feeding my kids is a nightmare!

[loobs2]

Please can anyone tell me what to do with 2 kids (8 and 4.7) who are both faddy eaters and mostly don't like the same things? 8 yr-old's diet pretty boring but more varied than 4-yr-old's, who was fine as a toddler but now hardly likes anything! Planning meals is a real headache - fed up with cooking stuff at least one of them won't eat and of often serving up different things for them. Also bored of cooking same old things week in, week out. p.s. I've got al the Annabel Karmel books and all her recipes do is depress me more!

i dont think that bloody anabell karmel could ever get my son to eat a normal diet,i am too sick to death hoping and wishing that some day he will eat what everyone else was having for tea.ten years ive been waiting with no improvement.best to just resigne your self to the fact that you could be in it for the long haul

If you give in to faddy eating you will encourage it. Never, ever cook separate meals for different children. You do not run a hotel. Model eating a variety of foods eating with your dcs, by all means encouage, cut into shapes etc etc but if it doesn't get results clear away the food without any fuss and then try again next meal time. I maintain faddy eaters are not born they are made. The evidencefo rthis is that your toddler used to be a good eater. Refusing food is very rarely anything to do with the taste and everything to do with control just like your toddler may refuse to put his shoes on or brush his hair or anything else and to do with being frightened of anything new. Every normal child does this: refuses food and refuses to put on shoes at some poing. The trick is like anything else that if you give in and start giving attention then they win and you lose and you will have to resign yourself to running a hotel when it is your job to encourage healthy and varied and pleasurable eating and be the boss.

i agree with you because my mum would never cook separate meals even tho my little sister was a fussy eater .but i just cant see him going hungry coz believe me when i say that he would rather be starving hungry than eat what everyone else was eating he gags and cries if i make him eat what he doesnt like,i would try it but for the fact that he is already skinny and cant afford to lose any weight.

blanktyblank, if you are 'making' your dc 'eat what he doesn't like' then that is where you are going wrong. You should never, ever force a child or anyone else to eat anything esp. not something they don't like. This is totally counterproductive. Eating is meant to be a pleasurable experience. This is what you have to concentrate on. If your children refuse to eat well don't give them any attention. Only give encouragement and praise for good eating. Give none for bad at all. Just get on with your own dinner showing that you are enjoying it. Do sticker charts etc as well to reward. Do not punish. Clear away any uneaten food at the end of the meal then don't give alternatives. Distract the dcs until the next meal when they will be hungry.

Parents don't give into their children when they say they don't want to go to school or wear clothes or go swimming or whatever. Why is food any different?

No child will starve himself. But actually giving attention to poor eating and alternatives and giving only what they say they will like is potentially creating long-term issues with eating.

As for children 'only' eating x, y and z, that's ridiculous. Your children will 'only' eat certain foods if this is what you are providing for them. It's just like saying 'my child will ONLY spend time watching tv all day' or 'my child will only wear the colour blue'. Children make all sorts of irrational demands partly because they're testing the boundaries and learning about their own identity.

Just to quick reply - I don't think faddy eaters are necessarily made rather than born - and it makes me mad to see that statement . Two of my children are fussy, one isn't. All have been treated the same, all see DP and myself eating a wide variety of healthy food.
The two fussy ones are getting better now at 5 and 7, but were very self-limiting in what they would eat, would gag etc at unfamiliar things, would be prepared not to eat for days at a time (save for half a piece of toast at breakfast). They did not fill up on puddings nor get lots of snacks between meals.

The non-fussy child grew up watching his 2 fussy siblings, but eats everything he is exposed to and is a joy to feed. He eats mushrooms - raw and cooked, eggs, trout, chilli etc which my two fussy's still won't touch. I did nothing different!

I am just relieved that my fussy two are improving, but it has been time and nothing much else has helped tbh...

Oh, and 'my children will only eat...' is relevant if you make a plate of interesting foods (veggies, cheese, meats, fruits, and they say, only eat the cheese and a piece of carrot, and day after day you throw all the other bits in the bin. Can you see I have been here?!

I wouldn't do different meals. Do one meal for everyone and put veg etc in separate bowls to help themselves. If they don't eat it don't make a fuss but do not serve alternatives, or snacks between meals. They won't starve and if they can't fill up on biscuits etc they will get hungry.

five candles when i said i make him eat what we have that wasnt what i actually meant,once just a few times i have told him to eat a small piece of lamb or one small slice of cooked carrot he has nearly puked ,now we are down to plain rice chicken and pizza.maybe you have never had this problem with your children because if you could see what my ds is like you too would give him the foods he likes.he would end up malnourished if i refused to give him what he wants .my dd is not like this at all she has a great diet and she is 3 years younger thatn ds,i also have a toddler and after starting weaning with great diet he is now going down the same route ,tonight for example he had fish and some pasta and ate just one mouthfull of fish.so what do you think i should do ?let him go hungry.

The best advice I had for my fussy toddler, who's now 4, was to give her a balanced meal with things she doesn't actively dislike, eat with her and take her meal away at the end without comment if it's uneaten. Don't withhold pudding but make it something healthy - banana muffins, flapjacks or fruit sorbet or something and that's it til the next meal or snack. Don't stress because the sneaky little so-and-so's know and play up to it. She's still a monkey sometimes but I'm much calmer

Take control of the situation as far as you can and try things like stickers or reward charts for trying new things. Do you eat with them?

the son in question is 10 now i somehow feel that its too late and yes i do eat at the same time as the kids. i know ive made mistakes by giving in to him but who wants to their child hungry? he is so strong willed that he would be able to go days if i didnt give him what he likes(not that im ever gonna try this)

Does he take vitamin tablets or anything or drink juice? Maybe when he's a little older you will be able to reason with him about it.
It must be really hard for you though.

We seem to be past the really fussy stage but I remember when there were three meals that they both enjoyed and it was getting sooo very boring.

I don't make different meals for different people but I always plan the meals so there is at least one thing they like eg if the meat is something one DC doesn't usually enjoy, I will make sure there are carbs that they like.

Also we usually have a bread and cheese course before dessert in the French way so if DD has only had a couple of spoonfuls of sweetcorn from the previous course she will still have some food in her tummy. They both love bread and cheese.

blankty, the vast majority of parents have children that refuse new foods, go through phases or eating little etc etc. This is normal childhood behaviour just like tantrums, refusing to get hair brushed etc is absolutely normal. So yes, of course, I've been through this with my kids. But just like the tantrums, the sleepless nights, the potty training and everything else you go through as a parent you don't give in to your kids and you get through it. There are very few children who remain fussy where parents model healthy eating, encourage good eating and ignore fussiness etc. and often children who are extremely faddy or dangerously underweight have psychological problems of which food refusal is just a symptom.

So no I wouldn't give in to my children's faddiness for fear of them being malnourished because no normal child will starve themselves and pandering to fussiness is only going increase the problem.

I understand that worrying your child will be undernourished is a very powerful maternal urge. I continued breastfeeding both my dds well after I wanted to stop because they refused to take a bottle and, of course, when I eventually did stop they took to the bottle when they got hungry enough. Because no child will starve itself.

In cultures where food is scarce you don't get faddy children.

As is well known food refusal is rarely anything to do with taste and everything to do with control and attention and neophobia.

This is evidently the case where children have been eating fine and suddenly start refusing it. Proves it's to do with psychological development just like they can allow themselves to be dressed until the age of 2 and suddenyl start screaming when you try and do it etc.

Obviously individual children have individual tastes as adults do, but that's not what's being discussed here.

Hi, I'm back!This is such an emotive subject isn't it?! fivecandles, I agree with you wholeheartedly and share your views - it is just so hard and wearing when you're up against the pressures of feeding your kids as healthily as you can day after day. It's so easy to feel you're failing as a mum when you can't feed them they way you feel you should be. I don't give my 2 kids anything else if they refuse what's on their plates but I do sometimes give them different things - e.g. ds likes spag bol but dd doesn't so she has pasta with grated cheese and carrots. As I said, dd now eats a wider range than ds, so should I plan meals more around her and just keep giving him the same 3 or 4 meals he does eat happily over and over? Or put exactly the same on his plate as she is having and just be resigned to him refusing it?

I would say the latter and plan food so there is at least one meal a day that each enjoys.

Although I don't put food on their plates (unless it is soup). We have dishes on the table and they help themselves. Have been doing this for a year now, since they were 4 and 2.

Also, they are old enough for you to explain why you are changing things, that you are fed up of the extra work.
You could ask them for ideas of other food you could cook. They might have had things at friends houses they would like to try at home.

Have you tried giving them a couple of the Annabel Karmel books along with a handful of post it notes. They then need to look through the book and choose 3 or 4 meals that they each fancy.

Then cook them. If they don't eat them, then they go hungry - as they ahve asked for them.

Also the 8 year old is def old enough to start preparing meals for herself, and the 4yo old enough to help. Get the 8yo in the kitchen to chose a meal and to cook it with your supervision. Often more likely to eat if they have put the work in to make it.

I think you need to keep reintroducing new foods again too, and fairly often. I would suggest always having something ont he table you know they like - bowl of vegetables or salad things perhaps. And then add something new to each meal time. And keep persisting - a child needs to try something quite a few times for get over a fad-type dislike. A genuine dislike will still be present after all that.

That's true, hulababy. Mine are 8 and 5 and if they help with the cooking then they are more likely to at least try whatever it is they are preparing.

I also don't bother with cooking different meals for them. Luckily they both like fruit and raw vegetables so if I give them these as snacks during the day I figure it doesn't matter too much if one or both of them refuses to eat what I've cooked and has a bowl of plain pasta or rice.

It's still very frustrating though, particularly that cry of 'Yuck, I don't like that' before they've even tried it. I'm hoping they'll grow out of it eventually as I did.

Just to reassure those of you with this problem it does improve. My DC are 10 and 12 now and much less faddy. We manaage to eat together most nights and have a fairly varied diet. But I remember what hell it used to be. Just persevere with trying new things. My once faddy DS is now a curry monster!

My mother said "It is a parent's job to provide regular, healthy, balanced tasty meals. It is not a parent's job to make anyone eat them" Scary, but true. And liberating, once you get your head round it.

I want to agree with Fivecandles. I have two sons aged almost 4 and almost 7. With my older son, as he was my first born, I made mistakes. He ate anything as a baby and then became a classic fussy toddler. I totally gave in to it as I didn't want to see him "starve". He is a vey fussy eater now. My second ds did exactly the same when he became a toddler. The difference was in how we treated it - we sat down to meals and what I cooked was what they were offered. I did not give in to it at all and he is now a much less fussy eater.

I totally believe that it is about how you deal with it when they are very young. My dh is a good example of this. His mum was an extremely fussy eater as a child so she had a lot of sympathy with him when he started to be fussy. When i met him as an adult, he was extremely fussy. Many years later, being repeatedly exposed to lots of new foods, he is no longer fussy at all.

I always keep in the back of my mind that programme on BBC about people who will only eat "cheese", "bread" etc. I saw one the only day with a man who lived exclusively on biscuits and had been that way since he was a toddler as he was allowed to do it. They go through such a struggle as an adult to change their ways. I don't want my kids to have to go through that.

Just out of interest at what point do you think this becomes an issue.

My DD is 10 months and BLWed. I offer her what we are having and if she doesn't eat it then I usually resort to old favourites that I know she will eat, but I do it at the moment because she is BLWed and she may just not be able to get to grips with certain food, plus as a baby I don't want her waking up in the night due to hunger!

I wonder when you go past the point of no-return?