Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Food/recipes

For related content, visit our food content hub.

Help - Meal Time Battles!

4 replies

StNeotsMum · 06/02/2010 09:34

My son is seven years old and I'm really struggling to get him to eat a healthy variety of foods. He only likes very plain, dry foods and doesnt like his food touching on the plate! I've tried to be consistent, dishing up different foods and plenty of veg regularly but he'll sit there for ages, pushing it round his plate until its stone cold and no doubt tastes disgusting. Meal times are becoming depressing and exhausting. Do you have any tips on mealtime routines and how to make healthy eating fun?!

OP posts:
compo · 06/02/2010 09:35

could you get him to help with the cooking?
how does he get on with lunch at school?

nellymoo · 06/02/2010 16:08

Star Chart!
Worked wonders very quickly in our house. It was becoming very depressing spending hours cooking, inventing new ways to disguise food DD wouldn't eat, for nothing to be touched.

I think you have to be fairly reasonable in that as long as an attempt at eating is made, and he is trying stuff, he is rewarded. Perhaps try one new thing at a time, at the side of something you know he will actually eat? And keep at it, keep offering things you know he doesn't like, but insist that he trys it, and reward the effort. In our house, seven stars on the chart equalled a small reward of her choice (small toy, whatever). After three weeks, she didn't care if she got a sticker or not, habit etablished - hooray!

I agree with compo though, if you can get him involved in the cooking, he may be more inclined to try?

Good luck!

stressedHEmum · 06/02/2010 16:37

My AS son had terrible problems with food when he was this age. The psychologist advised us to serve mainly things that we knew he would eat but with a very small amount of a disliked food on the plate (even if it was only one pea.) THe child has to at least make an attempt to eat the food, again even if it is only one pea. AS you go on, you can increase the amount of the hated thing very gradually. Eventually, the old stuff should be able to be supplemented/replaced with the new stuff and an almost normal diet can be achieved. We had to avoid (and still have to) vinegary foods/strong smelling foods/cheese unless its pizza! When confronted with a meal that he just wouldn't/couldn't eat, we had to offer a very simple alternative like cereal or a basic sandwich. And ALWAYS reward the effort made to tolerate the stuff that he doesn't like.

With regard to the food touching each other, that used to cause havoc in here, screaming tantrums, vomiting the lot. What we had to do was VERY gradually move things closer together on the plate, at a rate which was almost imperceptible, but we also had to tell DS what we were doing. The same goes for things like cutting sandwiches and things. DS2 would only eat square cut halves, not triangles, not quarters, nothing but square cut halves, or there would be scenes of carnage. We had to very, very slowly change the angle or off-centredness of the cut (not at the same time.) Again, we had to talk to him about this and gradually increase his level of tolerance.

It can take years, though. We were still doing the not touching stuff and the sandwich stuff when DS2 was 15, (he's 17, now.) He mostly eats quite normally now as long as we avoid things that we know he really can't eat (most green things/vinegary or strongly smelling things/raw veg/cheese/potatoes) because they set off his sensory processing problems and sensitivities. Sometimes, you just have to resign yourself to things and deal with what you can.

I don't expect your DS will be as extreme as mine, though!

StNeotsMum · 06/02/2010 19:43

Thanks everyone. I'll let you know how it goes!!

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page