2.5yr old won't try any new foods

[bigbanana]

My 2.5yr old son refuses to try any new foods. The food he eats is very limited: marmite/honey sandwiches, cereal, salami, milk and bolognase sauce and yoghurt. That's it. He won't even entertain the thought of anything new - says 'don't like it' and turns his head. Obviously don't want to make food a 'thing' so I don't push it. Any tips from anyone? Would desperately love him to eat a wider variety (partic. veg and fruit!)

No tips - just to say my 2.4 year old is the same. She will reject a lot of food on 'principle' without even trying it, so its frustrating when she says she doesn't like it but hasn't so much as tasted it.

My new approach is: give her reasonable food (i.e. homecooked healthy food that is not too challenging i.e. fish pie) and if she refuses it I am trying to take a hard line and resist offering her anything else. If she refuses it I just take the food away and get her down from the table, and I try not too stress about it. Am supplementing her with vitamin tonic.

Bigbanana do you eat at the same time? I have found that if I eat something ds twins (nearly 3)will then want the same thing.

Also I use one against the other as ds twin1 (a fantastic foodie) eats mostly everything but ds twin2 is a fussy boy. However ds twin2 doesn't like to miss out so will at least try. They both have always loved fruit, but as your ds likes bolognese sauce, do you know you can hide all sorts of veggies in there? That is what I do! And so far neither have twigged.

Hi,

we eat b'fast and lunch together - but still not interested in anything thats not what he knows.

I do hide veggies in his bolognase - thank god he likes this - I'm worried though that as he has it most days, he's going to get sick of it and I'll be left with nothing but sandwiches to give him!

I'm just trying to chill out and not even introduce new things onto his plate and just hope that he gets interested one day in something I'm eating...do you think this is the right thing to do?

I think the chill out approach is definitely the way to go, but it's quite hard to master isn't it? (I think I am chilled about dd's eating habits but secretly I'm tense about it - just keep trying to suppress it!)

ive been lucky with my two - they eat almost anything....including mussels, olives, pickled herrings (and horrible stuff like this!!!!!)... i think its because they eat these things with their grandparents & they find it 'novel' to try new things with them!

DD1 (2.7) is a bit like this, but we've found that she will eat it if it comes off daddy's plate, so if its something new, she shares a plate with daddy!