Faddy 2.3 year old - is there anything I can do???

[handlemecarefully]

If this has been done a zillion times before I apologise and please feel free to point me in the direction of other threads.

My 2.3 year old dd eats a very limited range of foods. No vegetables whatsover - unless you count potatoes and then only in chip format (which I limit to once per week)...and the only fruit is banana and raisins. I manage to get her to drink natural orange juice though. She'll eat unadorned cheese and meat...but its the lack of fruit and veggies that bother me. I try and 'hide' it in other meals but she can sense carrot etc at 20 paces and picks it out.

Yesterday she turned down a perfectly acceptable home made fish pie (no veggies in it), and she usually refuses food without even having tasted it.

Should I be hard as nails and tell her thats the only thing on offer and let her go hungry - do you think she is playing me for a fool? At the moment I invariably get out the mini cocktail sausages and cheese strips as a back up.

I don't give her any reaction when she doesn't eat her meals, and I try to act impassive so I don't think its giving her a great sense of getting one over on mummy...

She is normal weight - I am just worried about the health aspect of poor diet lacking essential minerals and vitamins

i was just about to start a similar but slightly different thread...

I take it that the chicken paprika recipe didn't go down too well with 'little pops' then popsycal?

ds "whats this mummy?"
Broccoli dear
ds "to EAT mummy?"
Yes dear
ds "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO - No eat, no eat (getting progressively louder in small intimate restaurant)

Personally I don't offer any substitutes if my dd (also 2.3) won't eat what's put in front of her. If you always offer another option they'll learn that they can turn down food and get something else. And she won't starve for missing meals.

I do always offer some fruit for pudding, but offer less if she hasn't eaten much main course.

Some days my dd is great, other days she's not interested. I've found she's far more likely to eat if it's stuff she can pick up with her fingers. Also she eats much better if we all sit down to the same meal together - impossible on weekday evenings, but I do try to do something like a roast and veggies at the weekend.

It's horrible having to throw away food that they've rejected isn't it?

No advice HMC but lots of empathy My DS1 is 2y10m and eats a very limited diet. After lots of heartache about it, I now just feed him what I now he likes (well done for the chips once a week thing - DS wouldn't eat any potatoes if it wasn't for frozen thingys)and put something new on his plate every other day or so in the hope he may try it. I sort of assume (hope?) that he will grow out of it at some stage and I can cook proper family meals that we can all eat. Good luck - I now how you feel and it is very distressing.

oh yes - chicken paprika is one of the only things he WILL eat

that and creamy cheesy tagliatelli with tuna and hidden veg....

Hpe HMC doesn't mind me explaining our situation

ds is 2y 3m and is still a chunky monkey so i am not TOO worried about this food thing.....but he has gone from eating everything and anything to a select few things.....

he will eat:
most fruit - loves apples, bananas and anything else
dried apricots, raisins, etc
likes bread and will eat most sandwiches though prefers cheese, ham, tuna, etc
LOVES LOVES LOVES tomatoes
will eat chips (occasionally), sausage - dont give him these very often

he has recently began liking rice again - and loved chicken paprika.....and my 5 minute cheesy pasta whatsit

i was wondering if anyone had suggestions for recipes with rice or tagliatelle - he prefers creamy sauces with a bit of flavour. oh and tomatoes but wont eat spag bol, lasagne, shepherds pie etc anymore

wont eat mash
or and veg

Popsycal,

I found a thread (if you page down a bit - I can't do links) called something like "another impossible 3 year old" that is quite relevant....

Thanks Pidge and Tommy for the moral support

Yes HMC i would say well thats whats on offer darling eat it or go hungry

If she knows you will produce cheese strips and sausages as a back up why will she bother to eat your healthy home made labour of love and probably delicious fish pie

Really sorry if this offends HMC but i would just present her with healthy delicious food and expect her to eat it - we do this with ds and it works - He did go through a picky phase - i would keep offering all sorts of alternatives until after a few days i realised that if he was truly hungry he would EAT

xxx hope she eats more soon!

Sorry just realised i have ressurected an old thread cos im searching for threads about bread makers and got diverted!

My ds is 2.3 and hardly eats anything. I despair too. In our case, he won't eat any form of meat. I have now found a new trick of offering tomato ketchup with every meal except breakfast. It turns out that he will eat practically anything as long as it has ketchup on! I have been keeping a food diary for nearly a week so that I can go to the health visitor and ask her opinion. I am also giving him minadex tonic to boost the vitamins. I have exactly the same worries and I'm sure a lot of children are the same at this age.

Hi, I used to do the ketchup thing too and it worked very well with DS2. I go through phases of "tough love" stuff when I really want them to eat something new. Last night they both (6 and 3) had to eat a teasponful of red cabbage before their main course. You'd have thought I was the cruellest mother in the world...(Ok, so red cabbage was a bit mean...)
But my elder son had to go on an elimination diet a few months back and in those situations you really have to get them to eat what you put in front of them. Since it really mattered I persevered. I posted on another thread that in order to get them to eat veggie soup I started with one tiny teaspoon, before they could have their chicken and mash (for example); the next day, two tiny teaspoons; and so on until by the end of a week we were onto ramekin dishes. Now they regularly eat big bowls of veggie soup with pleasure . Unfortunately I haven't been as successful with green beans......