What do you do about a child who is determined to live on bread alone?

[Caligula]

My DS has been fussy with food since about the age of 18 months. Every single day, he wants pasta for lunch and dinner. No sauce on it (just butter, disguised as melted) and he will eat bits of bacon on it or bits of carrots and/ or broccoli mixed in with it.

But that's it. For school lunch, I make him ham sandwiches, put olives, carrots and cucumber in with it, and he'll generally only eat the ham (although he will eat olives, carrots and cucumber at home, which is why I optimistically put them in the effing lunch-box).

He doesn't seem to like any food that is "messy" ie, wet, with gravy. And the veg he eats are: broccoli, carrots, cucumber, olives, sweetcorn. And that's it. I have done the whole "you can only have what's on the table and if you don't eat that, you can only have bread and butter" routine, and I swear, for the last 10 days, he has eaten pasta (when I have served it), rice (when I have served it), unsauced meat and then dry bread "because I don't like butter".

I'm concerned that his diet has become restricted to the meat or fish on his plate, plus dry bread. If I'm there, he'll eat his limited repertoire of veg, but if I'm not, he seems to go all day at school with just a slice of ham or fish.

Is this a phase, or will it last till he's ten?

Remove bread from the house.

Callugla if you give him snacks before bed then he has no incentive to eat his dinner as he knows you will be so relieved he is eating something that you will give him a banana later. its just wrong.

mind you, says me, i've never met him and I've never done it. it must be very frustrating. I just nasty old Victorian Mum

I am also from the "he won't starve himself" school of thought, but I know that in reality it is very difficult to stick to - our children are the most precious thing to us and when it comes down to it we just want the best for them!

For most of my life I have had to have all my food plain and separate. For the past 8 years I have lived with a veggie, and so will now eat "sauce" but I would much rather have a chunk of cheese and a piece of dry bread/bread roll in my lunch box than a sandwich. And I can't bear gravy. As a child I considered anything to be gravy that was runny (so pasta sauce would've been right out). It is nothing to do with cleanliness like the example on TV (just watch me devour a KFC chicken leg!), I just like to taste each food separately. I don't know if this helps - your ds may just like his food simple.

I would find it really hard to take the 'if he doesn't want it he won't starve' approach with my son to be honest. His behaviour deteriorates markedly when he is hungry, ditto his attention span. I have given plain bread to my ds before bed, also milk and banana. The key thing I guess is that he doesn't make a habit of it. I might be firmer if it was a regular occurence. And I do this alongside the other stuff in my earlier post - encouraging him to eat, try new foods etc.

Caligula, could you have a word with his teacher about the school lunch situation?