My toddler doesn't eat. Can't cope with this anymore!!

[sleepyhorse]

My ds1 is 2.5, he has never been a great eater but it's getting beyond ridiculous now. He will only eat fish fingers and baked beans and occasionally cottage pie. Refuses vegetables and aside from the cottage pie he won't eat meat. We have cut out snacks completely in between meals and no longer allow biscuits or cakes as we found that wasn't helping matters. We don't replace the meals he rejects with another meal as advised by the hv as apparently he will just think he can play us. He is wasting away and starting too look quite ill, he has developed red blotchy patches on his cheeks recently which I think must be from not getting a balanced healthy diet. Don't want to keep calling hv every 2 mins. Sorry if this is long but just don't know what to do anymore, it's really getting me down.

I think you need to have a mental list of all the foods that he will eat -

Fish fingers, baked beans, cottage pie

But also he'll have - bread and butter, fruit and juice, biscuits and cakes.

Is there anything else?

Think of giving him a selection of all these foods over the next few weeks. Focus on getting him eating a good amount of food, whatever the food is. (if he is not eating much, he may have reduced his appetite).Then gradually start adding something new on his plate. Make sure it is not touching the other food - this can cause problems, lol.

Tell your dh that ds needs carbs and foods with fat in, particularly if you are worried about his weight.

All the suggestions aalready given about how to handle mealtimes are excellent e.g. Make no comment about the food or what is eaten, talk about things other than food, don't make a fuss, stay calm, remove plate at the end of the meal.

you need this book My child won't eat - although not advocating spending £129 on it . See if you can get hold of it from somewhere else because it really does help massively - my dd was awful and lived the first 3 years or so of her life on breastmilk and ham!

sleepyhorse please don't feel under pressure when you are with other parents and their children. All children are different and present different challanges, real friends won't judge you.

One of my close friends has a DD that won't eat but its turned into a battle. Mum is very distressed and its obvious to everyone including the child. If we are at partys, she has to be guided away to stop her from standing over her DD and commenting all the time on what's she's eating, what the other children are eating and what she's not eating. My friend is a very intelligent woman and it really shouldn't have got this bad, it's just so horrible when your child won't eat.

One thing that she does that I would highly recommend that you DON'T do is fill DS up on milk. If anything I'd cut back on milk. Milk can make them constipated and can suppress appetite.

Sorry about the spelling mistakes, really shouldn't post on MN when I'm this tired

Could you puree vegetables and subsume them into the cottage pie?

Incidentally, I knew a little boy who would eat nothing but Nutella sandwiches (I know, what was he doing being introduced to Nutella in the first place?). The thing is, he was really small and skinny, and his parents really worried about him. I recently looked them up on FB, and he's a big strapping lad now!

Sleepyhorse

My DS (2.4) is very similar, and has always been a very light eater. It is very stressful isn't it? And it has caused lots of arguments between DH and I. Interestingly, he will eat at nursery (3 full days a week) and if we are out (cafe or other people's houses), so I make the most of being out.

I posted on here too, and spoke to HV. She advised that we keep a food diary for 3 weeks. I recorded everything that he ate and drank, and she thought it was OK, both in quantity and variety. I was surprised, but then he is my first, so maybe my expectations of what a 2 year old should eat are wrong.

I try to sneak calories in wherever I can. He'll pretty much always eat porridge for breakfast, so I add cream to that. Lots of butter in mash. Fry rather than grill fishfingers. Stir Philly into spaghetti sauce etc.

What works really well, when it is practical is for us all to sit down for a meal together, and have our main meal at midday. Weird for me (I'd have a sandwhich and an apple at 1pm and main meal in eve, but hey ho) but DS seems to prefer it. Then we all have the same and we all use the same cutlery and crockery. I give DS a small portion and he is welcome to ask for more, which he occassionally does. He have a grown up rule not to stress or fuss about what he eats. I don't make him eat everything on his plate. I always give him something I know he likes (peas, baked beans, cheese, fish fingers, carrots, broccolli) alongside something different or new.

He was BLW too, and still prefers "hard" (pieces of meat, cooked veg) food to sloppy (stew, soup etc)

By trial and error, I have found that he likes tea at about 5pm. I try and make it sandwhich based, or a lighter meal of some sort, and join him for something light. Toast and peanut butter is a fave with both of us (fingers not squares though!).

I think at lot of it, for us, is in the timing. 7am, 10am (snack), 12 noon, 3pm (snack) and 5pm, seems to work best. I try to make snack plain (oatcake, plain popcorn) so he does not scoff out on biscuits. I have had to change my patterns and routines to fit with his, but it works well when I manage to hit these times.

He will also always eat cake! I make a "healthy" fruit loaf and apple and carrot muffins to try and get some nutrition into him in a more acceptable.

My DD (3) is a bit of a one about eating too..She also goes mad if anything is touching on her plate and won't eat any "sloppy" food except yoghurt and ice cream.
One thing I started for lunch which worked was to have it "picnic" style in front of the TV (bad mummy I know) I put some chopped ham, cheese, bread, tomatoes etc on a plate and leave it on her little table. Within an hour of TV and me ignoring her and reading my book it was nearly all gone....result..child who had eaten real food and not stressed mummy.
She still goes into total meltdown if anyone offers her new food so I am stcking to what she eats at the moment
I also allow snacks in the day (fruit crackers ect) as she is a grazer..if when she was BF she likes little and often.

DS1 was born with a hernia which meant that at about 6 months old he started projectile vomiting. He was misdiagnised with reflux and the meds (which kept getting increased) made him worse. Result was that he did not want to eat as he knew he would be sick and I wanted to force feed him as, like you, I was stressing about him losing weight etc.

DS1 soon picked up on the fact that mealtimes stressed Mummy out and used food as a weapon. Please believe me when I say they can work these things out from a really young age!

DS1's eating improved when he went to nursery full time as he would sit round a table with other children and they all had the same, however he continued to be a nightmare with us.

He still uses food as a weapon although we don't 'bite' any more. We serve up his meal and he either eats it or he doesn't. We don't debate it, argue, bribe etc. He gets snacks the same as his brother. We don't replace meals or change things for him. The biggest thing was to act like we weren't bothered (harder than you think). We give him his dinner and when he says 'don't like' we say 'fine, but there isn't anything else'. When he says he is finished we say 'fine, I'm just doing XYZ, I'll get your plate in a minute' (usually results in a few more bites being taken).

If we are all sat at the table together or have people over, he will tend to try and get attention by refusing to eat. We ignore him and carry on a normal conversation without acknowledging his efforts - good or bad. We want him to see that eating is normal so don't praise every mouthful as it gives him attention and control again! If he clears the plate, we might make a joke about where has the food gone and check under the table to which he proudly points to his tummy and tells us how he eat it all!

Try eating with other children without making a fuss. DS1 will eat apples if his cousins are over and will even ask for them but try giving him one as a snack and you get 'I don't like'! Also, it took us a while to realise that 'I don't like' actually meant 'I don't want' most of the time. The only concession we make is that he has raw carrots on a roast as he doesn't like cooked carrots (DH is the same!!).

Keep a diary of EVERYTHING he eats for a few weeks. I thought he was actually eating a lot less so it made me feel better!

What really made me feel better was seeing a documentary of fussy eaters, one child only ate Wotsits and another only chocolate. Neither was malnourished or ill!! Made me feel much better!

Hope this helps. Sorry for the mamouth post!

I would serve cottage pie, stuffed full of veg every day then, it that's what he'll eat let him have it, they go through stages of messing around he won't be like this once he gets to nursery and sees the other children eating.

Can really empathise here. Reading with interest and hope for more advice. I have a fussy 3 yr old too. My 'issue' is he does not eat/drink anything containing calcium or eggs (no yogurt, milk - I have even tried milkshakes/smoothies - none except those Innocent pasturised ones which don't have milk, do they?! - no cheese of any kind, I even tried those awful dairylea dunker things) - that's my main worry. Any suggestions - PLEASE!?
He has a multivitamin but that doesn't have calcium in it. His 'thing' is he won't eat anything 'wet' - so no yogurt, anything with a sauce...so I can't 'sneak' anything into anything!
I work PT 3 days and he eats a bit better at nursery - they tell me he'll try chicken stir fry for example....but not the 4 days he's at home.
Should I start introducing 'sloppy' foods, or just keep on with the dry stuff he's used to? I feel SO BAD because he has sausages at each meal or at a push, chicken breast. He's fine on carbs - most bread, potatoes, plain pasta and rice.
We've got into this awful - 'If you can eat this then you can get this - treat' (I spend a fortune on those Goodies snacks) and that works fine. No tantrums or anything, but I feel awful - like I've massively failed -that I've introduced that conept of eating something to 'get' something else - but it works! WWYD?!
My 21 month old was always an amazing eater but she too now seems to be selectively refusing sloppyish things...

would he drink milkshakes? you can add ice crean and fruit into it ot get a high caloie one fron the doc that you could add things too like ice cream to make it seem like a treat? my half sister eats hardly anything but they give her multivitamins that are like jelly sweets and high cal shakes

Not to alarm but to offer advice from experience -

as a child by the time I was 8 I weighed 2 and a half stone. I would only eat potato, sweetcorn and bread. This was because I could not stand any food to be touching, and my mother would not pander to my fads. I have no enamel on my teeth, due to having no calcium in my diet.

Personally, if it was my child - I would offer the fish fingers, beans, and something else on the plate. Or 3 separate plates, and not make a fuss about the something else, but offer, and encourage a small taste. I would try different things like that.

Pipkin35 how about chocolate - dairy milk, not great but does have calcium in it. Alternatively as your dc likes potatoes, how about mashed potatoe made with butter, milk and cream.

No milkshakes! Even tried him whizzing up his own in our blender for him to play with. Might try that approach again actually, maybe a dozen times of him playing with it, he might then want to try it?! No ice cream at all - though is going through a phase of wanting a lolly every day...

The lack of calcium really does worry me. Otherwise I wouldn't give as much of a fig, except that it's an entire food group missing out. A year ago he used to eat omlette, so we could sneak a bit of cheese intot hat but no more. I know there is a bit of calcium in leafy green veg, but he certainly doesn't eat that!

He's never had chocolate. So I don't want to go down that road really. That sounds mean, but he has treats - cakes, biscuits etc...so I don't feel he's too deprived...!
He won't eat mashed potato, or jacket. Boiled only. Texture really seems to be a huge thing with him. I'd do a jig if he ever tried a baked bean!

Are you saying Wishing...that you think we should pander to our kids cos of your experience? Do you think your mother should have indulged you more? I don't want to force the issue with him at all.
Why is the issue of fedding our kids so contentious?!

Sleepyhorse, no advice I'm afraid but wanted you to know you're not alone! My Dd, now nearly 5yrs, is an incredibly fussy eater, after battling her over it for years I have somewhat given up. I try to ensure she is getting something from each food group everyday, but otherwise am fairly relaxed now. She looks very healthy and is full of energy.

Will your Ds drink smoothies? I've started keeping frozen fruit, mango and pineapple works well, in the freezer, you just throw it into a blender with some banana, orange juice and yogurt. My Dd won't eat fruit but loves these homemade smoothies, especially if she helps make them. You might even get away with sneeking a bit of carrot in there!

Great advice here, but I would add that you need to get him checked by the GP for constipation. DS was very similar to this recently, stopped eating anything much, was pale and unhealthy looking, he was also sleeping a lot and i was worried he was anaemic.

Turned out her was very constipated (he'd been having diarrhoea, and I hadn't realised they can have both at the same time) and after a week of movicol he was a different child.. his eating improved dramatically, and while he's still picky, he's definitely better.

Definitely take to the GP and rule out any underlying issue

hth

mamatomany, sadly seeing other children eating had zero effect on my Dd. She is now at school and I hoped that starting her on school dinners with the other children would help, I got called in by the teacher after 2 weeks who suggested I switch her to packed lunches as she was getting upset and refusing to eat a single thing . She now has exactly the same in her packed lunch everyday - Jam sandwich (no butter) babybelle, yogurt, smoothie, dry crackers, raisins. So although not great I guess it covers most food groups at least!

I would say that as with so much regards to parenting - being to rigid or being to lenient neither is good.

I understand the school of thought of this is how food is served, eat it. Or this is the meal I've cooked, if you don't eat it there is no alternative.

Not on this thread - but I have heard people say 'a child won't starve themselves', 'they'll eat it eventually', 'they won't damage themselves'. And I want to highlight this is not the case - my experience I did do long term damage to my body.

I would like to reassure people though that now I have a very wide range of palate - indian, chinese, italian, english, fish, meat, spicy, mixed together - I'll eat it all now.

I understand the no chocolate rule and that he gets other treats such as cakes, biscuits etc, but you are concerned about lack of calcium. It's about encouraging eating of different things. If you find he likes chocolate, you can make rice krispie cakes with raisins in, do a fondue with bananas, grapes, strawberries. Yes to begin with it will be mummy eating it, as it will be fun for him to stick the food in, he's getting used to feeling it, and then is ds going to eat it, oh how about mummy eat it.

Play with potato, I fully understand his fear of sensation, I would only eat jacket.

But I was never allowed to touch food - food wasn't to be played with, food had to be put directly in mouth. I chose not to put food directly in mouth.

My dc have always used their hands for feeding - now they can use cutlery!! But they would feel it rub it in their fingers, then put it on their teeth, and not much was eaten the first time, but more and more times the food was put in mouth.

SYmpathies, my ds1 is a terrible eater, and age 2 was the worst!

He is now 9, and still a really rubbish eater, the only meat he eats is fish fingers/frankfurters/occasional mince, veg - only peas, baked beans, fruit - grapes, orange juice, apple juice, grape juice, fruit smoothie, dairy - cheddar cheese, milk, carbs - bread, pasta, rice, noodles, cous-cous(!).

His saving grace is cereal. He loves cereal, and we steer clear of the really really sugary ones, and try and give him the healthiest he will eat, and we let him have a bowl of cereal at bedtime, so that he doesn't go to bed hungry. He is a skinny bean - weighs 4 stone at age 9.6.

Things we did that helped;

Try and make sure he has something from each food group that he will eat. Don't worry if it's the same every day atm, but make sure each day he has some carb, some protein, some fat, some veg/fruit and some dairy.

Make normal dinners for the rest of you, but make sure there is SOMETHING he likes - so for example if I do a roast dinner, I always make sure that peas are one of the veg choices, and that there is some plain pasta as well as potatos. If I'm feeling charitable I might do him a couple of frankfurters as well.

When he's older, try having 'foods of the week' - this has only worked once for us, but we managed to get ds1 to eat grapes this way - started off with 1 grape, the next day 2, the next day 3, and by the end of the week he was eating them ok. Before that the only 'fresh' fruit/veg he would eat was peas. I'm going to revisit this after New Year to increase the veggies he eats.

Don't make eating stressful - if he doesn't eat much, then don't say anything, don't try and force him to eat, just ignore it (I know it's hard). Definitely don't go in for 'Please just eat a little bit more' etc. With ds1 I do now say 'you need to eat 5 more forkfuls before you can get down' (assuming it's something he likes), but he is too old for the attention link I think (or at least he doesn't seem to be doing it FOR attention iyswim).

Hope that helps!

Oh, and definitely ignore the 'no child will starve themselves to death' - ds1 would have done, he would refuse to eat for days on end till he was vomiting with hunger, and when well-meaning friends tried this on me, it made me really upset, so just ignore ignore!

Excellent post crystal.

Lily, if your ds needs more calories, I would let him have some of those sugary cereals. Maybe mix and match with the 'healtier' ones, if need be.

I thin sometimes with really ingrained eating issues, we need to get away from the feeling that we ar 'pandering to ' dcs whims. They need to feel that they have some control over what the eat. So if all food nee to be on separate plates, then do it.

Once the feelings of anxiety have been removed from mealtimes, it is much easier to introduce other foods and ways of eating.

DaftApeth - I think atm he is ok, we let him have Crunchy Nut cornflakes during school holidays, along with chocolate spread! We have to ration them, otherwise this would be ALL he ate! I tend to think with ds that given his limited diet, I have to try and make what he does eat as nutritionally good as possible if that makes sense. Dd is an excellent eater, and eats loads of fruit and veg, so I don't have to try and 'enforce' the good nutrition with her, though I do limit snacks etc.

All these suggestions seem to be involving a hell of a lot of sugar.
We did one thing wrong with my middle daughter, the only thing she would eat veg wise was baked beans, she has no sweets, organic everything, cost me a bloody fortune so you can imagine my horror when she had to have 2 teeth removed under GA due to the bloody baked beans.
I would take advice from the GP but also your dentist, things like fruit juice and these milk shakes for example should be drunk through a straw.