How young is too young to not offer an alternative at mealtimes?

[bt1978]

DD is 14mo and getting quite fussy about food. She will only feed herself, either with hands or she has just learnt to use a fork...the only exception is yoghurt or weetabix which I am allowed to feed her.
At the moment if she doesn't eat what I make her I don't make anything else and assume she's not hungry...is she too young to do this? DH seems to think I should just give her something I know she'll eat.
Comments welcome, thanks.

Sorry to go against the grain and I do agree with much of what's been said but it doesn't always mean that only offering one meal = unfussy children (and vice versa). I had terrible battles with dd1 as a toddler, she barely ate a thing and I'm afraid to say I gave in a lot of the time, anything to get some food into her. But now, at aged 10, she's a good eater and much more receptive of trying new things.

Dd2 is, and has always been, a terrible eater and if anything I was probably stricter with her.

So yes, would definitely agree that it's never too young to only offer one thing but I do think that being fussy/unfussy is largely due to nature not nurture.

BTW: don't ever tell them that on average a child needs to be exposed to a new food 17 times before they will "take" to it.

They will remember this fact

Fiddledee, I keep on saying no.

I have a few freshairians too.

When they're hungry they will eat at least something I prepare, even if it's just the spaghetti from the spag bol. For seriously determined food refusers, I have insisted on vitamins and have presented baked goods with various hidden ingredients like pureed carrots or other veggies or vegetable powder. Every few days I serve a meal that I know the determined refusers like (there are about 6 items on one child's list) and in between I hide the things they hate in other foods.

When they got old enough to make a sandwich for themselves I would find them having one in the kitchen after dinner, but making a different meal according to one family member's preference is making a rod to beat yourself with. There are five of them, and I can see a point where it would become ridiculous.

I know one of my DCs can taste separate ingredients in prepared foods, consistently identifies many foods as 'bitter' where I would use a completely different word, has a generally very sensitive temperament, very acute hearing -- I think there is an element of playing games to it, but I genuinely think she is sensitive to taste to a far greater extent than I am, and also prepared to put taste and even texture problems ahead of her desire to not fell hungry. One day she will be paying for, preparing and eating her own food and I can't wait.

Want to add, DDs 1 and 2 didn't eat salad or much that was green for their entire childhoods but now that they are 16 and 21 can't get enough of veggies/greens. DD1 in particular was horrible to cook for and had the appetite of a sparrow, but you wouldn't know that to see her tucking in now.

We need to teach our children to enjoy food and mealtimes. I would never want to make it a battleground.

No need for a battle. I have a take it or leave it, hardly any questions asked policy, as I like to enjoy dinner time too. They are basically responsible for eating if they feel like it or feeling hungry if they don't. Whether they enjoy dinner or not is up to them -- and they also contribute to the atmosphere that prevails there. If someone comes to the table and starts making comments about the food, I consider that bad manners and a poor choice of conversational topic. Sit with the family, eat if you want to, be pleasant whether you're eating or not is what I expect. When they were all younger I made it clear that it was the pitching of a fit of some sort at the table that would cause them to be sent for a timeout, not their feelings about the food.

If they complain that they're hungry twenty minutes after bringing a full plate back to the kitchen, then I point out to them that they were served dinner and that there's some left. It's up to them to have another go at it or to fix a sandwich/ have a banana/ glass of milk. I don't want to start playing a game of 'guess what I like this week' either (DD1 was prone to develop sudden aversions to food she had previously loved).

i don't offer alternatives but i do tend to cook variations on a theme for the 3dc, so generally there's at least one thing on their plate that they're going to happily eat. (ds2 won't eat peas, but loves broccoli, ds1 and dd love peas but cry at broccoli)

i also stick with what i think is penelope leach's stance that you don't offer rewards for clearing a plate, and that dessert is not a 'treat' earned by eating a main course. if the dessert is ice cream they get offered icecream, if the dessert is an apple they get offered an apple, regardless of what they have or haven't eaten up til then.

If you went down your DH's route, you'd go through the whole kitchen until you got to the skips and chocolate mouse.

If you want to be the parent giving their child nothing but skips and chocolate mouse in their lunch box in 5 years time, follow his advice.

If not, just do as you are doing and know if she is hungry she will eat.

Fiddledee - I would say 'No, you have been told you are not having a biscuit, if you ask again x will (or will not) happen'.

If it's something they have happily eaten before then no other option. If it's something new then I would let them have something else and next time I made this thing I'd give it to them alongside something I know they would eat.

Lynette - not necessesarily. If you don't have skips and chocolate mousse in the house then they can't have it!

I don't make alternative meals but nothing wrong imo in having say an apple instead of grapes for example. If you keep a healthy kitchen there is room for a bit of flexibility.

My parents used to say "if you don't want it, you can make yourself a cheese sandwich". Obviously we were older then but I don't think we were ever hassled to eat something, nor did they offer anything more attractive. They didn't withhold pudding either. The whole thing was neither so draconian it made you want to go and stuff yourself with biscuits as soon as their backs were turned, equally there was none of this cooking-separate-meals-nonsense. I expect at 14 months they did a mixture of not offering alternatives when new things were rejected, and serving up stuff they knew we would eat.

Friend of ours stayed over and cooked three, THREE separate meals for her three kids. The oldest, who was at least eight at the time, rejected our frozen peas because they didn't come out of the right packet. WTF? My mum couldn't believe it.

I'm interested that so many people say 'if they're hungry they'll eat it'. IME if DS is teething, he often won't. I'm the same - if I feel ill, there are lots of things that I normally eat which I wouldn't touch. If the weather's cold, I want to eat different food from what I'd eat when the weather's hot. I don't see why I should treat my children any differently.

I wouldn't send my 16 m.o. DS to bed without food just because he was teething and had uncomfortable gums so didn't want to / couldn't eat the particular foods I'd cooked that evening. It'd just mean he woke me loads for bf in the night anyway.

I agree with Dancergirl - if you just have healthy stuff in the house, I don't see anything wrong with offering a nutritionally equivalent alternative from time to time.

Someone suggested babies/toddlers don't actually have any food preferences as it's all new to them. Research studies have actually shown that if a mother eats certain foods while pg or bf, her child is much more likely to eat the same foods happily, so I think even very young children do have food preferences.

I just was not interested in food as a child, became anorexic at 11. My parents loved their food and they did their best, but like my son I would rather eat nothing than something I didn't like. I got used to eating less and less. This they will eat when they are hungry never really applied to me as the less I ate the less hungry I became and the less interested in food I became. I was a keen cook from my early teens but I still didn't eat much of what I cooked. I can't allow that to happen to my kids, they eat too many biscuits perhaps but I would rather them eat something than nothing. Both an average weight.

There are snacks that are far more nutritious than a biscuit though. And a biscuit might even make them feel hungrier when the brief sugar high evaporates. I keep cheese, nuts and fruit handy, as well as dried fruit (apricots and mangoes are popular here) and peeled carrots. They liked full fat mozzarella when they were little as they could peel it into strings, and they still like it. Some children like several small meals every day instead of three squares -- have you considered five or six small meals/ large snacks instead of the usual three?

Dancergirl, you are quite right, but the number of people I've seen go down the skips/chocolate mouse route amazes me.

We make all our own biscuits/cakes, so full of oats, fat and yes some sugar but not that unhealthy of course I offer fruit and other "healthier" snacks but biscuits are not food of the devil and nor is chocolate mousse. Its all food not healthy vs unhealthy as long as its varied.

I was horrified when ds was 18 months and we went to stay with his cousin, then aged 8 - who basically was only eating pasta and cheese, crackers and cheese, apples and toast and jam. The whole family had reduced the range of what they ate to fit in with her. From then on I became a radical 'no alternatives' mum - but also no fights and no extra attention for not eating. I offer a range of food and if he doesn't eat it then he doesn't eat it. There are no extra snacks in the evening at all but during the day he can have fruit and oatcakes and sometimes less healthy snacks. He is nearly 3 now and is definitely fussy and not a great eater but I tell myself no toddler has ever starved themselves when food is on offer (hope this is true!).
I myself was terribly fussy - I didn't try courgettes until I was 16 as I looked at them and knew I wouldn't like them! Now I eat pretty well everything though, something really seemed to change when I was a teenager. My parents had a similar approach to me, there were never alternative meals cooked, I just remember being hungry on the days they cooked ratatouille!

Is this linked to her wanting to feed herself? So will she refuse to be fed from a spoon?

We were told by DS's dietician to encourage self feeding regardless of mess because there will come a time (about your DD's age) when he wants to do it himself. So we did, letting him make mess as he was a bit clumsy at that age. He did go through phases of not eating much but other days he'd eat loads.

I don't make a big deal if he doesn't want anything or only a little bit. I also eat with him where I can and we share food (when he's
older we'll try and have more communal style food where you serve yourself). Now at 19 months he feeds himself very well and we enjoy eating out too. (I know this could all change)

Also I will give him something else, especially when he's ill.

Fiddlede -- Buy vegetable and protein powder and make your baked goodies with a few spoonfuls included.

Biscuits are empty calories that will not satisfy hunger or nourish. They are a handy stopgap and you are right, differentiating between healthy food and unhealthy food is one of the things you have to guard against as it can be an obsessive trait associated with disorders, but you can include nutritious elements in what you bake and cheerfully serve them disguised as something else.

Iggly, I think your points about self feeding are very relevant here. I think the early self feeding stage is very hard for some parents because of the mess, the ceding of control of feeding, and the beginning of dealing with the will of a very irrational little person. Communal food where everyone serves themselves from dishes laid out on the table means the children feel autonomy over their own feeding and sometimes this is very helpful, as there can be an element of a power struggle over meals when one person does the dishing out.

Biscuits are not empty calories if you make them with flour, butter, oats and sugar. Is porridge empty calories?

Agree with Fiddledee! Homemade biscuits are a very good choice, not to mention the positive message that you can make nice food yourself and it's a great activity for a toddler to help with. Homemade biscuits can have nuts, dates, apricots and all sorts in them - they certainly can satisfy hunger and nourish! (Especially the way I make them!) I certainly wouldn't put vegetable and protein powder in them. I'd rather my children knew what they were eating and accepted it as such. DD knew that her supper this evening was mushrooms and tomatoes on toast with some cheese grated on top because she sat on the side and watched every step.

Vegetable and protein powder mathanxiety? What a good idea. My middle dd could do with some of that. Can you add it to anything? Where do you buy it from?

I always try to reiterate to my children that no food is healthy/not healthy, but a wide a variety as possible is the 'healthiest' diet.

i've never offered an alternative food wise. just never crossed my mind. they eat what we eat and they eat all most all things happily. we would just puree our grown up meals for the eldest and the youngest self fed bit's of our adult meals. both ways worked well. the self feeding was messier but less effort in regards to prep.

obviously if a child is ill they won't want to eat specific things and you would offer them something bland and suitable in texture. otherwise i can't see the problem in not pandering. missing odd meals wont result in child starving! if they don't eat they aren't hungry.

if mine dont eat thier sandwiches i will box them up and take them with us. if i hear 'i'm hungry' i'll whip old sandwiches out and tell them thats all i have. mine don't demand biscuts - i will ask them to stop asking then put them in time out for nagging/whinging if they ask again.