Faddy kids thread.....support group here!!!

[chinwag]

Advice, recipes, tried and tested, all gratefully received. Especially packed lunches for faddy dd (7).

If I offer DD carrots I get 'I only like carrots at pre-school'

I want to try a new thing where she is presented with a meal, and after a reasonable amount of time, if she is not still eating it it will be thrown away and that's it.

Trouble is DH is the teatime cook cos I am at work, and he gives in and cooks noodles or whatever when I have made a shepherds pie or something.

Last week on holiday she had a her biggest ever tantrum because I walked out of a restaurant when she had taken 45 minutes over 3 mouthfuls of dinner. First time I have ever felt like crying because I had lost control.

Mine is 3 and will eat some fruit and veg, so that's not really the issue, but just doesn't eat a wide range of anything really. She will only eat really simple stuff, which I blame in part on her nursery as the menus there are really unchallenging, she was more adventurous before she went there. She is also quite capable of eating nothing but a yogurt or a peach for dinner, or even nothing at all, so the "it's that or nothing" approach doesn't really work with her.
The other night I got her to eat some quiche by bribing her with stickers. She admitted to liking it so I'm going to be exploring this approach a bit more I think.

For packed lunch I usually give them sandwich, drink, fruit, yoghurt, and a biscuit or some other 'goodie'. But if they don't eat their sandwich & fruit they don't get the treat the next day.

The other day dd2 ate yoghurt, half a jelly, a choc bar and a kiwi!!!! So my rule is obviously not working!!

It's not like I give her black pudding is it??? It's just a ham sandwich!!!!

What I need is a strategy.

And she changes her mind every week! What she likes one week she hates the next!!

What I find so irritating is my dd's warcry of 'i don't like it, it's yuk' when I know for a fact she has NEVER TASTED IT IN HER LIFE!!!! My resolution is to get her to try new foods now, particularily veg. I'm not expecting her to wolf it all down but just TRY the damn stuff. I do manage to remain calm about food, and will just take stuff away and say in neutral tones 'nothing else now til breakfast' depsite the fact I feel like taking off like a bloody catherine wheel. I just don't want this to extend on and on until she's 9 or 10 and the only veg she's eating is sweetcorn!!

Lowfat, that must be so irritating that your DH is just giving in to her!

I sometimes wonder if fussy-eaters are born and not made. My dd was a brilliant eater as a baby and younger toddler, so must conclude that I made her fussy

what mine do eat is healthy ish and well balanced ish. It's just the refusal to expand...cooking is so dull.
so for example the kids' meals consist of a variation of:
mon - home made beef burgers, potato wedges (for one), carrots and brocolli, bread and butter for the other.
Tues: Salmon (plain, poached) with rice (for one) bread and butter for the other, green beans, baby sweetcorn
weds: home -made pizza with carrot sticks and sliced red pepper
Thursday - chiken with noodles and cauli, broclli, sugar snaps (bread for the other insead of noodles)
Fri - omelletee for one, spag bol for the other (no onions, no mushrooms

Sat - fish, veg, potato
Sun sunday dinner

they have boring packed lunches at school and have fruit for pud every day (sometimes followed by a home-made goodie)
But

one ds will not eat any fruit except for srawberries, rasps, blackberries and apples. Which means for 9 months of the year, the only fruit he will eat is apples. Thankfully, the Atkins diet one likes most fruit.

Sorry so long, but if I can't spill this stuff here, where can I? 8 frigging years of this!
But those are the only foods they will eat.

Thnaks soph73 - I'll try the lollies but I just dont feel he's old enough for him to "get" dressing food up - if I put a smiley face on his fruit, he'd just look at me as if to say "yeah...and...its still fruit"
will remember it for later though.

My DH is a fussy eater, no fruit in any form (except apple juice - I dont think that counts!), no salad (except the occasional lettuce leaf, if he's feeling adventurous) and only peas and carrots as veg - in fact, hang on - how many kids have I got at home?

Will try the weaning thread as its the "lack of fruit in his diet" that is affecting his poo!

Thanks everyone

xx

Kay - have you tried smoothies/milkshakes? I blend any fruits (can be customised according to colour-preference of the day ...) with some bananas, sometimes add milk. Always go down very quickly so only give at end of meal. On fussy days, use straw. That sorts out the fruit intake, usually.

Good one slng

Another thought: try putting things on sticks. I grill aubergines peppers etc and put them on satay/barbecue sticks (before or after cooking) and that seems to tempt dc to at least try them, even if you took them off the sticks immediately. Don't know why, but it works.