This is my very fussy 21m's diet. Any tips on how I could improve it welcomed.

[flirtygerty]

breakfast - 1 small banana, adult sized handful shreddies or weetabix, half price toast & butter. water to drink.
snack - either cheese stick/oatcake/breadstick.
lunch - sandwich - cheese &/or ham. fruit.
snack as before.
tea - usually pasta/veg/protein. will only eat 2 or 3 pieces pasta (not rice/potato or couscous) refuses all veg. will only eat salmon/fishfingers. chicken very rarely. refuses all red meat. brother eats like a demon though! custard - new favouite pudding - won't eat yoghurt any more.
bedtime - 16 plus oz milk.

She is happy in herself & full of energy but am obviously concerned that such a limited diet isn't good for her. I wish I knew what caused it as she used to eat anyhting but it has been heading this way for teh last 6 months now.

Sounds like she is eating a good amount and probably more varied than you think looking at what you've written here. Just annoying when they stop eating things they used to isn't it?
I might be way off the mark here, but with a good breakfast and a couple of snacks, I wonder if she's just not hungry at meal times and therefore less willing to try?
If she eats a wide variety of fruit, then I wouldn't worry too much about the veg - just put one small piece of whatever veg the rest of you are having on her plate and one of these days she might just eat it. Ditto with pasta etc. Re red meat, and perhaps a bit with chicken, it could be the texture as much as the taste? Both mine had phases of being "reluctant chewers", especially when teething. Will she eat mince?
Praise her for what she does eat and don't make a fuss about what she doesn't. Just keep trying. Good luck!

That's a LOT of milk to have at bedtime! Maybe she's so full during the night that she's not that hungry during the day?

Yeah, I was going to say a lot of milk too. My ds is on on 6oz (prob too little!) at night at that age. If she is xpcting such a huge milk intake she is probably 'saving herself' for it. My ds can be fussy in evening when he is tired. Don't have a snack, especially cheese, within 2 hrs of eating (cheese is hard to digest so keeps feeling full).

If breakfast is a successful meal, try and get main food groups in there. Also, maybe swap main meal to lunch and a sandwich at night. My ds eats a much bigger lunch than evening meal, as he is not tired. He is pretty good with veg but definitely eats more when it is in a sauce eg. curry or stew.

v similar to my dd's diet (also 21m). I recently had what I modestly call a carrot breakthrough. Previously she wouldn't eat any veg at all, but I tried putting a few lightly boiled carrot batons on the side of her plate every night, and giving myself a few on a plate to eat with her, exaggerating wildly about how delicious they were. On the third night she picked one up, popped it in and said 'yum yum' approvingly. VICTORY. I welled up. Who would have thought that carrots could make you cry? (Unless they were poked in your eye).

She will now eat one carrot baton per meal. I take this as a success.

Wow - she eats well at breakfast time!

My 2.2 yo dd still won't do meat or chicken (unless the childminder gives it ), except as sausages or sometimes meatballs, so I don't think that that is that unusual. She won't eat salmon either, but does love lemon sole!

Could you offer some dried fruit as a snack for variety, and maybe offer some juice/smoothie with breakfast? That would be an extra 2 portions towards her 5 a day.

My dd won't eat sandwiches either. Now I'm starting to think that your dd is quite a good eater!

Thank you so much of all for putting my mind at rest a bit! I might gradually cut back on the night-time milk to 1 full bottle - I just can't bear the thought of her waking up hungry at night....... I need all the beauty sleep I can get!

I like the 'half price toast'
Just keep offering different things, but don't make an issue of it. If her brother eats like a horse... at least it won't be wasted!

I have 22 month similar to yours. She used to drink milk in the day, tons at night and lots of food.

She started eating less and less food so we cut out her daytime milk a while ago, although occasionally she will have 3-4oz with a sleep.

She has 16oz milk at bedtime too, easily this and often wants more, sometimes wakes at 6am wanting milk which means no brekky. We have found it ver difficult to cut this down but what we did do was

• move her tea back to about 6pm, and then give her a snack of something at about 7pm before bed at 8pm. This has meant wanting a bit less milk for bed. at 6am, we have been offering her water not milk, and giving her breakfast a little earlier (sometimes a lot earlier).

We have just in the last week got to a point where she is drinking around 10oz milk at night, none in the morning (except when daddy wants a lie in ) and her eating has increased significantly, along with what I beleive to be a growth spurt.

Now we feed her evening tea at about 5pm again, but still give her pudding a little later, around 6:30pm.

Also, she mainly wants to eat pasta. Pasta, and more pasta. She is obsessed. So, I cook a tomato sauce with veggies, blend it up, mix in with pasta and add cheese. That way, she gets the veg with the sauce coating the pasta.

And I really think this age, children can be fussy eaters.