My DS2 is 8, in year 4 at school. He has been a fussy eater since he was about 3. The food he will eat is very limited.
For breakfast he eats a big bowl of porridge with a bit of honey on it, sometimes wholemeal toast as well. Drink of milk or water
Lunch at school (packed lunch) - OJ, peanut butter sandwich - has to be smooth peanut butter. I use whole earth so there's no sugar in it. Wholemeal bread so long as no seeds . Piece of fruit which he doesn't eat. Small chocolate biscuit (eg penguin)
Supper - pasta/pesto/parmesan are the standby meal. He will also eat sausages - not the mash. Fish fingers/chips/peas/ketchup is about as "junky" as I get. He had a spell of leaving the peas but I kept the chips back until he'd eaten them and he's now ok with them. He'll eat roast chicken and roast potatoes but not the veg.
He'll eat bacon sandwiches with ketchup.
The only fruit he'll eat is red grapes.
I think his diet is just about sufficient to keep him healthy, but it's just so depressing and limited. He's awful to take out to restaurants. If he had his way, he'd eat the total crap food he has occasionally eaten at friends' houses: chicken nuggets, potato smiles, McDonalds, coco pops etc. I refuse to buy that sort of food. If we go out to a restaurant that has one of those horrible "children's menus" where they serve that sort of crap, he's in heaven. But anywhere else, we really have trouble.
I've tried:
my way or the highway - he is given the same as everyone else, can chose not to eat it but then gets nothing other than water until breakfast. I've tried this for weeks, several times, and cracked before he has when he's got skinnier and skinnier and on 2 occasions got a d & v bug
pasta/pesto/parmesan every night regardless of what the rest of us are eating. Didn't make any difference to him.
sometimes pasta/pesto/parmesan if I'm feeling as though he needs a hot meal. Sometimes I put the main family meal in front of him and make no comment when he doesn't eat it.
I've tried making pasta/pesto/parmesan and telling him he can't have it until he's had a taste of the family meal. No success.
I've tried coaxing him. Tried telling him that he needs to exercise his taste buds and have a little taste. No success.
The majority of the time he gets pasta/pesto/parmesan (maybe 3 or 4 times a week) and the rest of the time I give him the family meal and don't make a big deal about it.
DH and I can't understand how he is like this. He has 3 siblings who are fine with food.
Any advice?