Please help with ideas for my fussy eater!

[PrincessesRUs]

My 5yo dd has always been fussy, ate everything as a baby but got worse and worse - age 2 was probably the worse point. She's been getter better since then but won't eat pasta or rice and will only eat roast potatoes, no mash or jackets. She'll basically eat anything that's bad for you! We're back from holiday and im determined to make a fresh start. I guess my aims are to get her to enjoy savoury food more, eat more fresh, home cooked food and to widen what she likes. Im sick of cooking a roast but we have it multiple times a week as she'll eat carrots, chicken and pork and one roast potato! How do I get her eating pasta, rice and mashed potato??? Has anyone got any ideas?

I've just read that book about French children don't throw food and felt inspired!

Get her involved in choosing some of your recipes. I’m not talking about giving her complete free reign, but rather giving her just three or four options (that all contain pasta, for example) and asking her to pick which one she’d like to try first. I doubt she’ll pass up the opportunity to exert a bit of control! And when you serve it up to her, remind her that she chose it.
Also, get her involved in the food prep. For example, get her grating cheese to put in the mashed potato.
Take her food shopping and get her to pick out vegetables.
Regularly serve up foods that she doesn’t like, alongside something that you know she will eat. Children's tastes change. One day they'll hate something, but a month later they may love it. With some foods, they just need regular exposure so that they can muster the courage to actually try, chew and swallow them!
Also, if you only ever serve up her favourites meals, then you’re basically being dictated by a 5yo. Prepare and serve some meals that you and your DH would like. She can then choose what she wants from that meal. Don’t offer an alternative. She won't starve, and will probably learn to be more flexible rather than go hungry.

Get her involved, as PP said. Look at recipes, write a list of ingredients and get her involved in cooking. And I’d not be offering alternatives - she can eat as much or little as she likes, and chose what parts of the meal to eat. I think best family meals are ones where everyone constructs their own plate, for example - fajitas, tacos, chilli with toppings. Let her chose her own portion in the first place. Interested this has made me realise I don’t even know when us last bought a potato. Can you switch to sweet potato as that counts as a veg portion? And always brown pasta and rice, so much more filling.

Thank you for replying - we've had a brilliant weekend. She tried grated carrot and some spinach which is a huge step forward - she also ate a single gnocchi piece (my son ate a huge pile and asked for more). I guess I get fed up of stuff being rejected (plus food is so expensive!!) so I stop offering different things and stick to safe stuff. I've been really interested in the ultra processed food information around at the moment and I'm determined we're cutting right down on stuff like that.

Sadly it was the most expensive shop I've done in ages as I want us to eat food which is fresh, lots of fruit and veg etc - costs a fortune!!!

Don’t forget that frozen and tinned fruit and veg is just as good as fresh. It doesn’t class as ultra processed. Much cheaper. Also including tinned chickpeas etc

I used to tell my kids they wouldn’t like x or y because it was a grown-up taste. That guaranteed that they would (a) try it, and (b) keep eating it to prove me wrong. But maybe I just had perverse kids.

My Dd was exactly same hates cheese ,beans any thing with a sauce, also wouldn’t eat sandwiches biscuits or chocolate … oddly loved broccoli cabbage green beans chicken and gravy so we had that 3 times a week .. she is 8 now and is getting better will eat salad and spag bol chicken curry and loves steak even likes cookies now and again .. have you tried roasting carrots and parsnips so they like chips ? Don’t worry too much she ll grow out of it just keep trying new foods and re trying old ones every few months.

This is an excellent idea - she can be pretty bloody minded and stubborn so this might work with her!!

Good point about frozen fruit and veg - I tend to buy fresh apart from peas and sweetcorn

DS was a brilliant eater but went through a phase of being a lot fussier around the same age as your DD. And this is what worked for us actually. He would eat his boring food earlier with DD and then we'd be having something more interesting and he'd want to try it.... and we'd let him have a taste etc. And then after a while of that we told him he could now eat with us at a later time and eat our food.....

there were a bunch of other things going on as well in terms of his health but overall, it was amazing and he's a brilliant eater still.

Sadly, none of this is working with DD but she's ALWAYS been fussy and we screwed up as she was weaned during DS' fussy phase and so she didn't even get the variety that he got to "set her palate" as it were. She's also got some intolerances which complicate things!

Also, for DD - one way to get a bit of variety of veg in is that she does like things like meatballs and bolognaise. So we add a lot of veggies to things ike that, that she wouldn't eat otherwise (you might have to serve it with roast potatoes to start! :) ).