SO SICK OF MINCE AND SAUSAGES. What to feed vvvvvvvvvvv fussy 6YO (and his 8 and 1.5YO siblings)?

[FlossieT]

6YO DS is terrible, terrible eater. He will eat:

Beef mince (but only if served with tortilla chips)
Roast chicken/chicken drumsticks
Sausages (plain chipolatas only)
Pasta (but only very specific shapes, and only if served with more pesto than is good for him given how much salt there is in the rotten stuff)
Fish
Green beans
Broccoli
Sweetcorn
Baked beans
Peas (if smothered in ketchup)

(Actually that list looks a bit better than I thought when written out).

Problem is, if I try to feed him anything else, he will actually make himself sick (really) rather than eat something he thinks he won't like.

I am SO BORED of eating the foods on this list in endless rotation, and so are his brother and sister. I also REALLY need to be able to do more stuff with sauces, so that it can be cooked in advance and served quickly, as me in the kitchen immediately before supper = surefire recipe for sibling meltdown.

Anyone wrestled with these issues before and have any good ideas??

Yours in desperation,

Floss

I'm sorry, you won't like this advice but here goes.

Stop pandering!

Make a family meal of whatever it is that you fancy and you give your children the very same. If they don't eat it, then they don't eat it. NEVER offer them something different as this is where the slipperly slope starts.

Don't deny him his pudding either.
He'll get so hungry that he'll try a little of what you are eating and realise that it's not so bad.

He won't starve.

My dd doesn't like mash. But if we are having mash I give her some anyway. She pokes it and doesn't eat it, but she doesn't get offered an alternative.

It's tough love, but it's for his own good (health) and your sanity.

See the bit you put in about him only eating certain shapes of pasta?
That alone should tell you that he is having you on. The pasta tastes the same, but he knows that if he refuses to eat a particular shape you'll give in and he'll get what he wants.

He still makes himself sick if it's the wrong shape (don't mean fingers-down-throat). It seems to be a textural issue - how it feels in his mouth - so for example, raw carrots are OK, or cooked "al dente", but cooked a la school dinners or so they no longer crunch are a major crisis.

And although I know what you mean about him not actually starving himself, the way he makes up for it is to eat multiple bowls of breakfast cereal. And I haven't to date been able to bring myself to refuse him this, because I know he eats nothing at school either (the office and his teacher ring me up approx once a fortnight to say he is not eating and the headmaster stopped me to say the same last week).

Also when he eats no supper, he is unable to get to sleep, so wakes up exhausted and stroppy (and the mornings are already a nightmare when he is well fed and rested as he has bad selective hearing and no ability to concentrate).

He's not chronically underweight, but he is extremely skinny. The other thing is that he has serious concentration problems at school, which are made much worse when he is hungry as he gets tearful and hysterical.

So I guess what I'm saying is - I recognise that your strategy is correct, but I can't see a way to implement it without causing more serious problems in the behavioural department. And I honestly can't figure out right now which is worse. We had an awful, awful family lunch yesterday; we did manage to get him to eat his tea this evening, but only with DH sitting over him for 45 minutes and reminding him to take each new forkful.

Cold Turkey.
I would go to the school and tell them what you are doing.

Then give him one bowlful of breakfast. A small plateful at teatime. If he only eats the carrots, then give him a few more than everyone else. But DO NOT give him an alternative.
Don't refuse his pudding, he's not being punished.

Is there an issue that has led to this? Has he choked on something as a child? Are you afraid of him choking? Can you pinpoint when this started and why?

It's been going on for ages but seems to have got worse recently (we had a VERY stressful few months running up to Christmas and there were a lot of frayed tempers).

He ate fantastically when he was a baby/younger toddler. Although I'm not entirely certain, I think it began to get bad when he went to proper nursery - there were quite a few children in his group with allergies who had to have dairy-free, wheat-free etc. and it didn't take him long to start saying he "couldn't" eat things as they would make him ill. Though I don't remember him being especially dreadful at home at this point - that seemed to follow on later.

He has choked, but it's usually self-inflicted - when there has been a stand-off with DH and he is told he can't get down until he's finished something in particular, at which point he jams too much of it in his mouth and then chokes.

There's never going to be a "good" time to do this, is there?

It could be that he's seen one of the children at nursery have an allergic reaction to something they've eaten and it's frightened him.

You need to get him over his fear. Don't force him to eat anything, just offer it, but don't offer anything else. Don't let him stock up on cereals or dessert. If your other children see him being pandered to then they will surely follow suit.

Get him involved in the preparation of tea. Encourage him to pick a recipe that he likes, there are loads of good childrens cookbooks out. Go shopping for ingredients. Get him to explore food.

I once saw this reality thing on telly about a little boy who would eat nothing but ice-cream. Literally. His mother took him to various psychologists. Turned out that she had subconsciously made him that way because when she once worked as a nanny her charge very nearly choked on a piece of food. It shook her up and she transferred her paranoia of choking onto her ds.

What they suggested was that the parents stop trying to force the issue with him, to just accept that this is all he will eat. But to offer, always, other foods. After about a week the boy found that there nothing to rebel against and he became interested in other food, asking what they tasted like, then if he could try a little.

It was a major breakthrough for his parents.

I think the same technique would help you here.

That sounds interesting. And worth a try. Also potentially killing two birds with one stone - DH is meant to be in charge of food (he is much the keener cook), but he and 6YO do not get on terribly well (possibly because of the eating thing, or maybe it's the other way round....).

So picking food and recipes together could be a good opportunity for them to spend a bit more time together and try to build bridges. Worth a go anyhow.

Thanks for excellent advice. It has been driving me mental for too long now.

Sorry to ask a slightly stupid question but - is the idea that he is served a normal portion of everything, and he eats what he eats but no fuss/attempt to persuade him to eat more is made?

I have been particularly stumped by this as the eldest is a very good eater (basically likes everything except cabbage and spicy food, and can usually be persuaded to at least try everything, even stuff we all know he doesn't like) - so had no strategies whatsoever for coping. Youngest is also a good eater, but beginning to get picky which has rung alarm bells.

Yup, that's the point Floss. Generally speaking children will eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full, so they do end up eating as much as they need to. Which can vary a lot. During a growth spurt they can eat loads, clear the plate and ask for more, so you assume this is the way they should eat all the time. But when the spurt stops, so does their appetite and this is when parents try to force their kids to eat more because they did last week.

Talk it through with your dh or it won't work. Agree on tactics and support each other, it won't be easy.

Don't punish him, don't make it a battleground. Once he sees that you've moved the goalposts, he may change along with it. When shopping, ask him if there is anything new he'd like to try, and buy it. It could be a kiwi fruit or a butternut squash, anything like that. Don't be disheartened if he says no, just keep trying.

Just wanted to add one thing, Floss - as a child I hated cooked veg - wasn't a fussy eater generally, so not sure why. I used to stand at the sink before dinner when my mum was washing the veg and help myself to stacks. She was happy as I was eating shedloads of veg, I was happy as there was no cooked veg on my plate...