Comments PLEASE on the nutritional content of dd's current diet

[prefernot]

Hi, my dd's 2 next weekend and is fairly small and has always been a very small eater. She's been very ill this last week with a horrible viral mouth infection which has meant she's eaten virtually nothing all week, just drank milk and juice, had the odd banana or bit of icecream. The fact that this and other viral things she's had seem to take so long to shift, plus a conversation with a friend today, has left me worried about how good / bad her usual diet is in terms of what she's getting that she needs at this age. This is what she eats every day with very very little variation:

Breakfast - cup of milk (8oz?) / 1/2 slice of toast with butter
Lunch - 3 pieces of baby corn, 3 broccoli florets, half a small boiled potato, 1/3 adult sized bean burger
Afternoon snack - small cup of milk (5oz?) / half a banana
Tea - small bowl of pasta in tomato and cheese sauce
Bedtime - Cup of milk (8oz?)

I try and try and try to get her to vary her diet. Dp and I eat all sorts of things at the same time as her but she won't even try them. I've tried not giving her anything else but she'll go days with no tea so I've given in and give her what she'll have.

not much help to you really prefernot - that was from the food standards website. Dried apricots are one of the best iron sources - but don't let DD have too many - my DD has terrible trots if I let her have a full bag. (snacksize not catering pack obviously!)

Thanks Gingerbear. Dd won't eat dried fruit either but maybe I could cut up a bit and stick it in some pasta as someone else suggested.

And I'll look in her eyelids tonight to see if they're pale pink or not. Actually I looked at mine and they're not all that red. Maybe I need some apricots too .

Please , please don't worry. My dd ate virtually nothing but cherry tomatoes and breadsticks between roughly age 13 months to three years and we even ended up at the children's hospital dietetic clinic. I eventually learned there was NOTHING I could do to make her eat what (or when) she didn't want to eat.She is now 10 and the tallest, healthiest girl in her class! I have come to believe they must somehow absorb the vitamins and minerals they need from the air - look at the boy recently featured in the papers who had lived his whole life on jam sandwiches and still seemed perfectly normal!!

Well, bungo, I've also adopted that attitude, especially since I remember nothing but food battles with my mum when I was little (I've always been a terrible eater ). I've just become worried about it lately as I say because she seems to be ill so often and tired out.

Just a passing thought - is it possible that she is actually rather tired, ie are you expecting too much? I only ask because this is a trap which we fell into with our DD, we finally realised that nursery 4 days a week ( as was then) plus going to the playground every other day plus swimming and various other activities meant that she never had a chance to recover when she picked up a bug. This winter she'll be getting more chill-out time, and we're also giving her Sambucol which is derived from elderberries and is a powerful anti-viral agent (it says).

Prefernot, my DD was 2 on 17th Sept and she weighs 10kg at night!! Eats healthily - no junk and has a varied gluten free diet as I have coeliac disease.
What about dried fruit prunes, apricots, raisins as they contain iron? Could you make chicken/veg burgers from the Anabel Karmel book which would taste creamy and not meaty? What about humous on rice cakes/crackers?

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