*How* do I get my 3 year old to eat?? He wont try anything!

[Litterbug]

He used to eat so well.

Ate all fresh veg, tried anything. Now he refuses unless its chips and some other bollocks on the plate

He LOVES fruit and will eat salad, but veg..rice....spaghetti...pasta..anything that looks like a proper meal he wont touch.

His brother eats fantastically, he is 2.

How do I handle this before his brother starts to copy him?
I usually just tell him 'no dessert' but I hate sending him to bed without

Have you tried getting him to 'help' with teh cooking?
I make banana pancakes with DD1, she helps with the squashing of bananas and stirring and then drops batter in pan from a height. The kitchen looks like a bombsite but she eats every bit (in fact last week she ate DD's share too)

She also helps with pasta, her job is to put the pasta in the bowl for me to put in the pan, and then she spoons out the sauce and helps grate cheese. She does go through phases of refusla though, at the moment she will only eat raw broccoli, peas and cauliflower!

He wouldn't mind the banana, he loves fruit and salad but its just anything else 'textured' that he freaks at!

I will try involving him but TBH when I'm cooking hot meals the last place I want him really is the kitchen!

Thank you BTW!

how about not making it look like a proper meal? For eg my DS (age 2) wont eat a sandwich so i give him a hunk of bread (torn off the loaf), cheese ham etc on a plate - not a sandwich but it is really !!
Also try and concentrate on what he is eating, fruit and salad sounds quite good!

oooooo hello, I have the same problem with my dd also 3. She used to eat anything but now only wants sweets or chips. She does eat fruit and toast and tomatoes but that's about it. If I present her with a meal - pasta etc she just says "I doooonnnn't liiiiike it" to my FURY . I have tried us all eating together and not letting her have any dessert but she is made of strong determined stuff.

I do find that she will, like popmums ds, eat bits and bobs off a plate, so I suppose she is getting enough to eat - also some vitamins. But it is very frustrating.

I am hoping it is a phase.

you give him a meal

you let him eat it (or not)
you take it away with no fuss at end of meal time
praise what / f he has eaen
if eaten enough ie all or most of meal you can offer a desert if you like, (which again he has the option of eating or not)

if all / most not eaten you offer nothing except waer untl next meal

you repeat above for as long as it takes

HUNGRY children WILL eat
(children who are stressed about eating may not, hence no fuss at all)

My boss (a GP) has a phrase that he told me... "there is no such thing as a small child with an eating problem just parents with feeding problems", and i have to say i COMPLETELY agree