in his mouth. This really upset me and now i just don't know what to do. i don't fight with him at all ever about it but i feel like i have lost a battle. I just want him to be healthy and happy. I also would like if at all possible to have a child who eats a varied diet maybe not now but someday!

Oh no Big hugs {{{barefeete}}}

I gave up battling with my DS (22+ months) over food although he is definitely quite a good eater in general. I tend to give him what I know he likes and encourage him to try new things as much as possible. Sometimes he does, other times he won't.

I noticed that he is less interested in eating at the table - if we go to the park, he will eat tons of fruit, dried fruit, crackers etc (& begs for food from other people ). At home, he tends to eat better if we have a 'picnic' and sit on the floor. He likes to eat something, wander around, come back & have more. It certainly isn't great for table manners etc but I have decided there is time to teach him all of that - at the moment, my priority is that he actually eats.

Have you talked to your pediatrician about it? I am sure your DS will be ok - his diet does sound pretty good on the whole), but because you are concerned, I would definitely talk to your dr to get some reassurance.

Thanks Mamama - I am only concerned because he just will not eat any meat, egg or veg. So i have tried to encourage him to eat a little just in order to get some protein. Nevertheless my DH and I decided that enough is enough and we just want him to be happy. He will vary his tastes when he is comfortable and happy to do so so in the meantime it is crackers, dried fruit and spaghetti hoops. He is happy to eat at the table and enjoys mealtimes and chatting so if he sees me enjoying my food then maybe he will start to gain the confidence to try some of mine. My DD starts to wean in a few months and so it might be that when she starts eating he will be encouraged by that as he tinks she is so funny and wonderful which is good. I am also worried about him loosing weight but this has only happenned since i started to give him exactly what i eat and if he dosen't eat it then i just take it away and he get down from the table - this has resulted in him eating so little that it has REALLY effected his weight. So therefore back to giving him just food that he will eat and then add a few new tastes like you have suggested. Which we did do about 4 months ago. Thanks mamama. sometimes it helps to just hear that you are not the only one. All my friends' children are cracking eaters so i start to worry sometimes.

bump - any other stories please just to reasure me

Hi barefeete my DS2 was like this. At one point, in January 2005 age 3 and a half he was eating
Rice Crispies
Apples/Raisins/grapes
Bread and butter
Ham (plastic mind you )
Tinned spaghetti hoops
Mashed potato
Milk or water
and that's it.
Now there is a vast improvement, which I out down to having school meals since he started reception last September. He still refuses to eat most of my cooking but will eat pretty much what he is given at school. Keep your chin up

Sorry, ds is a good eater, so can't help on the not eating front - hope it improves soon.

however, I do find that ds sometimes finds it impossible to eat as he seems to have too much energy. Breakfast is particularly bad - sometimes resort to letting him run round the kitchen table twice between mouthfulls as he can't sit down long enough to get anything into his mouth otherwise. Other meals can also be a bit like this. You might be suffering with this combined with rather fussy eater - much sympathy

How about some other nut butters eg Almond - rather expensive, but might be worth a try to get something slightly different in. At least peanuts do contain protein, so not all bad, although I worry about the salt content. Have you tried dips? eg hummus - lots of children seem to like this - good on toast fingers or breadsticks.

barefeete - you are certainly not alone!

My DS has always been a terrible eater. And I've done everything by the book. From about the age of your son, he'd refuse everything except crumbed fish, crumbed chicken, pizza or toasted sandwiches if VERY crunchy, bread, dried fruit, cereal bars, fruit puree and chips / potatoes - again, if crunchy. Partly a texture issue, I think.

Then, out of the blue, about two weeks ago he suddenly announced that he would "be a man" in seven weeks, at which time he would eat his vegetables (he is now 2.8). He then started eating sausages, and moving on to cottage pie, pasta bolognaise, and yesterday even some pasta with peas and broccoli in it. He's still not a great eater, but seems to have decided that the time has come to diversity.

I agree, give him food he will eat, keep offering other items without comment, stick in a few high energy items for dessert when he's done well... and hope that he changes his mind before you go out of yours!

oh, and try french toast as a way of smuggling the eggs in.

Mistle - he liked hummus in the UK but that was back in the days when food would be eaten without a second thought. We live in the caribbean now and the american imported stuff is not the same at all. it has lots of high fructose corn syrup in it and it is also very fluffy in texture like it has been whipped. He refuses the stuff completely. I am going to make my own when the food processor is fixed! He has wholenut peannut butter which is imported (waitrose you know!!) but other than that we can only get the american makes which are fully of crap as far as i am concerned. We have a health food store so will try there. he used to eat pate about 6 months ago and then started to refuse it - i will try that again.
Thanks Ju. He goes to playgroup a few mornings a week and has his lunch there but still will not eat but then again i have made him the lunch so maybe my cooking is the weekest link.

legelalien - thanks so much. It is so so nice to hear other issue and that you have comeout the other side is a light at the end of a tunnel for me!!! Toasties sound good - will try that, tried the chicken, fish and pizza all a big no. Mashed anything is out as well as purreed fruit too and that used to be my stand by food! I think you are right though with my DS texture is DEFINITELY a big issue. he was terrible to wean onto bigger lumps when weaning proper so this is just an extension of that i think.

Daft question now - what do you mean by high energy puddings?

also tried french toast yesterday and that worked too - so he has at least had an egg

My DD and DS are both quite fussy eaters. DD (now 5) used to eat breakfast cereal, yogurt, bread with jam, fish fingers, chips, pizza with all the tomato and cheese scraped off, pasta without sauce. That was about it. Oh, and thankfully lots of fruit and dried fruit.

DS is better but still quite fussy. They never ate veg and only occasionally potatoes.

DD has lunch at kindergarten now and all of a sudden she said one day, "I want green beans for lunch". Shock and awe!! She now eats some veg, potatoes, soup... loads more than before.

One thing does help, letting them join in with the food prep. A massive treat for them is making pizza, nice and messy and great fun.

I think you are doing the right thing, btw. It is important that he eats at the moment, not what he eats. You are right to take the conflict out of mealtimes so that he learns that mealtimes are good and not a battlestage.

Good luck!

thanks Macmama - it is so hard to know what to do. I have posted here a few times concerning this and always came away with the general opinion that to just give him what we eat and if he isn't interested then no problem. But now after doing that for so long and him still not eating anything and loosing weight it's time to just let him eat! he had spaghetti hoops, mango and homemade banana bread for lunch and was HAPPY! and so am i now. I will try the pizza with scraped off stuff as he won't touch pizza but i think that is because it is messy and he hates cheese. At least pizza base is slightly different to toast.

Hummus - I sometimes make it with my food chopper so that I don't have to get all of the food processor dirty. It's quite good at getting rid of pent up frustration as well.

my little 23 month old charge has refused ALL vegetables point balnk for the past year...

he would simply refuse them / spit them out etc.

Last month for no reason he just started eating them. No idea why.... he has been offered them every meal as usual and just one day he started eating them...

started with peas and sweet corn but will no eat green beans brocolli cucmber mange tout, sugar snap peas carrots and broccolli in small pieces! That is all literllay within the ast 3 weeks

i think the answer is dont fret about it... just give it to them and 1 day they WILL eat it!

also i never offer any snacks if all / mostof the previosue meal has not been eaten, and i find my charges each much better when they dont snack at all.

I do meal... if all / most eaten fruit, and then if that is eaten they get something else, eg yogurt or casturd occasionaly jelly / ice cream / cake etc

Thanks Nannyl - one day. He eats fruit so that is good.

Ds 3.3 is very picky too. Usual foods:
ham
bread
fruit
chicken dippers
fish fingers
tuna
cereal (without milk)
Yorkshire puddings
sausages
meat

If he tries something new he gags. Deffo a texture thing. He has recently started eating raw carrots but refuses any cooked veg. Just like your ds, he was very difficult to wean from puree to lumps. I recall ds started eating meat about 6 months ago.

This phase has been going on since february! I do repeat the word phase alot to myself when i feel stressed. I have started to use multi vitimins in his juice also just so i know that he is getting what he needs. That calmed me down a bit.

OHG captain that is a LONG phase! DS ate a sausage about 4 months ago and i celebrated then and thoguht that he would then eat sausages but none since! I licked an egg this week also does that could as protein?

His dad is incredibly picky too about veg and recounts the tale to me of when he went on holiday aged about 13, when all he ate was bananas and weetabix for 2 weeks.
Got some fun times ahead haven't we

he must have had the worst s**t! I thought i had problems with Ds not eating but 13 years old - that is supposed to be cleaning out the fridge and getting spots and hormone rushes.

my Dh is a vegetarian so between dh and ds that rules out most of the food groups avalible.

I read somewhere that you have to offer a child new food on average 20 times before they will eat it.

DS will eat something for weeks and then all of a sudden, go, "no not eating that" Then a few weeks later, he will eat it again.

. Custard also very popular.

Today he apparently ate chicken pie with mashed potato for our nanny - seems he has decided to have a change this week! Am not reading too much into it!

Also, dry breakfast cereals are very popular, but only if I mix together a variety of items from different packets. I think there's definitely a boredom factor with food!

Let me know if you get desperate and I'll send off an emergency package of cow and gate cereal bars!

My DD eats much more in kindergarten than at home. When I asked her why she answered, "Cause their food tastes better than yours"