HELP...... My child wont eat much

[Sizzlin]

Hi all,

Please can anyone help/advise me...

I have a 2.3 year old girl, who is a MAJOR fussy eater. I am having trouble getting her to eat & try new things.

This is a typical day of what she eats:
B - 1 Weetabix, with full fat milk, & a drizzle of honey. Then grapes, strawberries & banana
L - Ham or Cheese Sandwich (1 slice), few Quavers & a yogurt or Jelly
D - Beans or scrambled eggs on toast.
Snacks - Malted milk biscuit, & Milk before bed ( about 7oz)

She lives on beans on toast & will not even try anything new. I make my dinners from scratch, e.g Spag bol, Cottage Pie, Cassarol, Roast etc etc, but she will not even put any in her mouth. She just pushes the plate away & asks for a yogurt or Jelly (Which i dont give to her unless she has a couple of mouthfuls of dinner)
She use to eat Spag Bol but now she wont eat that... I just dont know what to do.

Today she had 1 Weetabix, with full fat milk, & a drizzle of honey. Then grapes, strawberries & banana
then when we was out she had a small bit of cake bust she only had the icing on it.
She wouldnt eat her lunch, so had nothing till dinner which was spag bol, but she would not touch it, but as she didnt have anything at lunch i gave her a sandwich (2 slices of wholemeal bread with laughing cow spread)

PLEASE can someone help me as im out of ideas. Im a single parent & she is my only child, she lives on baked beans..... so please if anyone has advice pleae please please let mw know...

Thank you

S xx

Ds was the same at that age but ate much less.

First of all, she eats a fair amount in the morning - ds has always been like this.

For lunch if she will have a sandwich let her but put a plate of other things with it such as crackers / tomatoes / cucumber/ pepper etc etc and keep doing it.

For dinner what I personally would do is give her beans or egg on toast but only give her a small portion on the side of a plate of what you want her to eat (eg: roast). Keep doing this.

Never cajoule her to eat, never give yogurts etc as a reward for eating her dinner. This makes dinner seem like a punishment.

Now, what you should also do is not offer that bread instead BUT I could never let him go to bed hungry so I gave dinner at 5pm ish and then about 630 I ALWAYS gave him supper whether he had eaten or not. This meant he had the opportunity to eat again without it seeming like he had got an alternative iyswim? So, on days when he hadnt eaten much I would maybe do toast or banana or cheese and crackers or whatever so he had the OPPORTUNITY to fill up.

Also, have you tried cooking with her? Doesnt have to be cakes etc it can be everyday meals ? savoury muffins / design your own pizza etc....

It is normal, you are not alone, I promise !

Ds seems to be coming out the other side of fussy eating but he is 5 next month. He would on a whim decide he didn't like something and refuse to eat it. Would not try new things and seem to live on a predominately pig based diet for about 18 months.

I just kept putting things on his plate and encouraging him to try new things.

Don't make a fuss if she doesn't eat something. I would always make sure there is something on her plate that she likes so that the whole plate doesn't seem daunting.

Ds lived on beans (as well as sausages, ham, sausage rolls and pork pies) but is actually not that keen on them now.

I found DS was better at playschool and nursery as he saw other kids eating different things.

My two weren't particularly fussy about the range of foods they ate, but now they are older my DS just isn't "into" food. Just not bothered. If he receives chocolate at Easter, for example, it'll stay unopened in his room until dh and I raid it he remembers months later. Wont mind missing a meal. We have to insist he sits down with us and finishes but it's a battle. He's 14!

Not sure this helps, actually. Sorry.

Thank you all. Some really helpful info & def going to give it a try.... THANK YOU all so much xxx